bluesharper
22 posts
Aug 14, 2009
7:31 AM
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So what is the worst harmonica you bought or currently own mines would have to be my hohner blues harp in E.
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ElkRiverHarmonicas
139 posts
Aug 14, 2009
7:40 AM
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Would be the harmonica my son sucked a broken reed from. All I really know about it is that it was made in China and when I saw the harmonica reed profile, I was ready to get on a plane to China, go to the factory, request a meeting with a factory representative, meet with the representative and then kick his ass. The from the side view, the reed was wider at the free end and triangle shaped, with the point of the triangle being the rivet end. They could not have purposefully made a reed to break off in my son's mouth, unless they made this same reed and put a deep horizontal saw mark right at the base.
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bluesharper
26 posts
Aug 14, 2009
7:47 AM
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triangular shaped reed? hmmm never heard of that before well i guess you learn something new everday lol.
By the way is your son okay after swallowing the reed?
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congaron
38 posts
Aug 14, 2009
8:01 AM
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Hohner piedmont blues set, but they are playable now that i know more. i still use the case to hold seven at practice when i don't want to carry everthing.
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jaymcc28
122 posts
Aug 14, 2009
8:31 AM
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I thought the piedmont set I bought was bad but after reflecting back they weren't all that terrible. After I got my first harp, an MB Key of C the Piedmont set was a great starter set to introduce me to the other keys.
I bought a 3-pack of Jawbone's shortly after and they really are the worst I've ever tried to play.
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scstrickland
164 posts
Aug 14, 2009
8:36 AM
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Hohner Blues Bender = Cheap Junk.
In the key of F
I find it hard to play. Actually painfull...Not because it is cheap. when I bend it reverberates in my head and makes my teeth hurt. Gives me headache.
So I don't like the harmonica and I don't like the key. Anybody else have problems like that?
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jonsparrow
779 posts
Aug 14, 2009
8:39 AM
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i have this chord harp from china that has a few broken reeds. so i guess thats my worst one. its realy old an was givin to me with the reeds allready broken.
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nacoran
154 posts
Aug 14, 2009
10:44 AM
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I got a second hand Blues Band at a garage sale for a dollar. After cleaning it up I discovered it had a couple wonky reeds. (I put it's cover, which is pretty similar to a Special 20's, on a Piedmont and now it's tone is actually OK, but it takes hurricane force winds to play.)
I also have a set of covers that I'm guessing were maybe for one of those harps that they will stamp your company's logo on, only this one was never stamped. Again, I slapped it on a Piedmont and got good tone, although it doesn't bend well. The cover was actually very comfortable to play until it got bent up.
Has anyone ever tried customizing a Piedmont? I wonder if my it would fit on a Special 20. I actually like the feel of their covers.
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jaymcc28
127 posts
Aug 14, 2009
11:43 AM
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I don't like the covers on the Piedmonts. I thought of trying to fit the jawbone covers, which are metal, on the plastic comb of the Piedmonts. But with trying to actually learn how to PLAY I have very little spare time to play with tinkering. However, I need to do something because of my "good harps" (Harpmasters and a GM) I have some issues with stiff reeds that I might be able to make more playable with a little gapping ala Joe Spier's videos.
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djm3801
191 posts
Aug 14, 2009
11:59 AM
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Marine band in A. First marine band and probably my last. No offense to those who like them.
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congaron
39 posts
Aug 14, 2009
12:22 PM
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The piedmonts are tweakable. Now that I can play better, I can bend them all, but no overblows.
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snakes
331 posts
Aug 14, 2009
12:25 PM
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Definitely a Marine Band key of C. I have 5 or 6 MB's and the others are better, but this will not bend from the 3 hole draw. It sounded great out of the bellows at the store... The rest of the MB's I own take an incredible amount of air to play, but I love the tone. Have to admit that they just sit and don't get used more than once every 3 months or so.
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Bb
78 posts
Aug 14, 2009
1:02 PM
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Any Lee Oskar. I think I bought 3 before I figured out that I hated them. Have a bunch of Special 20s, but they just sit now that I've got my Harrison Marine Bands and some self-tweaked Marine Bands as backups.
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harmonicanick
334 posts
Aug 14, 2009
1:09 PM
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a jack daniels promotion harp...no idea who made it but its crap..its in the glove compartement in the car but I ignore it judicially..rubbish
Hey Bb dont knock LO you are wrong, I have all minor tunings and they are great and hard wearing...what you dont know you dont miss man...
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Bb
79 posts
Aug 14, 2009
1:31 PM
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Hey, some people do like LO. That's fine. But I personally don't like the way they sound or feel. Not really interested in minor tunings for my own purposes. Iffn I want to get all minory I just do that with a regular tuned harp.
