The title of this thread comes from a note found inside a saxophone sent to our shop for repair. The funny thing is that I understood exactly what they were referring to.
The "warble" or "motorboating" on low B and C on saxophones is well known by most players of the instrument. Being curious I began to investigate some time ago what the "warble" actually is, what causes some saxes/mouthpieces to do it and not others, and to look at solutions to the problem.
I have finished the first installment of a web page that shows the results of my investigation so far and the detail of the methods and equipment involved. Without going into too much detail a warble was recorded on a C-melody saxophone playing low C and slowed down electronically. Each 1/2 second slice of the slowed recording was analyzed on a spectrum analyzer and an image saved of each graph. Using windows movie maker, I synchronized the sound file with the "snapshots" of the wave's harmonics to see how the harmonic spectrum changes as the tone goes through each warble cycle.
The link for this site is here: http://jbtsaxmusic.homestead.com/Warblestudy.html
Questions, comments, and suggestions are welcome.
John
The "warble" or "motorboating" on low B and C on saxophones is well known by most players of the instrument. Being curious I began to investigate some time ago what the "warble" actually is, what causes some saxes/mouthpieces to do it and not others, and to look at solutions to the problem.
I have finished the first installment of a web page that shows the results of my investigation so far and the detail of the methods and equipment involved. Without going into too much detail a warble was recorded on a C-melody saxophone playing low C and slowed down electronically. Each 1/2 second slice of the slowed recording was analyzed on a spectrum analyzer and an image saved of each graph. Using windows movie maker, I synchronized the sound file with the "snapshots" of the wave's harmonics to see how the harmonic spectrum changes as the tone goes through each warble cycle.
The link for this site is here: http://jbtsaxmusic.homestead.com/Warblestudy.html
Questions, comments, and suggestions are welcome.
John