Vibratosax user experiences

[saxmusicguy]

I mentioned before that it's insanely light. I went and popped it on the kitchen scales before I packed it away this evening. Complete with mouthpiece, it weighs a smidgeon under 900 grams. I weighed my BW curvy soprano (+ mouthpiece) for comparison. 3kg even.

Its minimal weight is a great selling point, even more so for the upcoming Vibratosax tenor.

[Vibratosax]

Thank you Edwin for the feedback let me know what I can do to help.

[HUTMO]

Well, my A1 has arrived! Looks like a handful slipped through and got shipped to the US back on the 19th!

Video? Recordings?

Congrats... they look and sound legit and will probably only get better.

HUTMO

[zombie]

Do we have a firm setting on price and when they will be out on the open market?

[milandro]

Do we have a firm setting on price and when they will be out on the open market?

actually, both things have been already settled, Vibratosax has a price and he is selling them, as one could gather form several of our last posts.

[Grumps]

The pads don't have key cups behind them, and a couple in particular have the button (it's not a pearl!) directly over the pad, which of course is soft. So - press lightly, you get a seal. Press firmly and the centre of the pad is pressed down but the edges lift up - and you have a leak.

This sounds like a fatal design flaw to me. Hope folks are paying attention as they line up.

[milandro]

Maybe the pads could be be having a top thin disk of some harder material to prevent this bending.........this looks like work in progress and I feel that the first buyers are part of a larger test or focus group which , hopefully, will help with eliminating these teething problems. Vibratosax has been supportive and forthcoming saying that they will make sure that we get our money worth and a horn that plays as well as they one they have tested themselves.

[Stephen Howard]

This sounds like a fatal design flaw to me. Hope folks are paying attention as they line up.

I agree completely - especially if the target market is young students, who won't understand the need to press lightly.
Sure, they can be taught - but when you can't get a note out of the instrument, the instinct is to press harder.
In my books if this issue exists it needs addressing quite quickly.

Regards,

[Vibratosax]

The easy solution is to get harder pads but by doing so we might have to solve the problem of pad & tone hole banging sound. We have tried many soft & hard pads before. However from our test with the real beginner we didn't have a sealing problem so far but if their first sax is brass then they needed more time to get use to it.

[jicaino]

I can see how a person that started on a vibratosax and never played a real saxophone would rapidly become a tech's nightmare when getting a normal instrument

[larryleung]

I think the previous A1 model I tried in Bangkok earlier this year had A thinner pad with a flat-plate like cap like Milandro proposed. However, my experience was when I tried to blow harder, the thinner pads leaked.



I think the existing pads used on present A1/A1S are far better than the earlier pads. I also think the floating pads design is a great idea too.

I've tried over pressing the low-E (which the finger presses on the center of the cap) and forced the pad to deform a little bit, I once thought this might cause leaking which did not happen.



My guess is when the pad was over pressed, it's still sealed 'perfectly' with the inside edge of the tone hole wall. The excessive force acted to the pad prevents air leaks.

[milandro]

Very interesting. It would be nice to hear the comments of the SAXSHOP in Deventer Holland because of their experience with the toptone pad system. I think that their contribution could be very important

[tonyg]

Will you be making these in the other saxophones, I would be interested in a soprano, straight version.

[cymru97]

Just a quick note that I have used the same amount of key pressure that I use on my other horns without any problems. Hopefully I'll get more playing time in the next couple days. Not sure if I can get any recordings, I'll have to pester some friends who have the right equipment.

[magical pig]

I'll have to pester some friends who have the right equipment.

I'm sure they'll be excited when they see what you want them to record.

[zombie]

actually, both things have been already settled, Vibratosax has a price and he is selling them, as one could gather form several of our last posts.

Ah yes but with 3 different threads and 40+ pages I was hoping that someone could save me several hours of trawling and simply repost the price here. Also I did not know if the sax was only available to dealers/professional players first before being available to armature mugs like myself

[milandro]

I think in all fairness to Vibratosax that you would have to ask them, they have no problems answering PM or Emails. AFAIK The sax has been available to all those who asked for it
this is the email or use the forum facilities to PM info@vibratosax.com

[SAXISMYAXE]

Indeed, emailing him is all one must do to get a price for both horns, as well as your shipping and handling options for delivery to your front door.

I don't think it is right for us to post the prices publicly if Piyapat hasn't elected to do so himself.

Ah yes but with 3 different threads and 40+ pages I was hoping that someone could save me several hours of trawling and simply repost the price here. Also I did not know if the sax was only available to dealers/professional players first before being available to armature mugs like myself

[edwin]

OK, need to dash off to my lesson and then to my youngest's speech day. But here are a few preliminary pics including light and firm pressure on the E key. Not from an identical angle - I struggled with this, my camera is pretty basic and refused to focus a lot of the time. Plus the sax is so shiny I had to turn the flash off and as a result some of the photos are pretty blurry. But I think you can see a fair bit of distortion of the pad in the "pad firm pressure" picture and I think (although I'm not certain) that this is enough to cause a leak. Firm pressure means maybe a little more than I would use on a standard sax.

[edwin]

Couple of other quick things:
the box is a very temporary solution for storage - it's starting to tear already. We need the bag/case!
Also the sax comes with two swabs, one for neck and mouthpiece. They both seem to be really quite good quality.