Thomann CMS-600S C Melody

Origin: China
Guide price: £800
Weight: 3.00kg
Date of manufacture: 2024
Date reviewed: February 2025

Out with the old - in with the new old

I've often thought that if ever such a thing as a saxophone-related comedian existed (no, I'm not talking about Kenny G) then their first line on taking the stage would surely be "C Melody saxes. Woss all that about then?" - and the audience would break out into howls of laughter.
I've always felt it to be a rather...unfortunate instrument. On the face of it it's got a lot going for it; because it's pitched in C the player can read straight off the piano charts, so whenever there's a hankering to play alongside an accompanist there's no need to rush out and buy the alto or tenor score of the piece you want to play. Nor to transpose the piano line in your head. What's not to like? And back in its heyday (early 1900s) it was a reasonably popular option for folks who wanted to entertain themselves at home - which is why there are still quite a few vintage C Melodies to be had if you don't mind waiting a little while for one to turn up.

The problem was that it never really caught on with the pros, save for a handful who used its relative rarity in the profession as a means of capturing a niche audience on what I suppose you might call the 'novelty circuit'. OK, that's perhaps a bit glib given that playing some of those so-called novelty numbers would make a great many players break out into a cold, hard sweat (been there, done that).
And perhaps the reason it never caught on with the pros was because it sounded, well, a bit odd. Thing is, if you built a horn that took the best tonal aspects of the alto (its glittering top range) and the tenor (its sultry lower end) you'd have a fantastic horn. The C Melody does it the other way round - it has the top end of the tenor and the lower end of the alto. Besides which both the tenor and alto were already well-established as formidable soloist horns - and there just wasn't any space for slightly suspect newcomer.

And so it was that the C Melody faded into obscurity. It never quite went away, however - and from time-to-time a new model would appear, because there was still some small demand from folks who wanted that 'play from the piano parts' option. But by the mid 1960s it was all pretty much done and dusted.
Skip forward a few decades and someone had the bright idea of getting the Chinese to build a new C Melody. Not a bad idea really given that the Chinese had already practically flooded the market with cheap 'almost-copies' of quite expensive horns.
And thus we have the Thomann CMS-600S.

The major advantage of a horn like this is that it's not a clunky old vintage banger - with clunky old vintage ergonomics. Have a look around this horn for long enough and you'll start seeing little hints about about which horn it takes its inspiration from. If you're struggling I can put you out of your misery, it's a modern Selmer. More or less. The two big giveaways for me are the two-piece bottom bow clamp and the A key, which pivots on a pointed rod screw at the top end and a point screw at the lower. The rest is pretty much down to cosmetics and key layout.
But there's also a rather cheeky nod to the old Conns in the shape of a Microtuner fitted to the crook. I have no idea why they bothered with this as it's a pretty useless gadget at the best of times - but hey, even the Chinese are allowed to have a bit of fun every now and again.

Here's the Microtuner partially disassembled - and it has the same 'double tongue' sliders as found on the later versions of the Conn 6M 'Underslung' alto. What's particularly interesting about this feature is that it's actually quite well made, which is very much a bonus because a badly-made or worn Microtuner is a source of leaks and/or frustration.
And before anyone emails me to ask whether the crook off this thing would serve as a donor for a busted Microtuner on a Conn, the answer is probably not - because it's likely to be a dimensionally scaled-up version

The construction of the body is bog-standard for a modern horn. It's ribbed, with a handful of plates for smaller key groups and a few standalone pillars, all rather neatly soldered in place. You get plain drawn toneholes, a detachable bell with a triple-point bell brace and the aforementioned two-piece bottom bow clamp. There a set of adjustable bumper felts, an adjustable metal thumb hook, a large flat plastic thumb rest, a nicely-proportioned 16/10 sling ring and a detachable semicircular compound bell key pillar. And as it's modern version of an old horn you also get a top F#. Very handy.

