Here's a YouTube clip of Marcel W. Helland playing one of the world's rarest musical instruments (only 25 or so exists): the contrabass saxophone. As you can see, it's quite large (about 6 foot 4 inches or 1.9 m tall) and heavy (45 lb. or 20 kg).
Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] - Thanks Christophe!
and i so much wanted to hear the guy play the pink panther motiv...
I think it would sound great in a trio or quartet of other saxes or reeds.
Enjoyed the geek at the end, too.
Who needs a tuba to make farting noises?
There is a more resonable version of a contrabass called a tubax made by eppelsheim same octive below the bari
http://www.eppelsheim.com/tubax.php?lang=en
I don't know about contrabass saxes, but you can buy bass saxes (which are about a fifth higher I think) pretty easily through specialist shops.
Also, I have no idea why he's holding the sax up. You're meant to rest it on a spike to play it, similar to a bass clarinet or a cello. It's just making it more difficult to play if you hold it up.
Can only imagine that the contrabass is like trying to blow a 6" pipe. Wayyyy too much for me....
There was an article on bass and contrabass saxes in the March/April 2008 'Saxophone Journal' magazine. Guy from Brazil had a Stainer Low B Contrabass custom built that will go below 65Hz - essentially below human hearing into the subsonic range..
Here's some more vids:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a09mBkuC8wo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xfS_wmlfjg&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieb5IDnXV8o&feature=related
Here are some pictures I scanned from Strad magazine several years ago, of a rather large string bass, made by the 19th century French maker Vuillaume:
http://plover.net/~agarvin/bass.jpg
http://plover.net/~agarvin/bass2.jpg
http://plover.net/~agarvin/bass3.jpg