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Patrick Barker
379 posts
Aug 14, 2009
2:00 PM
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Some pro harps and some blues harps... Hohner's MS system just sucks...
I also have a hering 1923 that smells horrible and plays badly too... one of the reeds is nearly impossible to bend all the way and half of the reed rattle when I play... disappointing because otherwise the harp is pretty loud and playable.
I also really don't like Lee Oskars.
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It's all in the tongue
Last Edited by on Aug 14, 2009 2:05 PM
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bluzlvr
231 posts
Aug 14, 2009
2:11 PM
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The worst LUCK I've had was when I ordered two Seydels (Soloist Pro) and two Bushmans (Delta Frost), neither of which I'd tried before, and within a couple of months both of the Seydels and one of the Bushmans had a blown four draw reed (after very light usage.)
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ElkRiverHarmonicas
140 posts
Aug 14, 2009
3:31 PM
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It was triangle shaped if you looked at it from the side. Reeds are supposed to be milled where they are thick at the base, then taper... that distributes the stress along the reed. This one channeled it all to a specific point, thus it broke.
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LeonStagg
12 posts
Aug 14, 2009
5:16 PM
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My worst was a Hohner 580 Meisterklasse in the key of G. I thought that since it was sort of expensive, it would naturally play well. Let me know if anyone wants it.
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catfish row
1 post
Aug 14, 2009
7:15 PM
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djm3801 said: Marine band in A. First marine band and probably my last. No offense to those who like them.
Same with me, followed by LO.
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jbone
124 posts
Aug 14, 2009
7:39 PM
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i have not bought a marine band in maybe 20 years. but i think the worst harp i ever tried to work with was the huang star performer, or the other similar model. i was tired of blowing up $20 (at the time) sp20's, and i could get 3 huangs for the same money, so i gave them a shot. i had a guy who would sell me all i wanted for $7 each- guess he must have made $5 anyway! those harps, some would be total crap out of the box, others would sound good for maybe a gig or 2 and then flat out.
i have the usual dilemma, i want quality for real cheep. it just is not gonna happen.
i have stuck to delta frost and LO's for a while now. i will use a big river in a pinch, there is a trick to playing them but they can sound pretty good usually.
the blues bender i got essentially free since GC gave me a $20 gift card because they are so nice. or they were desperate to get some warm bodies in the store. it's a fair harp, i got one in C and to me it's close to a sp20.
i got a promaster a long time back, again free, in B. who the hell ever uses a B harp? but it was free. i thought it sounded pretty decent and was not hard to play. i still have it but it stays home always.
for a long time i thought ALL harps were crap. then i discovered my PLAYING was crap and set out to change that. result is, i know i need to fit myself to the instrument and quit dreaming of an atomic bionic harp. if they end up making one that's indestructible, i won't be able to afford it anyway!
i still shudder when i see a huang star performer harp- not often since nobody here sells them.
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dewey.deloe
42 posts
Aug 14, 2009
8:37 PM
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The last three D Marine Bands. I dont know if it was a bad batch or what. I love the sound but i am sick of them. Oddly it is usually the 5 draw going bad on them.
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Down the road I got to go
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Elwood
128 posts
Aug 15, 2009
4:59 AM
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I notice nobody has mentioned Suzukis yet. I wonder if I should convert.....
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www.murrayhunter.net
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bluesharper
28 posts
Aug 15, 2009
5:06 AM
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I have bought one suzuki promaster valved and i have to say it sounds great
But maybe i just got lucky.
I think that sooner or later your gonna buy a bad harp except of course if you buy them off customisers ;)
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congaron
41 posts
Aug 15, 2009
5:58 AM
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okay, since we are breaking it down...here's my take on it..just raw numbers actually.
blues harps..C and D. D was full of issues, C is perfect. It will even overblow holes 5 and 6 out of the box. So, 50% with a tiny sample size...worth another shot I think. I fixed the D harp and use it daily.
Marine band...A. tone monster and bends every hole..overblows on 5 nd 6. can you see i am not good enough to do the other OBs...lol. very nice playing harp, like the blues harp in c in some ways.
suzuki promasters in low F and Eb. bends every hole otb, overblows on 5 and 6 (pattern developing here)
suzuki harpmasters same as promasters plus some hole 4 ob on acouple of harps...keys i own are d, e, f, Bb, and g.
special 20...c and a. basically the same as the harpmasters but feel heftier.
the marine band did require a tweak on hole 3 draw, just remembered. very minor with a toothpick and covers on.
looks like i have been very fortunate, but suzuki is the only one that has a perfect track record otb except for the two special 20s. to me, they are all great..worth the tiny tweaks..especially the marine band.
forgive my typing, i am, opn pain killers aftyer a shyoulder surgery..pretty loopy today.
