Tubax

The first size of tubax to be developed was the E♭ tubax. It first appeared in 1998 and was intended as a more practical alternative to the somewhat unwieldy contrabass saxophone.

The larger B♭ tubax appeared soon after and is equivalent to the subcontrabass saxophone, which although envisioned by Adolphe Sax in his 1846 patent, was only first built in 2010 by Brazilian manufacturer J'Élle Stainer.[1] This subcontrabass size is also available in C, but only one model has been manufactured, sold to Thomas Mejer of Switzerland in July 2002.

The E♭ and B♭ tubax have the same lengths of tubing and ranges as the contrabass and subcontrabass saxophones respectively but are much more compact. They are built with a narrower bore somewhere between a regular saxophone and a contrabass sarrusophone, and use comparatively smaller baritone or bass saxophone mouthpieces. The tubax is folded four times to stand only 114 centimetres (3 ft 9 in) high for the E♭ tubax, not much taller than a baritone saxophone, yet an octave lower.[2] Similarly, the B♭ tubax stands 145 centimetres (4 ft 9 in) tall, nearly half of the enormous 2.74-metre (9 ft 0 in) height of an equivalent subcontrabass saxophone.[3][4] These smaller sizes and more accessible key placements result in more portable and ergonomic instruments.[2]

These changes result in a more focused and compact timbre than that of the full-sized saxophones, and have also led to some debate over whether the tubax is really a member of the saxophone family.

Oliver Saar performing on an E♭ tubax at Jazztage Idar-Oberstein in 2017

• Paul Cohen
• Dror Feiler
• Blaise Garza
• Vinny Golia
• Mats Gustafsson
• Jarno Sarkula
• Steffen Schorn
• Jim Sheppard
• Marcus Weiss