Happy with your junk horn? Good for you!
An email I received from a fellow SaxQuest user...
"I wanted to let you know that I have a Helmke tenor sax for about 2 years now and I have never had any problems with it. It is hardly a piece of junk. I plays wonderfully and has beautiful tone. I dont think you have anything to back up your recomendation about this brand seeing as you have never played one. And as for Selmer Bundy...I bought a selmer bundy plastic clarinet in 8th grade and its a piece of junk. I'm a senior in high school now and now I just let middle schoolers use it if they forgot their instrument because its barely playable."
(End of Quote)
Thought this was worthy of public response.
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Ok?... I'm glad it's working out for you. Congratulations.
Reliability of saxophones are basically an odds game - no matter what manufacturer you are talking about. There are Selmer III or Mark VI horns that are pieces of crap, but the odds are more in your favor than with a Helmke, that's for sure.
I believe any modern saxophone can be set-up to play well - initially. If you care well for your Helmke, I'm sure it will hold it's own. There are music shops that will not repair or guarantee repairs for horns dumped off the long boat from China because the repairs may not necessarily hold due to the materials used or availability of replacement parts.
Because of this, the distributors of these horns, in some cases, have set up repair agreements with specific shops and facilities. For example, if action can become maladjusted because someone bumped their horn the wrong way or mashed the keys too hard, how can a good repair be maintained, and should the repair facility get bagged for it?
Your local repair shop will fix it? Awesome. I'm sure you will be their favorite customer before long.
And what I'm sharing with you is not heresay - this comes directly from three different shops in my area.
And I'm sorry that you had a bad experience with your Bundy clarinet. The fact it was made of plastic puts its quality and long-term performance at a disadvantage moreso than the fact it was a Bundy. So you maybe understand the importance of using quality materials?
Is your Bundy clarinet barely playable because its design and materials are inferior or because it hasn't seen a professional set-up since the day you bought it? Maybe it's got a dog mouthpiece on it? Who knows. Some horns are worth repairing if something major goes wrong. I'd say your Helmke is not in that category, but if you love it that much, you don't care, right?
My Bundy II was brand new to me in 1980. It's been through hell and back and looks like it, but plays beautifully. If it had a high F#, I'd have not bothered buying a new alto for any other reason except that I just felt like it (and when I got back into playing publicly, I didn't want to look like I stole it from a homeless street corner musician.)
No need to get defensive. Just enjoy your instrument for crying out loud!
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