NYC Sax Walk-In Musical Instrument Repair: Roberto's Winds

Roberto's Winds, at 15 West 39th Street, Suite 802, is the Midtown bench where working saxophonists bring a horn that has started to leak, buzz or stick. The shop sits on the eighth floor of an office building half a block from Bryant Park and keeps weekday hours of 10 am to 6 pm, Monday to Friday. Its repair page states the ground rule plainly: walk-ins are welcome, but the horn has to be inspected in person before anyone names a price.

The shop was founded in 1989, and the about page credits its owner, Roberto Romeo, with an apprenticeship under the late woodwind repairman Saul Fromkin. Since then Romeo has worked on instruments for Sonny Rollins, Dexter Gordon, Lee Konitz, Jimmy Heath and George Coleman, a list that explains why so many touring players climb to Suite 802 between gigs. A news post on the shop's own site still quotes an older review from the days when the business sat on West 46th Street's old Music Row, before it moved a few blocks south to 39th.

Unusually for a New York woodwind shop, Roberto's publishes its rates. Romeo's bench time is $150 an hour, and minor services start at $20, outside the hourly rate. A new neck cork is $45. A brand-new mother-of-pearl key touch is $35. An outside spring that needs only one key removed is $35, while an inside spring buried under several keys is $60. Soldering is $60 plus the hourly rate, and dent work is billed by the hour. Pads run $45 to $80 each, depending on size and how many keys stand in the way.

Overhauls come in tiers. The partial overhaul cleans the horn inside and out, straightens rods and posts, oils the mechanism, swedges out key play and includes up to three pads, two springs and five corks. That costs $350 for a student horn, $700 for a soprano, alto or tenor, and $800 for a baritone. The complete overhaul replaces every pad, cork and felt, with a choice of metal or plastic resonators and minor dent work. It is $950 for student models, $1695 for soprano, alto or tenor, and $1895 for baritone.

The Premium Deluxe adds new springs, any and all dent work and a restoration to factory settings for $2050 on soprano, alto or tenor and $2650 on baritone. Every complete or premium job includes six months of free adjustments, within reason, and unlocks a $325 yearly check-up that brings the horn back to its post-overhaul state. For a dead horn, rusted, crushed or dropped, the shop offers a Resurrection service, priced only after inspection.

The FAQ walks through the process step by step. It begins with a short consultation about what you want the horn to do. Then the saxophone comes apart, posts are restored and swedged, and every part is washed and sterilized. The body is straightened and small dents are removed while the keys are off. The pads are custom made for Roberto from Italian leather, and on vintage horns the original resonators are reused when possible. The final step is personal: once the horn is reassembled, Romeo sits with you to set key height and action to your hands.

The other half of the bench is mouthpiece work. Roberto's lists an in-house mouthpiece maker, refacer and designer, and the prices are specific. A dental-style bite plate replacement is $150 and a hard-rubber bite plate is $125. Refacing a hard-rubber, plastic or wood piece costs $250, and a brass or bronze piece costs $295. Re-plating is $200. The shop also models and prints parts in 3D for key reconstruction or tool fabrication, quoted after a conversation. Its own Uovo tenor ligature, built for Otto Link and metal mouthpieces, starts at $295 with a bronze plate.

Many people walk in for a pad and leave having played a horn worth more than their car. The Mark VI Room holds Selmer Paris saxophones from the 1930s through the 1970s, and the shop says it keeps more Mark VIs than any other showroom in the world. Trials happen in the shop's rehearsal rooms for as long as you need, but instruments never leave the premises for a trial. The FAQ recommends calling ahead for a trial slot, since a room may be taken when you arrive.

The shelves also carry the house RW line, which grew out of a decade of design work. The site says every RW saxophone is personally inspected and set up by Roberto himself, with the same precision techniques he uses on the bench for his famous clients. RW reeds are cut for soprano, alto, tenor and baritone sax as well as B-flat and bass clarinet, so a reed box often goes home along with the repaired horn.

Because no quote is given over the phone, the walk-in is the estimate. Arrive early in the week and soon after the 10 am opening, before the afternoon drop-offs. Bring the case, the neck and the mouthpiece you actually play, and make a note of which notes fail and whether the problem shows up only when the horn is cold. The shop also guarantees that every instrument is disinfected and sterilized after each repair.

The building is a short walk from the 42nd Street–Bryant Park station on the B, D, F and M lines and the Fifth Avenue stop on the 7. After leaving a horn, walk north to Bryant Park, where the lawn, the reading room and the chess tables fill the square behind the library. The Stephen A. Schwarzman Building of the New York Public Library guards the park's east side with its two marble lions. Bryant Park Grill, on the park's 40th Street side, has a terrace overlooking the lawn for a coffee while you wait for a callback.

Address: 15 West 39th Street, Suite 802, New York, NY 10018, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
Hours: Monday to Friday, 10 am to 6 pm.
Email: info@robertoswinds.com.
Booking: walk-ins welcome for inspections, with no quotes over the phone. Call to set up an overhaul drop-off or a Mark VI Room trial.
Rates: $150 an hour bench time, minor services from $20, pads $45 to $80, and the complete overhaul from $950 for a student horn.
Warranty: six months of free adjustments, within reason, on Complete and Premium Deluxe overhauls.