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Scoltx
53 posts
Aug 15, 2009
6:29 AM
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Elwood says "I notice nobody has mentioned Suzukis yet. I wonder if I should convert....."
My worst is a Suzuki Folkmaster in Ab. Leaky, won't bend well. It was priced cheaply and I see why.
I like the Bluesmaster I bought at the same time tho.
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bluesharper
30 posts
Aug 15, 2009
6:33 AM
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yeah but cheap harps like folk master are generally going to be bad dont you reckon i saw a folk master in A in a shop being sold for sumthin like £5.99.
so generally cheap ones are bad anyway.
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jaymcc28
129 posts
Aug 15, 2009
7:17 AM
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Oh, forgot about my Folkmaster in E. Just as Scoltx said; leaky, tough to bend. I'm not giving up on it though. I'm going to use it as my 'experiment' when I find some time to start tweaking. I love my Suzuki Harpmasters so I don't want to give up on the Folkmaster just yet.
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congaron
42 posts
Aug 15, 2009
7:40 AM
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Lol! I too forgot about folkmasters...lol. I have one in A and one in Bb. I tweaked them both and they are nice, basic, warm sounding instruments on everything but overblows, which I am no good at..haha..run on sentence from the loopy pain killer guy.
My main complaint is they catch my mustache and are extremely light weight (remember I have promasters too..so it's all "relative"..I made a funny.)
I keep them as a different tone, since they sort of have that cowboy around the campfire sound to my ear. Nice pocket harp for chump change and good spares in my case.
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ElkRiverHarmonicas
141 posts
Aug 15, 2009
2:51 PM
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Leon, I do enjoy the 580s. If you don't want it, I do.
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LeonStagg
13 posts
Aug 15, 2009
6:00 PM
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Dave, I'll send it to you Monday.
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isaacullah
307 posts
Aug 15, 2009
6:14 PM
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I won't mention the no-name brands and the cheapo $5 harps that I've bought. They all sucked, but that was to be expected.
I guess the two worst disappointments I've had were when I was hoping to get a decent-playing harp for less money. Those were: the Suzuki Folkmaster and the Huang Star Performer. I hated both of them for various reasons, and end up killing them both while trying to somehow make them playable.
Of the "normal" priced harps I've bought, I would have to say that the Hohner MS blues harps have been the worst. Just not very good, and they wore out fairly quickly. All my marine bands, Spec 20's, Seydels, and even Lee Oskars have been at least playable or even very good out of the box. They've all lasted well except for a Seydel Soloist Pro in A that had a 4 blow reed go a little too quickly than I thought it should. My other Soloist Pro is doing just fine though!
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The magnificent YouTube channel of the internet user known as "isaacullah"
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Blackbird
102 posts
Aug 15, 2009
7:44 PM
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I've never met a Hohner Golden Melody I liked, and I can't find comfort in the playability or feel of the Lee Oskar harps.
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Bluzdude46
118 posts
Aug 15, 2009
11:00 PM
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Before I learned how to setup my harps I was wearing out A harps like every 3 weeks, I was gigging alot with DWM back then. Lee Oskar MB SP20, didn't matter I was playing alot of the LO back then and I still have one or 2 Minors but I used to play hard and wear them down. I sing alot of E blues so A was a problem. I bought a Meisterclasse hoping it was Heavy duty enough and sucked a 4 reed out of it the 2nd gig I played I was fairly pissed about the $$.
Morale of the story is I learned to set up harps properly and I've had the same set of SP20's now for 2 years, I'm setting up a complete set of MB's (nails and all) , thank you Dave & Chris, Joe and Adam for the tips, and they are coming out so nice I went back in the SP20 and re-did them. They play better so I'm not forcing the bends and reeds are lasting. My playing has gained a subtlety I didn't have before and the cost savings is phenomenal. Besides I quit drinking because of Diabetes and I seem to have a lot more time on my hands so it was a good time for a hobby.
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DanP
92 posts
Aug 18, 2009
2:12 PM
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The Pocket Pal. Shortly after I started playing, I bought an instructional book and cassette by Jon Gindick called Country and Blues Harmonica for the Musically Hopeless and the Pocket Pal harmonica was part of the package. The book and cassette were good but the harp was so out of tune it was worthless.
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Aussiesucker
333 posts
Aug 18, 2009
9:20 PM
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Worst ever for me was a Hohner Big River in A. It was the leakiest harp I have ever played. It felt like I was blowing & sucking through a picket fence & response was so slow. No amount of tweaking and sealing with micropore would fix it.
I have a collection of harps ca 70 or so including Chromatics and Tremolos. I dont yet own any customs. Out of the box I have found that, for me, Suzuki reign supreme with a preference for Harpmasters although I have Promasters, Bluesmasters and the little Folkmasters which I dont find at all leaky. I also rate Lee Oskars highly. Have Hohner MBs, SP20s, Blues Harps but find that they are not as well made and are less reliable but have nice tone.
