Some random tips on Harp and technology related stuff etc.,. Feel Free to add your own!
Computer Tip
1. If you own a PC, windows media player comes bundled free with it and is the default music player. When playing a song on it, right click on the play button and you will see an option for SLOW play which is a good easy slow downer for breaking down fast licks. It's also got a fast play option, useful for when you play a Jason lick at walking pace and then hit fast to hear yourself play it supersonic;)
2. A quick way to embed a video on the forum is to right click on the youtube video you want to showcase and click on ‘copy embed code’ then start your post on the forum and right click in the text box and select paste and the weird HTML code will appear which will display the video after you have posted it.
Harp maintenance tip
1. Putting the cover plates back on the harp after cleaning can be a bit fiddly. I often use a rubber band or two to hold them in place while I fiddle with the nano nuts and bolts.
Last Edited by Grey Owl on Jul 04, 2018 12:03 PM
When you get a custom comb make sure you sand the rivets that go on the the comb side to get a good fit. I had a harp with a Blue Moon comb that I didn't do that it I thought the plate was bad I sanded and wow the harp played so much better.
Also, make sure the cover plates are in groove on the plate and secured tightly. I have a F harp that just sings with an Andres Zajac comb and all of a sudden it just lost it's power. Low and behold the cover had slipped out of the groove. After I got it back in it played great again. ----------
Take an ibuprofen or other anti-inflammatory a couple hours before trying to fiddle with tiny screws. More of a body hack for people with arthritic problems, but a useful one!
If the nuts don't fit you must acquit!
The front groove issue Diggs mentioned is a good one. A related problem is that Sp20 plates don't have that groove, so a Sp20 switched to a non-recessed comb will be prone to sliding. (Tom's Sp20 specific combs are a great way around this.) It's a small glitch in the custom comb ecosystem- if you want to upgrade a less expensive MB or Sp20 you either have to deal with redrilling the holes for a MB or sticking with a recessed comb for a Sp20 or do a lot of little fiddling when you reassemble them.
for cleaning 1] sonic tub $ 70 or so if your not taking apart the harp –
-2] [cut the long bristles off a toothbrush], [make 1/3 normal length] will allow u take a couple parallel swipes at the reed and slot —do side to to side a lot
3] for mustache hair or whatever?? the short bristles work well to get stuck reed going--- the short length prevents bristles from getting caught in reed slot
4] the correct solvent to remove wax’d rivot ends is [toluene or xylene.]
[do in fresh air----of course] ] let soak 5 min or so take out and wash with soap and water-- dry and do again if necessary---
if my serves me-- last time I had to do it, it took 2 rounds----but it was wax free and cuz u finish w/ soap and water was ok to play—no taste no fumes after wash
I carry a thin, soft dish scrubbie to remove mouth residue from the cover plates since I have a tendency to gum them up very quickly which increases drag on my lips and slows down playing speed.
Like Raven says but I use lemon scented moist wipes to clean off the gunk and keep the cover plates clean. An old toothbrush for loosening the gunk in the holes. Then there is this tool which Al Price and Frederick Yonnet both use.
Here's a small one...Them damn little screws get lost it seems no matter what you do. I'm a guitar player too and I have a few old guitar pickups on my bench that I have taken out of guitars and I have one that is just a small screw catcher and holder. I'm sure any magnet will do...it's just a fun use for a pickup that is at least temporarily out of commission for intended purpose.
I love the rubber band idea too. These tips are so great. Thanks a ton... ---------- www.bigroadband.com
Where i do any harp work has a thick carpet and no matter how careful i am occasionally drop a tiny screw or bolt onto it. I keep an old broken speaker with a large magnet in the cupboard and i just use it to sweep over the carpet finds the missing bit every time.The first time i did it i was surprised at what came out of the carpet!
Try using hydrogen peroxide to clean your harps--I have started using it for chromatic reed plates to clean the windsavers, I bet it would work to get other organic gunk off.
"... inhaling toluene has potential to cause severe neurological harm."
Not only that, it's illegal in many states. The Wikiedia article again:
"Toluene is an intoxicative inhalant and its possession and use are regulated in many jurisdictions. As of 2007, 24 U.S. states had laws penalizing use, possession with intent to use, and/or distribution of inhalants such as toluene."
Then there is an entire Wikipedia article devoted to Toluene Toxicity. Bad Juju!
Like many toxic substances, Toluene shouldn't just be flushed down the drain or dumped on the ground. Once you've got it, it's tough to get rid of properly.
I'd advise staying clear of Toluene, especially on things you put in your mouth and/or breathe through.
Xylene is not a friendly substance either. Wikipedia:
"To reduce the risk of developing health problems from occupational exposure, one must wear gloves and a mask to prevent high concentrations of inhalation and skin irritation from Xylene."
