Middle D sharp on YSS 475

[laneman]

I have a Yamaha YSS 475 soprano with a Selmer C* MP. Middle D has always been sharp. I tried lowering the key height on the C key and this helped a little. I could only go so far or C would get stuffy. Finally I added a small crescent shaped sliver of brass into the upper part of the tonehole for D (it's only hot glued in, so it's removable). This also helped a little, but D2 is still sharp. D1 has remained ok. All other notes are good. Any other ideas?

[Grumps]

Any other ideas?
Lip it down. It's commonly sharp on many (if not all) saxophones.

[Bossman]

Yep, very common issue. Eb and sometimes E may also be a bit sharp.

[altosaxguy1]

Yeah, just lip it down. You're doing a lot of unecessary stuff to your horn.

[laneman]

This one is unusually sharp at D2. I've played other sopranos, and none were this sharp.

[Dave Dolson]

I realize it is easy for me to say to buy another horn, but in some cases, that may be the only answer. I've had some sops that all the lip in the world wouldn't work - they were just plain outta tune.

When you play a sop that IS in tune, you will regret putting any time into those that aren't in tune. It is like a breath of fresh air. DAVE

[jbtsax]

I would increase the size of the crescent in the top end of the tonehole that is closed by the low C key. If you haven't read this article on crescents (http://www.musicmedic.com/info/articles/num_24.html) by Curt at Music Medic, it describes how to make the crescent out of cork which can easily be cut to shape and sanded or filed to "tune" the note.

You may have to compromise between a slightly sharp D2 and a slightly flat D1. You might try checking the pitch of D2 by overblowing the low D without the octave key. Sometimes the pitch problem is related to the placement the octave pip and the diameter of its opening.

John

[laneman]

Great advice jbtsax, I havent tried overtones on D1 yet. Here's the sad part. The day I was looking at buying the Yamaha they had a used Yani for sale. I took them both into the practice room and the Yani was more in tune, but it had some leaking pads. It was $200 less then the Yamaha, but I did not want to spend $1200 on a soprano that needed work, so I bought the Yamaha. :x

[SFfreak]

I've played other sopranos, and none were this sharp.

My YAS-475 (not soprano, but the comparsion still stands) has D2 between 25 in 30 cents too high. What do you say to that?

I play D2 with normal fingering, to which I add the D3 key in order to lower the tone + I lip it down...

[EFlat]

My BA is sharp at D2 also.. sounds common.

[AndyBlackard]

I can sympathize, my YAS62-II has a middle-D that was way sharp too. But my teacher had me do something in my lesson last night that worked wonderfully. I pushed the mouthpiece on even farther and tuned my horn to the normally-flat middle C#. So C# with the side C key is dead on pitch without lipping it up. Naturally, I have to relax my embouchure more to bring the rest of the horn down. But tuning the whole horn sharper somehow removed the mile-high spike at middle-D. Middle-D is now only slightly sharp relative to playing with no lip adjustment. Its like tuning the horn sharper brought the rest of the horn in line with the middle-D. Then I just relax more to bring the pitch of the whole horn down. It seems crazy to me, but its working wonderfully for me. I only have to lip the middle-D down slightly now to bring it into pitch.

Tuned to middle C#, I don't have to lip any note (normally the high B/Bb/C or middle C# for me) up.

The horn behaves differently if I tune the F#, G or A instead and I get the middle-D spike back and I get other sharp notes that I have to lip down.

It seems crazy, tuning the horn sharper removes the sharp middle-D.

[jbtsax]

I agree 100% with Andy. Playing too high on the pitch "aggravates" the slightly out of tune notes that are common to most saxophones. Try setting the mouthpiece on alto slightly farther on to the cork and then setting the embouchure so that the mouthpiece and neck alone produce an Ab concert. Played this way, the pitches of the sax in all registers line up beautifully. Some notes are still slightly sharp due to the compromise that has to be made to have only 2 octave vents, but those can be easily lipped in tune.

Fourth line D is sharp on most makes and models of saxes. In slow passages in the music and on long tones simply adding the low B key brings the pitch right down without adversely affecting the tone quality.

John

[AndyBlackard]

I agree 100% with Andy. Playing too high on the pitch "aggravates" the slightly out of tune notes that are common to most saxophones. Try setting the mouthpiece on alto slightly farther on to the cork and then setting the embouchure so that the mouthpiece and neck alone produce an Ab concert.
John

John, I checked that and it looks like I need to blow slightly lower than Ab on my YAS62.

[Merlin]

Middle D is sharp on just about every saxophone.

Try add the low B key to your middle D. Works great on alto and soprano.