Contrabass saxaphone sounds kinda like...

jon112780 · Post by **jon112780** » Thu Apr 17, 2008 9:39 pm

...a bass trombone, but with more "UuuuuuUuuHHHHHgh."

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1811453

I don't suppose anybody on TubeNet actually knows him..?

tubatom91 · Post by **tubatom91** » Thu Apr 17, 2008 10:41 pm

it still sounds like a saxaphone though....

Donn · Post by **Donn** » Fri Apr 18, 2008 1:57 am

EuphManRob wrote: Generally I like the sound of the very low reeds (contrabassoon, contrabass clarinet, bass saxophone), but this just seemed unnecessary. Maybe if I heard it in a band context...?

There aren't many places where this instrument is a good fit. It's very loud and has a obtrusive timbre, and of course for the player it's unwieldy and takes an awful lot of air. Better examples can be found on Nuclear Whales sax ensemble recordings, but they don't try to use it on every tune.

tubatooter1940 · Post by **tubatooter1940** » Fri Apr 18, 2008 8:41 am

Last thing I need to haul around is a monstrosity that large - nor do I need anything else to eminate low tones - but I WANT ONE.

bassax · Post by **bassax** » Fri Apr 18, 2008 9:41 am

The player don't use enough air support, that's the reason for the "popping" sound, you can hardly hear the tones. It sounds like when an alto sax player tries to play baritone sax the first time. Not enough air - no control of the tone.
A good player can make the contrabass sound real nice.

Have a look at www.jayeaston.com for some good sound clips. There you can listen to the even lower (but not larger) BBBb tubax, one octave below the bass sax.

I'd love to have one, but if I don't suddenly get rich I guess I have to settle with my bass sax.

MaryAnn · Post by **MaryAnn** » Fri Apr 18, 2008 12:16 pm

We actually have a bass sax (not contrabass) in the band I play in. It's played by a woman, and she does a good job. She's not much bigger than I am, and it's about as big as she is. It just adds nicely to the low end of the band. There was a bass sax on ebay a while back, or somewhere, for sale, for about $6k. If it had been half that....I might have bought it.

MA

Donn · Post by **Donn** » Fri Apr 18, 2008 1:29 pm

MaryAnn wrote:We actually have a bass sax (not contrabass) in the band I play in. It's played by a woman, and she does a good job. She's not much bigger than I am, and it's about as big as she is. It just adds nicely to the low end of the band. There was a bass sax on ebay a while back, or somewhere, for sale, for about $6k. If it had been half that....I might have bought it.

Yeah, dream on. That was a screaming deal, if it was in playing condition.

We have a bass sax in the band I play in, too, it's played by myself. But in the other smaller band, even though I mostly play the same line as the tuba, I play baritone sax, because the bass sax has a kind of awkward compass for that situation. The compass of a bass sax is roughly the same as bass tuba, but it's much more effective lower in its range, so a bass tuba part will probably sound better on bari sax than bass.