So far so good, but as we delve deeper into the build quality we start to see where the money runs out...
The toneholes are bit (not to put too fine a point on it) crap. There are two fairly major problems, the first being that they're not level. Here's the low C, and it's got a sizeable warp on the front end of the tonehole with a similarly-sized warp at the rear. Almost all the toneholes were like this, to a greater or lesser degree.

The other problem is that the rims of the toneholes were incredibly rough. They probably used a milling tool to level the holes, and from the looks of the finish that's been left I'd say that the tool was well past its best and could do with a damn good sharpening or, better still, being replaced with a new one.

Here's a shot of the low F tonehole and you can clearly see the the rim looks gouged - with high and low spots all over the place. And just look at those vicious burrs on the inner wall. And yeah, I meant vicious because if you catch your finger on one of these it'll tear a hole in it no problem. OK, so unless you're a repairer or a keen DIYer it's unlikely that you'll be poking your fingers into the toneholes - but if they can rip open a finger, think what they'll be doing to the leather on the pads. And that's after you've had to put up with the leaks from the warps and the stickiness from the rough rims.

In an effort to overcome some of these issues I saw that a few key cups had been treated to a spot of mallet seating.
Seating a pad is a precision job - and trying to seat a pad precisely on a warped tonehole is doable but time-consuming. How much quicker, then, to simply smash the key cup with a mallet so that it conforms to the warp. The job's a good 'un.

It's all very not good, but in fairness the unevenness of the toneholes wasn't the worst that I've ever seen. On a scale of 1 (worst) to 10 I'd say they come in at around a 5, with most reasonable horns hitting the 7-8 mark and a few outliers making to the 9-10 target.
It's also a bit disappointing because the body is otherwise quite well made and finished.

On now to the keywork - and we have a few things to talk about, the first of which is something I've never seen before.
Have a look at this shot and tell me what you think is wrong with it. I'll give you a little clue...it's the side or chromatic F# key, which is mounted on a pair of point screws.

Have you sussed it yet? It's a tricky one, I'll give you that much.
So here's the thing. When you mount a key on point screws the gold standard is that the tip or point of the screw should sit in a corresponding hole in the key barrel that precisely matches the point of the screw. In practice this rarely happens - but as long as there's a decent amount of snug contact between the tip of the screw and the key barrel, you should be good to go; at least until such times as the key barrel wears.
And a good way to slow down the rate of wear is to keep the screw lubricated. In order to do this you need some way of making sure the oil or grease stays put, which is why the holes commonly drilled into the key barrels are like pockets. They only go so deep.
What you're looking at here is a steel rod that's able to pass all the way through the key barrel, just like on a key that's mounted on a rod screw. There's no pocket for the point screws. Pop a drop of oil on the screw and it'll just wander off down the length of the barrel. Grease will stick around for longer...but not that much longer.
You could, naturally, fill up the entire barrel with grease - and yeah, that would solve the lubrication problem but it would eventually begin to migrate out of the barrel and leave one hell of a mess. Needless to say filling up the barrel with oil would be a recipe for disaster.

But why on earth have they done this? From an engineering point of view it's a terrible proposition, and I really can't imagine anyone saying "Hey, I've got this GREAT idea for the point screw barrels!"
No, what I reckon is that when they order in the stock material for the key barrels it comes pre-drilled to a nominal size. All of it, the whole lot - and then they re-drill it to fit the larger rod screws. Either that or they make it themselves in this fashion. It's the only thing that makes any sense.

It also has some implications further down the line. The point screws are of the pseudo type - and for the most part most of the barrels fit over the screw tips quite nicely. I found one or two that needed a bit of tweaking, which isn't too bad, but once things start to wear it's going to be quite difficult to take it up in some places. A cheap and effective fix would be to put a plastic insert into the key barrels - but that requires a pocket to go into. Without a definite stopping point the insert will just walk its way down the barrel.
Hey ho, never mind - and I'm sure that with a little thinking it'll be possible to come up with some sort of economically-attractive fix.

Are you ready for the next whinge? Of course you are...
What we have here is the top stack.

