Saxophone Forum


by sirmarkus2
(11 posts)
19 years ago

Super Action 80 II Alto and its lower octave key, HELP

I have a super action 80 II selmer and in my last college lessons my instructor said, "your lower octave pip tone whole is too small..." and then proceeded to state that it was a defect in the selmer design for those series II's. Its symptom are that my G#, G and sometimes F# tones split in the upper octave. This was happening throughout my lesson and braught to my attention. I looked into the NASA archives and found a little info on it but have come to a dead hault. Help me out here!? What do I do, and how does it get fixed?!

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  1. by sax_maniac
    (984 posts)

    19 years ago

    Re: Super Action 80 II Alto and its lower octave key, HELP

    I dealt with this on my Series III that I used to play exactly as you describe it. G# was the only note that broke octaves for me. I opened up the body octave vent hole a touch (drilled it with a Dremel) - didn't notice any difference whatsoever. What I really needed to do was use a more open tip mouthpiece, stop pinching, and open my throat. I do horn refurbs and don't recommend that most people take their horn apart and take a drill to it, but I was willing and comfortable enough to tackle the task. I play Keilwerths now and I had to adjust due to this on E2 breaking to E1 if my embouchre wasn't quite right. But with practice, I sorted out it was more me than the horn and I've overcome this problem without modifying the horn. And my embouchre has improved through the process of sorting this all out, so maybe give that a try. Also, it doesn't hurt to clean out the body octave vent with a bent paper clip or pipe cleaner (down through the neck receiver and through the body octave pip). Good Luck

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    1. by sirmarkus2
      (11 posts)

      18 years ago

      Re: Super Action 80 II Alto and its lower octave key, HELP

      Wow, that is enlightening, though it makes me feel a bit dumb. cleaning out the pip's should have been done, at least it sounds as though it should help. Though my horn is a series II and the things Ive heard have only dealt with that series. In the series III's they seemed to have fixed the pip diameter. I am a laman, so who knows!? Thanks for your reply

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