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Keep Your Horn in One Piece!
Saxophone stands are more important than you might think. I learnt this as a guitarist, when my 3-year-old decide to walk into a cheap guitar stand. Problem was that the stand was holding an expensive guitar, but fortunately it was just a guitar not a saxophone. Still it made me think that 3-year olds are no more dangerous than drunken punters on a gig. So I looked around for a 3 year-old proof saxophone stand, especially as I had a gig coming up on the bass saxophone. I needed something professional and very heavy-duty, and the Saxrax fits that bill perfectly.
Normally with a review like this I would point out the faults and hopefully balance them with the good points. The problem here is I can’t find any faults, unless you think it’s not worth paying the sort of price that a stand such as the Saxrax commands. But when I look around at all the other stands, there isn’t really one that comes close to being sturdy enough to hold my saxophones safely, so in the end I bought three of these, plus various pegs. Using the pegs you could have, for instance, a main stand for tenor but with an alto on one side and a soprano on and flute the other. On three stands, I can hold my bass, baritone, tenor, alto, two sopranos, sopranino, clarinet, alto flute, and flute.
The four wide feet, low centre of gravity and solidly welded strong steel construction means the horns are no completely safe from pets, children and more or less anything that that be thrown at them.
Another great thing is the modular system: you can connect two or more stand together by the base. I chose not to use this as I prefrred the stand arranged in a semi circle, however if you did join them, you’get even more stability.
Wall Mounted Stands?
You can now buy a wall mounted saxophone stand, the Locoparasaxo. These are very useful if you have limited space, or again if there are toddlers wandering around. Obvioulsy you can’t use this on a gig very easily, and you need to make sure that your walls are solid enough to hold this. It is mounted by 3 screws and adjusts to hold an alto or tenor saxophone.
I must admit I was a bit nervous about this at first, wondering what would happen if it fell off the wall. My house was built in 1925 and I’m not sure I completely trust the walls to hold something as heavy and valuable as a saxophone. Added to that the best place in my musicroom was immediately above my wife’s harpsichord, so a fall would have truly catastrophic consequences.
The first thing I thought was that the mounting plate has 3 screw holes, configured with one at the top and two at the bottom. My knowledge of physics is a bit sketchy, but I presumed that the top of the plate was more imprtatnt, as the weight from the saxophone would be attempting to pull the screw out at the top, but pushing the bottom of the plate in against the wall. So I thought it would have been better to have the two screws at the top. I contacted the manufacturer, who assured me that this is not the case.
Alternatively you could mount a large wooden “plaque” with as many screws as you think are necessary, and then screw the stand into the wood. This could work especially well also if you wanted several stands on the wall, ie you could screw a whole plank along the wall, like a skirting board but higher up, and then mount the stands into this. It would then distribute the weight across the a large surface.
On to the stand. There’s not much to say about this, which is a good thing. It holds the saxophone very well and firmly giving me lots of confidence. I chose to use it for my alto, I would have been just as happy with a tenor up there but the space I chose was a bit small for tenor, but I’m sure I’ll get another one to use for a tenor.
The bell support unscrews so that you can fit into one of five positions to suit the size of your horn, but I found even in the lowest position (pictured) it’s still perfect for my alto so I presume it would also fit a curved soprano with the support higher up. In the lowest position it was also fine for my tenors.