Now, I was going to say that, in general, the key fit was reasonably good - but then a closer look revealed a few nasties. See those indentations at each end of the B key barrel? This little bodge on the top stack is an old trick; if there's a little bit of axial (end-to-end) play in a key, don't bother with taking it off and swedging it - just give the end of the key barrel a bit of a tap with a punch. This'll push out a little burr on the end of the barrel and, with luck, it'll be just enough to take up the play. Won't last very long, mind you - but hey, as long as it sells, right?
Daft thing is, the top stack action was reasonably good; nicely-fitting rod screw, no play in the pillars - it really would have just taken a little bit of swedging to bring the stack up to 100%.

While we're here, a quick note about the corkwork. It's touch untidy in places - but I've seen much worse. Like most Chinese horns the corks and felts are held on by some kind of weird gelatinous glue, which seems to degrade into a gloopy mess after a couple of years or when it gets warm enough outside to don your summer shorts. You can see exactly what I mean on the foot of the B key - the glue has softened and the regulation cork is slipping off.

In terms of precision the bottom stack, alas, fared rather less well. Not only was there some evidence of the old punch bodge but there was free play in both the pillars and the key barrels. The rod screw measured out at 2.78mm diameter - which is a fairly common size. A 2.84mm diameter rod fitted nice and snugly in the pillars and needed just a hint of reaming on a couple of the keys. To put that in some kind of perspective a Selmer MkVI that's seen 50+ years of solid work will usually need the stack rods screws upgrading from 2.78mm to 2.84mm - so the bottom stack on this horn came out of the factory with 50 year's worth of wear. Not brilliant.

OK, we're done with the moaning (for now) - so lets have a round-up of the good points.
You get a modern swivelling octave key mechanism (a la Selmer stylee), a tilting bell key table and my favourite plain old fork and pin connectors for the side Bb and C.
The key pearls are plastic; no surprises there - and they have a concave profile, with a slightly domed Bis Bb pearl and a pair of flat ovals for the G# and side F# touchpieces.
There are no stack adjusters on this horn, either for regulation or key height but you do get the usual trio for adjusting the Bis Bb, the articulating G# and the link between the low B and C# key cups. There's also an adjustable stub on the link between the front top F key and the F key itself so that you can tweak the opening height of the F key, should you so wish. And the whole action is powered by blued steel springs.

The pads are pretty much what you'd expect on a budget Chinese horn, the usual 'Deluxe' branded basic fare. They're not so bad really, certainly a lot better than the pads that appeared on the very first Ultra-Cheap horns. But what's rather nice about them is that they've been fitted with plenty of glue (hot melt glue in this instance).
I'm not going to complain about that because it gives the pads the very best chance of holding their seat (warped toneholes notwithstanding) and at least offers the repairer the chance to reset the pads and have the reset hold.

Finishing up the whole package is the standard polystyrene case with a zipper fastener. You all know I hate zippered cases because if, or rather when, the zip breaks it's nigh on impossible to get the case repaired. It's usually just an inconvenience that forces you to go out and buy a new (better) case - but where on earth are you going to find a new case for a C Melody these days?
Maybe it'd be worth investing in a couple of bungee straps...

Under the fingers the horn feels fine. Sort of.
It's not an alto or a tenor, so the distance between the keys is a bit unfamiliar. It can catch you out for a while until you get used to it - but aside from that it's about as good as you'd expect any modern horn to be. With a couple of exceptions.
I found the low C was a bit of a stretch for me - and I have quite long fingers. OK, it wasn't so much that I couldn't reach the touchpiece, it was more that it was at an angle that made it slightly hard to push down on the key. The owner said he'd noticed the same thing initially but that it improved once he'd spent more time with the horn. Fair enough. But we both agreed that the position of the low Bb touchpiece is awful. It's way, way too low. So low in fact that even for me to hit it I found my finger was slipping off the G key pearl just to afford me the extra reach. That's not good, not on a modern horn. It's not that you can't reach it, it's just very difficult - and if you were thinking of buying one of these so that you could play some of those vintage novelty numbers with great dexterity, you might want to look for tunes that don't use the low Bb.
I daresay the whole table could be shifted up a bit with some judicious bending of the keys, but it won't be by very much. If you needed any more reach you might well be looking at having to have the keys 'cut and shut'. Ain't cheap.

