My solution to playing in an appartment complex
Hi r/saxophonics, everybody knows that the saxophone gets very loud which makes it particularly annoying for neighbours if you're living in an appartment complex. I found a solution to this and am sharing to (1) help others who might be in a similar situation and (2) get some insights from people who are already doing similar things, on how to further improve my setup.
Background
I recently moved to an appartment complex and while I play at "normal" times (never before 13:00, never after 20:00) the neighbours complained and I had to come up with a solution.
I purchased the SaxMute One https://www.sax.co.uk/saxmute-one-tenor.ir along with a hercules stand (https://www.sax.co.uk/hercules-ds730b-altotenor-grabber-standing-saxophone-stand.ir) so I don't have to carry the whole thing on my back. This set me back around 420 euros but I figured it would be worth it if it means I can play more frequently.
Saxmute One issue
The SaxMute does wat it promises. Sound went from ~95 dB to ~70 dB which is a big difference. I didn't hear any complaints from neighbours so it was all good. The major drawback is the sound quality. Because the foam inside the mute absorbs a lot of the sound, whatever you hear on the outside is very dry and muffled. This is usually not a problem when playing scales or just practicing fingerings, but when you feel like playing along with a track it makes the whole experience less enjoyable.
Solution
To combat the sound quality issue I decided to use my Shure SM57 microphone and connect it to my phone while playing. By using earphones to monitor the sound I was hoping to hear myself via the microphone rather than the outside sound of the mute. Results were good, but I recently upgraded to a cheaper condenser mic, Tbone SC400 (https://www.thomann.de/nl/the_tbone_sc400_grossmembranmikro.htm) and the outcome is even better.
The sound is pretty close to my sound without the mute. I did have to do some EQ settings on my phone and still need to experiment with it (I'm currently using a high pass filter at 160 Hz to counterbalance the fact that my microphone is super close to the bell and a 4dB boost at 4.5 kHz because it makes it sound more realistic.. Which somehow works? If someone can explain me why that would be nice).
Also, I found that cheap earphones (no over ear headphones, no noise cancelling, not even regular earphones with the silicone tips but the ones with hard tips that don't really seal your ear) work best. These cheap ones allow you to hear a mix of the microphone sound and the actual sound from the mute, which gives the most realistic outcome. The other ones tend to seal you off more and hear more unpleasant sounds via bone conduction (?).
A nice bonus is that you can easily record yourself over backing tracks with this, since everything is handled on your phone. Also, you can play along with tracks with the Youtube app on the phone while still monitoring yourself if you run the app in the background.
Total cost (EUR)
Saxmute one: 370
Hercules stand: 50
IK Multimedia iRig Pre (used to convert microphone signal to phone signal, also has phantom power built in so you can use it with a condenser or dynamic mic): 37
TBone SC 400 microphone: 50
Earphones: 3
3.5mm output from iRig pre to lightning converter: 9
AUM sound monitoring app for iphone: 22. (Garageband could also be used and is free, but I like AUM for the equalizer effects I can add to make the sound more realistic)
Total: 541
While this is a lot of money, I think once you have the Saxmute and the hercules stand, the additional 120 or so euros is more than worth it.
Pictures
Posted Jan 20, 2021, 12:19 PM UTC