Saw something on You Tube from Brendan Powers on a new Suzuki harp - the Manji. Apprantly Manji is the first name of Mr Suzuki himself. Composite comb. Welded reeds. COver plate is stainless and interesting design. I am not a Suzuki fan, have 2 that are OK. Many folks love them. Wonder how much it is going to cost?
They seem to be aiming more at the custom market, touting the most close tolerance reed to plate gaps out of the box. Guess release is timed for the SPAH convention.
I guarantee you that won't be the case for customisers who understand what they're doing. You can count them on one hand- easily. This harp, as well as Brad Harrison's, will separate the men from the boys. Personally I can't adequately express how excited that I am to soon finally have better harps to work with.
I think it looks great , another long slot harp from suzuki , following the Fabulous ,with a more classic feel,they use the PhBr reeds just like in bluesmaster , and deltafrost . Does anybody know what kind of reeds are in Fabulous?
But Joe, pray tell me what else would you be able to do to improve upon it. The cover plates look fine so no further work could be done to improve those. Apart from a bit of gapping/arcing/fine-tuning (should they need it) what else could be done?
I attach a link to the YouTube article for those who haven't seen Suzuki's new baby yet.
Your comment on gapping/arcing/fine tuning is exactly what I hope to only have to do. That is enough work, without having to correct a variety of problems and sealing combs on top of that! You make it sound like it's a piece of cake. Well it's very complex piece of cake, and I'll leave it at that.
Maybe I am being overly simplistic, but as Harwrench said, working on harps is not necessarily easy. Why is it almost a given that a harmonica player either has to pay $100+ for a custom or be a jeweler and work on their own? Do not get me wrong, I work on cars, do stained glass, etc. I do not understand how inconsistent harmonicas can be out of the box. I can only GUESS what this one is going to cost.
I actually find the Special 20's I get pretty decent, Delta Frosts also decent. Seydel solist pro's good too. Marine Bands are for machinists, my opinion. Bought 2 and they both needed to be ripped apart, comb sanded, a reed here or there tweeked. Never bothered replacing the crappy nails with screws. Anxious to see where this Manji will go.
Joe, having fiddled with my harps to a very low level of competency I know only too well the difficulties encountered. I don't know where you got the idea that I thought it was a piece of cake. I re-read my previous posts and nowhere does it say that I thought it was easy.
Well, seeing as the Fabulous in the UK is £199.00 and this supposedly has even tighter manufacturing tolerances, it's anyones guess.
Brendan does say it's affordable in his video so I guess it must be lower than that.
I'd have to think twice if it was more than £50.00. My standard of playing couldn't justify more, I could make do with the Bluesmasters and Harpmasters which I find to be good enough harps for me, plus I know I can replace the reedplates.
So, if it's £50.00 or under, I may be interested but only on condition replacement plates were available.
Here at the SPAH store--they had some out today with antiseptic wipes--I played an Ab for a while. Very nice--bends really well--smoothe as silk and I actually had them get an Ab out of a box under the counter because there were none out--so it hadn't been played by anyone when I got it. I would have bought it on the spot but for one little caveat: the tuning.
For those of you of the Equal Temperament persuasion, I think you will like this new harp a lot--for forty bucks or less, it's a great deal.
For us of the Marine Band, JI persuasion, it sounds a little off on octave splits and low-end chords--which is where I live.
So, for me, I might still buy one or two when I have the time to sit down and tune them to my way of thinking--then they'd be really killer. . .
Yes, $40 is going the to be the price arrange. When I was in the Suzuki booth, Brendan Powers was there demonstrating them and allow anyone to try them. He also said that the Manji will become available in October.
