Category: Reviews

Found two great little items to add to your gig bag. First item are these SEFONE Keychain Work Lights. They are small, have magnets, and are way bright. So useful for packing up stuff on the stage. They are replacing the Lmaytech lights I previously recommended (I still love those though, but these lights are smaller).

The second item is this Voyager Saxophone Multi Tool. This is really for ANY woodwind instrument. This little tool is freaking amazing. It is extremely well designed, with the right sized screw drivers, spring pullers, etc. It is just essential to have.

Over two years ago, I wrote about this stand I saw on youtube. Blew my mind. A Carbon Fiber stand?!? What wizardry is this? Playing sax, we are sort of shackled with the “standard” stand from Hercules or other similar ones. The Hercules stand is terrible. And it is yellow. Like construction yellow. *blah*

So, getting one of the Woodwind Design Bari Stands has been on my wishlist for a while to replace my Hercules one. I was contacted by Gijs van Leeuwen of Woodwind Design after leaving a comment on one of his videos, and he cut me a deal on a set of these if I reviewed them here. Here is the FIRST review. I was going to do them all together, but I think they really deserve individual reviews.

The stands arrived in a box that took about two weeks to make it to the West Coast. Most of that time it was in customs. I’m sure the customs people were like “huh?”, what is this?  Anyhow, it arrived safely.

 

The stands come with a two sided pamphlet telling you how to assemble the stands and what not. Pretty basic stuff. I’d be in favor of doing the QR Code thing and having a PDF or a website link to this instead.

So, let’s look at the Hercules stand.

I’ve had this stand for several years.  It’s been on many many gigs. It is heavy, and it doesn’t fit in any bags I have. Plus I can’t tell you how many times I’ve pinched myself putting this stand together or breaking it down. It has been a love/hate relationship. 

Now here is the Woodwind Design stand next to the Hercules.

Yes, in the case.

 

 

 

Amazing. (out of the case)

 

 

 

AND…..

It basically weighs nothing. Ok, well, if I had to compare the weight of them I would think about a dozen of the Woodwind Design stands might equal the weight of the Hercules one. According to Hercules, the weight of the Hercules stand is 4.6 pounds, and the Woodwind Design Bari stand is 1.1 pounds. The Woodwind Design stand feels like a piece of paper, while the Hercules is a rock. 

Stand vs Stand

Side by side, these stands are about the same height. The Woodwind Design one sits a little lower than the Hercules one. 

That’s not a problem though. The bari is still well within “grabbing range”, even if you are standing up.

As for actually HOLDING the Bari, they both do a fine job. 

Both stands are VERY stable if the bari receives a push side to side. The only issue might be that a forward push on the bari, the Woodwind Design stand seemed to want to tip a little easier. But in reality, the amount of forward leaning needed to get the stand to tip is not something you are ever going to encounter.  Both stands hold the bari steady, even though one is a 1/4 the weight of the other.

 

 

 

 

The Biggest Factor

The biggest selling points of the Woodwind Design stand are it’s  weight, and that you can transport it in the case. 

This is HUGE. When you bring a lot of equipment to a gig, having not to think about a stand is a big plus. I can’t tell you how many times I have been on my way to a gig and forgot a stand (bari or otherwise). I even went as far as making a check list for gigs that included stands, and I still forgot it once (cause I thought it was actually in the car already, and it wasn’t). Having the stand IN THE CASE just makes sense. And there is no really perceptible weight increase I can feel.  It is one of those “why didn’t they think of this before” things.

Compare that to the Hercules stand….

 

Plus the stand weights quite a bit, is bulky, and isn’t bag friendly.

Yes, it basically is an anchor you have to carry around. Then there is the aforementioned pinching yourself while setting up and taking down the stand.

Wrap-Up

There is nothing NOT to love about the Woodwind Design Bari stand. It’s everything one could want in a stand…..but…..you will pay for it. The stand currently sells for 242 Euros, which is about $276 US dollars. A Hercules stand costs about $55 on Amazon.

Now, a lot of you are like “damn, that is really expensive for a stand“. Yes, it is. But consider how much you have spent on the Bari (several thousands of dollars), and then add the case (several hundreds of dollars),  then your favorite neckstrap or harness (up to a hundred dollars), and finally your mouthpiece (several hundreds of dollars). 

And you want to skimp on a stand?

Really? 

 

There has been an interesting tool that has been sitting in my Amazon wishlist for a while. The BandTool BT-1. It is a multi-tool specifically for those who would need to fix a “band” type instrument. I carry a Leatherman Wave in my gig bag, and I have found it very useful. So why wouldn’t a multi-tool specifically for instruments be even better?

Read More “Review – BandTool BT-1” »

Some people think December is the best month. Christmas, etc. Some people think September when Apple events happen. Both are WRONG. The best time of the year is end of May when PG Music releases a new version of Band in a Box for Macintosh. This year they included a fancy keychain with the upgrade.

This year’s version of Band in a Box continues the evolution of a great program. 202 new real tracks, and Video real tracks (though no woodwind related tracks…..yet) are the major highlights. When the real tracks first came out, I was sort of “meh” about them (if I remember correctly, real drums were added first?). But they totally changed things around in subsequent versions. I can’t really remember the last time I used the midi tracks, the real tracks are that good. And it’s worth it to get the update just for the new tracks.

They added a “Audio Transcription” feature to the Mac version that converts a monophonic audio track to MIDI. Haven’t tested that yet. Also added were things like notation support for odd time signatures like 12/8 and 6/8, the ability to fix an out of tune recording, and a redesigned audio editor.