I would however never touch another Big River ie dreadful!
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Andrew
519 posts
Aug 18, 2009
10:52 PM
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Worst ever were Lee Oscar in D and Seydel Solist Pro in Bb.
I agree with Dewey that Marine Bands in D are hard work (I've had a bad and a not so bad - for me it's the 2 draw on these harps that causes the problems)! But you listen to recordings of a MB in D in say 1969 and they sound so sweet and easy!
Last Edited by on Aug 18, 2009 10:58 PM
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Andrew
520 posts
Aug 18, 2009
10:55 PM
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People buy a MB in A, and the gaps are huge, and they don't close them - they just say "I'm never buying another MB". It's tragic.
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snakes
336 posts
Aug 19, 2009
11:03 AM
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Andrew,
I have bought many (6?) keys of MB and my A was the best. My key of C was the one that just won't bend so I literally tried to play it for several minutes and then put it in the "never to be used again" pile. What a waste of $30.00... And sorry, but some of us with commitments like a daily 3 hr. commute when traffic is good (nope can't play harp on the bus) and extremely poor manual dexterity look at working on our own harps as something that eliminates practice time (either that or we don't sleep or eat...) and is so unrewarding and unenjoyable that I'd consider another instrument before I'd go down that path. I actually like playing the harmonica too much to do anything serious in the realm of tweaking a harp. Yes, I've actually taken one apart and due to a spatial relation handicap I had a difficult time remembering how to reassemble it. Funny, but I can do physics, complex math, I am engaged in learning another language, and I am an application analyst so I build and upgrade servers and applications for a living. But, I struggle with visually reassembling things mechanical (obviously even the simple). I am not trying to be coy, harsh, or to be a jerk, but some of us are just not the tinkering type so the MB despite its great tone is only something we'd consider when buying a custom job. Peace man.
Last Edited by on Aug 19, 2009 11:03 AM
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Andrew
529 posts
Aug 19, 2009
12:31 PM
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Snakes, the first half dozen times I stripped a harp I put the cover plates on back to front about 3 times! The skill doesn't come automatically.
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Kyzer Sosa
32 posts
Aug 19, 2009
11:11 PM
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i have two sp20's Bb, and the 2 draw full bend rattles on both... it's like dah-dah-dah, dioooong! sounds like the damned reed is smacking up against the other reed plate or maybe against itself i dunno....Its MaKinG me ANGry!!!!!!doesnt do it on my Bb blues harp, ITs MAKinG mE ANGry~!!!!!!!!!! IT DOESnt Like ME WHEN iM anGRY!@!!!!! (eyes glow, turns green, rips shirt, etc...)
update: after watching a few helpful vids, and four hours later, im too damned tired, never did turn green, and willing to be patient to try and fix it....later...
Last Edited by on Aug 20, 2009 1:07 AM
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DaDoom
117 posts
Aug 20, 2009
2:23 AM
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Definitely my Hohner Pro Harp in C. It never played well from the day I bought it. Since it was among the first harps I bought I didn't know if it was me or the harp...it was the harp ;)
Still it's good to have a bad harp, so at least you can try out things on it (tweaking, retuning etc.) without having to worry.
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wheezer
89 posts
Aug 20, 2009
9:40 AM
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Hohner Blues Harp in A. Unplayable new from the box.
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mickil
477 posts
Aug 20, 2009
5:21 PM
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Aussie & weezer,
It's funny or, rather, hit and miss I suppose with Hohner MS harps.
A couple of months ago I bought a Blues Harp in D that's impossible to bend on the 3 draw. The rest of it is fine.
Then I bought a Big River in Bb that was as leaky as hell, more than I remember the last one being.
Then, the other day, I bought a Blues Harp in Bb that's fine, really good, in fact. Even I can get a good 6OB on it. Anyway, I shoved on some BR cover plates, cos I like them, and it's one tasy harp: crunchy as hell.
Shame that buying Hohner MS seems to be so random, quality wise.
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'If it sounds GOOD to you, it's bitchen; if it sounds BAD to YOU, it's shitty' - Frank Zappa
http://www.youtube.com/user/SlimHarpMick
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Max-T
20 posts
Aug 23, 2009
2:31 AM
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My first harp was a key of C Lee Oskar, i thought it was ok ish for a while but alot of the time it would choke when I bent notes and make a horrible squealing with OBing the 6 hole, I tried re-gapping but no avail.
Also the coverplate design on the LO's are quite high profile and it hurts my lips to play them
My favourite are Marine bands, seems like alot of you folks have had problems with them, must be a quality controll issue because all the ones I have so far play great.
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"imagination is more important then knowledge" - Albert Einstien
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