Hi everyone
I was just wondering if anyone could give me any advice about lightweight alto sax cases - at the moment I have a hard, rectangular case which only has one small carry handle and it is just so heavy! It's made of a tough black material - probably abs or something similar? Anyway, this is really impractical for taking to school (a long walk followed by a 15 mile bus journey) and I need something lighter and more portable, with a shoulder strap ideally so that I can actually lift it without breaking my back! (I do realise this makes me sound about 112, but in my defence I am teeny tiny and a girl ) So if anyone has any suggestions of a good, lightweight but still sturdy case I'd be so grateful!
Thanks so much!
FluteDiva!!

No ideas on the case, but how about try and guilt trip the parents to taking you.

No, no, no, no! Not more ****** cars blocking up school gates, giving kids asthma, running teachers over etc.

However, good lightweight cases can be expensive. The std used to be the hard, shaped Berkeley cases, but these are not well padded. I've heard reasonable things about the Hiscox and Protex ones, but they're pricy.

Why not visit your local music shop and see what they have? You could get a soft gig-bag, but you'd have to be very careful with the instrument with one of those ... sax repairs are also expensive! The Myatt ones are OK, IIRC, and very cheap - but whatever you go for, do please check that it's a snug fit for your sax, and have lots of padding.

Alternatively, fix a shoulder strap and/or wheels to your hard case.

I picked up a lightweight case from Forsyths in Manchester. I think it's the same as this one from Johnathon Myall:
http://www.justflutes.com/pages/product-detail57639.htm

It's a thick moulded interior with a nylon (?) skin over it. Seems very serviceable and not too expensive.

You need to be a bit careful with cheap sax cases. I used to have one for tenor, similarly robust looking, padding, nylon outer, backpack straps. After a while the nylon started coming apart. That was when I realised that the hard shell was in fact cardboard. I didn't feel too happy about carrying my expensive sax around in a cardboard box, so I got a Hiscox case.

If you're going to play sax you're probably just going to have to get used to carrying it around. They're not that big, heavy or awkward as far as instruments go, although admittedly rather more so than a flute. I play tenor most of the time and on the occasions when I'm only carrying the alto around it's easy peasy.

My daughter used to think Alto was heavy until Baritone came along. The loam one was in a huge case without wheels. The one we have now fortunately has wheels.

You might be better going to a music shop and hqving a look at case options. The gig bags for Sax are quite big themselves but you can put them on your back. Don't know whether I'd want to put an expensive Sax in one though.

Just want to echo the comment about seeing cases in the flesh.

A lot of cases are very attractive in pictures, but they might not fit your sax very well.

Also, as has been noted, the case may be fine, but the straps are something else. Even some of the the big name case makers suffer from strap problems, so double-check the strap mechanism as carefully as you'd check the fit and finish inside of the case.

I'd recommend getting together with other sax players and seeing what cases they use, and how they've coped with life on the road...

Hope this helps

Thank you so much everyone for all your helpful replies - this forum is fantastic! I really appreciate being able to ask so many questions on here. I'll be having a look at cases over the next few days, and I'm hoping I'll be able to get to a music shop to try them out. I think I'll probably go for something like the Rosetti case - possibly the Gator one though - it's really similar but they do it in pink Here's a link: http://www.justflutes.com/pages/product-detail66754.htm If anyone strongly objects, please let me know. It looks really useful - it has shoulder straps (an absolute must-have) and an external pocket for me to put all my stuff in, but I don't know how sturdy it'll be?
Thanks again everyone!
Oh, and I can't seem to reply in my orginal thread about which sax to buy, but to anyone who is interested, I've ended up with a student Yamaha, which I've shown to lots of people, and everyone has concluded that it's fantastic (I paid £400 new!) so I'm very pleased with it.

Edit - just did a quick google search for hard cases, and found this: http://www.grrrcases.co.uk/index.php
So cool! And being sold on ebay... any thoughts? (I'm now sorely tempted!!)