Band in a box always has worked in 4 by whatever grid since the Atari ST days. That is fine as MOST music is in a measure cadence that is divisible by 4 (8 bars, 12, 16, 24, 32, etc). But say you have a song you are working on, and it has a 7 bar phrase. It just doesn’t work as an 8 bar phrase. You put that in Band in a Box, and all hell breaks loose. It becomes a huge visual mess. Not anymore. They now will grey out and the next section starts at the far left again. Makes it a heck of a lot easier to see the flow of a song. Great addition to the program.

Couple of issues though….

Why are there TWO places where the Preferences are?

 

 

 

The other thing that bugs me is that you cannot decide what buttons go where. Like it would be infinitely better for me to have “Practice” be where “Video Help” is, but I cannot move these buttons around. Or even order them. Frustrating.

Other than that, an amazing program. This is a program that EVERY musician should have. From prototyping a new arrangement or song, to practicing, to even just messing around, it is a great tool to have on your Mac. Get it.

Do you have a musician whom you want to get a gift for? Or perhaps thinking about treating yourself this holiday season? Here are some ideas of books to get that musician for the holidays.

Zinn and the Art of the Saxophone is a collection of 6 books that will teach you everything you need to play saxophone, how to practice, and just be a bad ass saxophonist. Of all the books I have, and believe me, I have hundreds of books on saxophone, this is the most well thought out, and concise series of books.

Greg Fishman has a TON of great books. I highly recommend his Lobster Theory book along with any of his other excellent books.

Walt Weiskopf also has some excellent books out. My favorite is Intervalic Improvisation – The Modern Sound: A Step Beyond Linear Improvisation. His other book, Around the Horn is quite good as well.

Any books by Jim Snidero. I don’t think he’s published anything “bad” in my opinion.

Dan Higgins – The Jazz Etude Book. This is a GEM that I’ve had for years (decades perhaps?). I really don’t remember where I got it, but it is a great Etude book. If you don’t know who Dan Higgins is, you probably have heard him. He’s one of the guys who gets all the Movie work in Hollywood. He was the saxophone in “Catch Me If You Can” intro. He was also the lead alto in Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band for the first album.

Jerry Bergonzi Inside Improvisation series of books. These are a great resource to learn how to play more “modernly”.

Bobby Stern – The Melodic Minor Handbook: A Jazz Player’s Perspective. Never heard of Bobby Stern? He’s the great saxophonist who played with Marvin Gaye. He has this great book out, plus check his site out for other great things.

Anyone else have any recommendations?

Having a good microphone around is essential to a performer. While microphones like the AKG Pro Audio C414, and the Sennheiser MD 421 are my main “go to” microphones, one of the most compact and versatile microphones ever made is the Shure SM57. At $100, it is a great microphone to just have in your bag “just in case”. Still, the SM57 isn’t exactly cheap. And if say you have a band or some situation where you need to microphone up stuff, using the venerable SM57 can get quite expensive.

Enter the Pyle-Pro PDMIC78 Microphone. This microphone is basically a Shure SM57 clone. Except they wired it strangely (or wrongly). Basically, you need to re-solder two connections and then you have a mic that sounds like a SM57….for $20 rather than $100. In fact, there is slightly more gain and it sounds a little more “crisp” than my SM57. Actually, it sort of sounds almost like a BETA 57. I have all these microphones and will link to a sound shoot out of them.

In all, a great deal if you can handle doing the small bit of soldering required. Amazon sells these guys for $20, though the author in the video below got a bunch of them for something like $10 each.

I have modded 4 of these now. You basically need to take the red (hot) from the capsule to pin 3, take pin 1 to ground, break the bridge they have from pin 1 to 3 to ground (so they have 2 pins going to ground) and run the other wire from the capsule to pin 2. You then get a balanced mic that sounds like a SM57 for 1/4th the price.

There are a TON of books out for saxophone. Go do a search of Amazon.com. Everyone seems to have a book out, be it on jazz improvisation, or perhaps a book just dealing with cool patterns or ways to play over certain types of chords, or using a specific scale in jazz. Lots of books. I know, I own just about every saxophone book known to man.

But while I love the pattern books, the scale books, the improv books, what books can I point to that I can say to anyone, regardless of what style of playing they want to do, as a reference to acquire technique on saxophone? The obvious one that we all know are the three Joseph Voila books Technique of the Saxophone: Scale Studies. Another contender for acquiring technique would be Walt Weiskopf’s book Around The Horn: 21 Modal Scales and Arpeggios Every Jazz Musician Needs To Know

With any one of these books, anyone can acquire some great technique on saxophone. But having a book or set of books isn’t the complete solution. How does one use the books? Once you get through the books, is that it? Is that the end? Did you reach the goal and now you are the master and you don’t need to practice anything anymore? You can acquire a tremendous set of skills if you can play through all the Joseph Viola books. But how do you maintain those skills? Do you start the books over again? Play them backwards?

Saxophonist Dann Zinn has been pondering this issue for over 20 years now. Perhaps longer….it is hard to tell, Dann is a man of few words (other than “go practice”). His new books Zinn and the Art of Saxophone is the culmination of decades of teaching, and thought about saxophone. What skills should one acquire in their pursuit of saxophone? In what order should one acquire the skills? How does one go about acquiring the skills?

Read More “Review – Zinn and the Art of Saxophone” »

I bought a Brother HL-L2340DW on Black Friday for $80 from Amazon.com. Great little printer. And the Wirecutter likes it as well.

After nearly 250 hours of research and testing over the past few years, we’ve found that the best choice for an affordable laser printer right now is the Brother HL-L2340DW. Among the dozens of laser printers we’ve looked at, the L2340DW is one of the most economical and least frustrating printers you can buy.