5smokey
6 posts
Dec 08, 2018
6:01 AM
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Looking for advice. Sometimes when I slide down to the 1 draw to hit it hard or resolve a phrase, the note totally chokes up - no air gets thru...no sound. Doesn’t happen often, but it’s mostly when I’m on stage, kinda amped up and hitting notes hard. Is it me (technique)? Or do I need to tweak the reed...maybe increase the gap on the draw reed?
Here’s some of my playing/singing with our band. My best Sonny Boy (Help Me) https://soundcloud.com/user-434295339/green-onions-help-me-yonders-wall-1
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nacoran
10012 posts
Dec 08, 2018
10:28 AM
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It can be both you and the gapping. The best harp gapping takes your style into account. If you can fix it with just a playing adjustment you don't need to gap it and raise the gap a little. Remember with gapping that just a very small adjustment can go a long way.
As for playing with too much force, it can be fun, but remember you'll go through harps faster that way.
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Nate
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The Iceman
3731 posts
Dec 08, 2018
11:58 AM
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It's the gapping. If you play hard, you'll need wider gapping in your reeds whenever you find they choke.
I'm a fan of "It's not force - it's finesse" to get the most out of a harmonica.
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The Iceman
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SuperBee
5671 posts
Dec 08, 2018
12:19 PM
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It could be just the gap, but the reed shape can also play into this, especially on the longer slots.
I’ve had quite a few harps present like this, where the gap appears appropriate at first inspection but the reed chokes easily. Increasing the gap doesn’t work because it makes the reed unresponsive.
In these cases I found the reed was poorly shaped, “belly down” in the slot.
Sometimes it’s not too hard to fix with careful application of pressure/counter pressure to straighten the reed; raise the belly in relation to the tip
Steel reeds can be very difficult to deal with on the harp though, and it’s usually these which are involved. I often find it easier to replace the reed if it’s a low key harp with steel reeds.
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5smokey
7 posts
Dec 08, 2018
6:27 PM
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Thanks guys. All good stuff to think about. I think I’ll work a little on the gap.
Interesting that you say steel reeds SuperB. My harps that tend to choke are my Seydel 1847s. They have still reeds, right?
So are you saying I can’t alter gap or reed shape of a steel reed? I once asked a fairly well known customizer to tweak one of my 1847s and he said he wouldn’t touch it. He told me, “Those things are voodoo.” Not sure I knew what he meant but he wouldn’t touch it.
Last Edited by 5smokey on Dec 08, 2018 6:31 PM
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dchurch
205 posts
Dec 08, 2018
7:07 PM
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I dont experience any particular problems while tuning, gapping, or shaping steel reeds. Brass is just somewhat softer and more malleable.
That said, I recommend working on a cheap or spare harp before tackling your nice 1847.
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It's about time I got around to this.
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SuperBee
5676 posts
Dec 08, 2018
7:40 PM
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Hi 5smokey.
I work on them fairly often. I have 3 on my bench right now in fact.
It’s not that you can’t reshape a steel reed, although they do present different challenges compared to brass, and I do prefer to work on brass.
The reeds in chamber 1 though, present a particular challenge when they are shaped in the way which causes the problem I described above.
These long reeds in the lower keys have quite a lengthy section at the free end which is considerably thicker than the milled area joining it to the rivet end. It’s quite resistant to reshaping with the kind of force I’m able to apply with my fingers and hand-held probes, rods etc.
I find I’m more likely to damage these reeds attempting to straighten them while still attached to the harp.
Since I have to remove them anyway, I usually just replace them with a reed which doesn’t require work. Reeds are cheaper than the time it takes to straighten them.
I’ll straighten them if I have to ie if I don’t have a suitable replacement on hand.
I know one customiser who said “I’d rather be kicked in the bits” than work on a steel reed harp to make it perform to his standards.
I think about that at some point during the process of working on near every steel reed harp which comes my way. Of course, a fair proportion of those sent to me are harps with problems so I expect I have a weighted view of the product which is not proportional to the general standard
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hvyj
3657 posts
Dec 09, 2018
5:32 AM
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Probably gapping, but, the reed could also be slightly out of alignment in the slot. These issues are not mutually exclusive. A slightly too tight gap may exacerbate the problem created by a slightly misaligned reed and vice versa.
Last Edited by hvyj on Dec 09, 2018 5:36 AM
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5smokey
8 posts
Dec 09, 2018
5:44 AM
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Love the way my 1847s sound - richer, more full than Crossover (my other choice). If I replace the steel reed with brass will the harp still sound the same? In other words, how much sound characteristic comes from the reed material?
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SuperBee
5677 posts
Dec 09, 2018
1:07 PM
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People with heavy cred will say otherwise but I say very little of the sound characteristic comes from the reed material.
Just last week I repaired a LowF Seydel Session (brass) using a steel reed. This harp already had one repair with a steel reed. Now it has 2 steel reeds. I asked the owner to try it out before he took it. He could detect no inconsistency.
I started thinking about this a couple years back when I was looking for brass reeds to repair a seydel. Greg Jones expressed incredulity that I’d use anything other than a steel reed. Greg is seydel’s official, authorised repairer in USA. He told me he repairs about 500 harps a year,
I think its quite possible they might feel different to play but I set reeds up to play the way I like so I don’t find that to be an issue either.
I have replaced a steel reed using brass too. I wouldn’t do that unless I really needed the harp in a hurry and didn’t have a steel reed. I believe there’s a good reason seydel went to steel reeds. I don’t have a lot of confidence in their brass products, but I’d use them without hesitation if I had no alternative. Reeds in the 1 slot rarely fail though, but I still wouldn’t use brass. If nothing else it doesn’t hold its pitch as well as steel.
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robbert
488 posts
Dec 09, 2018
4:49 PM
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This thread reminded me that I have Manji in G, my primary performance harp, in which the one draw will stick often but not always. It is always inconvenient and annoying when it does. Anyway, being very comfortable working on harps, I’ve tried everything(plinking, clearing the sides, adjusting gap) to cure it. It seems to be fine upon testing, and I think it’s fixed and then in performance, I’ll find its back to intermittently choking. The”belly down” description got me reworking the reed shape ever so slightly this morning for a gig this afternoon...and viola! No choking, not once. So, thanks SuperBee.
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SuperBee
5678 posts
Dec 09, 2018
6:58 PM
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Great news, Robbert! And thank you for the feedback. I really appreciate it.
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groyster1
3286 posts
Dec 14, 2018
7:42 PM
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I dont choke 1 hole but use it quite a bit......its a great turnaround lick.....if you can bend 1 hole on a G harp youre pretty good.....but 1 hole is pretty helpful to me........
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Oldcatplayer
2 posts
Dec 29, 2018
6:49 PM
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You playing it too hard if you're choking the note. You can blame the Harmonica if your already saying your hitting it hard. Relax you're playing technique and you'll be able to play a lot better. Nobody play better because they play harder. You'll just wind up having to replace and fix more Harmonicas.
Last Edited by Oldcatplayer on Dec 29, 2018 6:50 PM
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nowmon
197 posts
Jan 03, 2019
7:15 AM
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lighter attack,so when you go into a riff,you can crack the whip,and honk the lick...Walter Horton was a master of light into hard bite on that harp....
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