Tonewise it's...well, it's a C Melody - so it falls in that slightly awkward boundary between the tenor and the alto.
With that said it's possible, with some time and practice, to eke out more of the C's nuances. It's also fair to say that my tenor piece isn't really the best match for a C Melody and that you're certainly going to get a bit of a lift if you invest in a dedicated C Melody piece for the horn. I thinks what's important is to keep in mind that this isn't a tenor or an alto - and that if you stop looking for comparisons (it's not easy, I know) you can start to appreciate the tone on its own merits. And yeah, in spite of the ribbing the poor ol' C Melody gets, it does have it's own character.
On the whole though I'd say it was pretty evenly balanced, with more of a contemporary tone than you'll find on a vintage C. In other words a fairly pleasant blow that can be tailored to your preference depending on what mouthpiece you put on it. I think I'd avoid anything with a high baffle though, it would just be too weird!
No problems with the tuning, which is perhaps the biggest advantage of a modern design. Sure, you'll probably take some time to really nail the centre of each note - but this will likely be down to unfamiliarity with the pitch of the horn.

Time then for the summing-up, and I've had to give this quite some thought.
I'll be frank I'm in a bit of a quandary about this horn. You can buy a basic Chinese alto or tenor for £300 - and for that price you'd probably find many of the faults I found on this horn. Push the boat out a bit and go for a more upmarket Chinese horn (say around £500) and things get somewhat better. This horn comes in at £800 - and that's because you're paying a premium for what's bound to be a limited production run (economies of scale, and all that sort of thing). But you're still getting some of the £300 level of build quality.

But - and it's a big but - there aren't many other modern C Melodies knocking about. In fact as far as I'm aware there's just one other design (which features a Yanagisawa-style 'underslung' crook key). Is it any good? Dunno - I've not seen one, but I suspect it'll have the same build issues. It may even have more.
However, that 'Underslung' model appears to be identical to the old Aquilasax - which, if memory serves, was the first new C Melody out of China (I reviewed their C soprano here). The thing is, though, that because there's such a limited market for C saxes I wonder if the situation isn't similar to that of modern low Bb baritones, which is to say that it's unlikely that there's enough demand to justify more than one manufacturer turning them out...and one thing the Chinese have always been very good at is 'jazzing up' a stock sax body to turn it into a new model. Without the horns to compare side-by-side it's impossible to say for sure but it wouldn't surprise me in the least if it turned out that all the Chinese C Melodies are coming out of the same factory, just with slightly different crook/cosmetic options.

What's needed here, maybe, is a bit of perspective.
On the face of it I guess it ought to get marked down as a fail, but what're you gonna do if you have a hankering for a C Melody and don't want to invest in a vintage example (for various reasons)? Well, this is pretty much it, so I guess you'll have to adjust your expectations accordingly. What I would say is that, in general, the build quality is reasonable. As with all Ultra-Cheap horns I'd recommend a decent setup in order to get the best out of them. This horn is no different - other than it's a lot more costly to buy and put into good order.
You can shave a few quid off the price by looking around for the same horn under a variety of names. The Microtuner is a dead giveaway. Don't think that paying £100 or so more for a different brand name is going to guarantee a better build quality. It isn't. Look out too for 'B' stock examples. These will likely be returns from folks who bought the things and then decided it wasn't an alto or a tenor...or there might be some cosmetic issues.

Once the horn has been properly tweaked it does a nice job. About the only fly in the ointment is that low Bb, which is a shame. I think on balance that I'm going to give it a very cautious recommendation on the basis that there's really nothing else out there like it - but one that comes with the caveat that the asking price plus the cost of a proper setup may well match the price of a tidy vintage C. Something to think about.