Review of a Couf Superba I bass sax

[Helen]

In February I had the opportunity to play-test a H. Couf Superba I bass--which is a stencil of Keilwerth's Toneking Special--from 1983.

The horn belonged to famous Canadian band leader, Lance Harrison. Lance obviously never used the horn for performances, and based on its state, never really practiced on it either. The horn would be described as a closet horn.

In case you're wondering, no the horn is not for sale. It was. It is now sold. I did end up buying it. Sorry if I got anyone's hopes up.

Today I published a review of the horn on The Bassic Sax Blog. I will write more about the horn's interesting history later. I need to research Lance some more. I have some newspaper clippings that his family provided, but there is quite a bit more I'd like to find out about the man and this horn.

Since I finally had the chance to go and pick up the sax in person this week, I haven't had a chance to take any photos myself. My article does include some nice studio shots however, from the shop that had the horn on consignment.

These horns are in some ways the unicorns of the bass sax world. I hope you enjoy the read & the pics.

 

[Gandalfe]

Is there much difference in the weight of the new vice old bass sax? I'm guessing the Couf is heavier.

 

[pete]

I'm actively loathing our hosting on Hostgator, Helen. I've got a request in to reboot the server. CPU usage is at 99% and that means either "extremely slow" or "I can't see the website." I'm in the latter category.

Anyone got a spare VPS? A couple hundred bucks laying around? AWS instance that's not in use?

 

[Helen]

Is there much difference in the weight of the new vice old bass sax? I'm guessing the Couf is heavier.

Actually, the Couf is lighter by a couple of lbs. for sure. I can easily wear the Couf on a harness, or even a neck strap if I had to. With the Buescher.... nah...

 

[Helen]

I'm actively loathing our hosting on Hostgator, Helen. I've got a request in to reboot the server. CPU usage is at 99% and that means either "extremely slow" or "I can't see the website." I'm in the latter category....

I am with you on the loathing of H.G. The sites have been going offline for 9 or 10 hours at a time again. It happened 2 days ago when I was originally going to publish it. Things seemed to straighten out yesterday so I took the chance and published it then... Sigh... Haven't checked my email today yet. Guess I have my answer....

Update: by the looks of it, it has again been offline since 12:37 a.m. PDT. It is now 8:41 a.m. PDT
Update # 2: An email says it is now online. Time: 9:38 a.m. PDT

 

[Gandalfe]

I am with you on the loathing of H.G. ...

I wondered why the site took so long to load.

 

[Helen]

Pete had to ask for a server reboot. Why? Don't know... It has been doing this with maddening regularity.

I have been looking for options. I did find a promising possible one. It has servers both in the EU and in TX, so we would have our choice of where to have our sites hosted.

As far as I'm concerned, Host Gator's VPS server options sucks big time.... Just saying...

 

[pete]

I'd go for TX. Might be some GDPR stuff I'd rather not have to deal with in the EU.

I do think that HostGator may be artificially slowing down the websites. Sorry about that. I really need to looking into getting GoFundMe or something.