Reverse Engineering and Geometric Optimization for Resurrecting Antique Saxophone Sound Using Micro-Computed Tomography and Additive Manufacturing

Abstract

The saxophone mouthpiece is an important, sound generating component of this instrument. The structure of mouthpiece has undergone several design changes since its invention by Adolphe Sax in the mid-18th century. Very few antique mouthpieces survived through the years, and unfortunately, those available are not playable on modern saxophones due to geometric discrepancies. This paper investigates the possibility of using three-dimensional (3D) X-ray tomography and 3D printing combined with solid modeling and reverse engineering concepts to bring back the sound of saxophones as intended by its inventor. We have imaged the interior and exterior of an extant mouthpiece nondestructively using 3D X-ray tomography, and used solid modeling and reverse engineering along with sound testing, to optimize the geometry of a mouthpiece that is faithful to its original design and yet playable on a modern saxophone. To perform sound testing of our design iterations, 3D printed prototypes have been used and proven to generate sufficient sound quality for testing. We have successfully obtained the optimized geometry after a series of iterations that taught us valuable lessons about modeling for 3D printing and correlating geometric features of a mouthpiece to its sound quality. Though the developed principles are applied to saxophone mouthpieces, the present work can be readily extended to various musical instruments that have evolved through time, particularly woodwind instruments and instruments with mouthpieces.