Snowman, you must work in a job where these nasty industrial solvents are used. Maybe that's inured you to how dangerous they are, especially Toluene. Or maybe youn are just innocently passing on information you got somewhere. I wouldn't want either Toluene or Benzene them in my house, let alone in or on my harmonicas.
I'd be very careful advising people who aren't familiar with handling toxic industrial chemicals to use them -- on their harmonicas of all places! Quite honestly, that is some of the worst advise I've witnessed in 15 ears of haunting harmonica discussion groups.
Please figure out another way to remove wax from reed plates!
Michelle
---------- SilverWing Leather - Custom leather creations for musicians and other eccentrics.
Last Edited by mlefree on Feb 17, 2016 5:57 AM
I use hot water a lot, after disassembling the harp. Valves are a special case, boiling hot water will destroy them! I am liking the H2O2 since it is a cold process, and I know that it's attacking the organic stuff that will stick to them. I would not worry too much about toluene, but I usually mechanically remove glue for valves. And I don't see waxed rivet ends very much.
Last Edited by Gnarly on Feb 20, 2016 10:30 PM
Gnarly et. al., y'all can use Toluene (or be unafraid of it) at our own peril. Just remember I told you not to when your shrivelled brain falls out your ear on to the floor.
Michelle
---------- SilverWing Leather - Custom leather creations for musicians and other eccentrics.
Yes I shuddered at the mention of toluene too. A bit of stretchy fabric over the end of a vacuum pipe can be helpful when you want to get small stuff out of carpet too...you know, if it's non-ferrous and the magnet won't cut it...
ALWAYS disassemble and reassemble over something with a raised rim, like a jar lid, that will fence small parts in and keep them from rolling or bouncing away.
Craft picks. You can get them at any crafts store. Assuming you can keep track of where you put the bag a couple dollar bag should last you a lifetime. I think they are mostly supposed to be used to put dabs of glue on models. They really are just a little heavier version of a tooth pick. They are great for scraping crud off. Sharp enough so get the stuff that gets stuck in that front groove, long enough to reach in and plink a reed, and you can even rub the side of it along the cover to get even more crud off. And you can carry them in your pocket or wallet, no problem. And they are strong enough to scrape but soft enough there is no chance they'll scratch. The seem to be exactly in the middle on Mo's scale of hardness between harmonica crud and harmonica parts.
Joe Spiers once recommended Barkeeper's friend to me for cleaning crud off of old reed plates. I build a lot of harps from old parts. Often the reed plates are caked with all sorts of detritus of unknown origins.
BKF combines a mild abrasive with oxalic acid, which is intended to removes rust but I think it helps dissolve brass-related gunk as well. I use it with hot water and a soft old used toothbrush (never throw toothbrushes away). You have to scrub gently from side to side, NOT along the direction of the reeds or you'll catch a bristle between the slot and the reed. Never a good thing and it has the potential to ruin a good reed.
I wet the reed plate and put a ~pile~ of BKF on it. I make a sort of paste with the warm, wet toothbrush and start stroking very gingerly. In a couple minutes the plates have a beautiful brushed brass finish.
You have to rinse the plates super well when you're satisfied with their cleanliness because BKF tends to stay stuck in the recesses toward the rivet end of the reed slot. One of the benefits of cleaning crusty old reed plates is removing crud off the reeds themselves. No point in leaving pumice residue on 'em. Any foreign material on a reed is problematic for two reasons. It wreaks havoc on intonation and can clog the reed at any moment.
Works great for me.
Michelle
---------- SilverWing Leather - Custom leather creations for musicians and other eccentrics.
Last Edited by mlefree on Feb 18, 2016 5:53 AM
Pick up a roll or two of these Velcro cable ties. I keep them in my gig case, and any cable I get gets one attached to it, making it easy to keep things neat. For long cables I gang two of them together if needed.
I also keep a roll of blue masking tape (hi rob!) in my case. all my gear gets a stripe of it, making it easy to identify my mics, stands, etc. In a pinch, it can fill in for a missing screw on a mic stand or the like. It's a poor man's gaffer's tape.
Lastly, I keep a small bottle of mouthwash around, so my harps don't end up tasting like stale beer or whatever I had for dinner.
garry. The gear tips put me in mind of a cable wrapping tip I heard a while back. Coiling cables hand over hand in loops in one direction quickly leads to a spaghetti mess preventing the cables paying out nicely and developing unhelpful twists.
Below are a couple of videos demonstrating the under/over technique which eliminates the twisting lead issue. It works well but maybe not as effective with old cables that are already twisted. Also it would pay to use the velcro ties that Garry mentioned above to secure the coiled cablerather than running some surplus cable round the rolled up coil.
Forum posting tips.
1.Before I post a message I've written, I always highlight the text by mouse dragging over the text, then right click and select copy. If my text disappears after entering the Captcha I simply right click in the box where I want to re-enter my text and right mouse click and select paste.
2. The Captcha has a time out so if you take more than a few minutes to write your text the post will be rejected even if you correctly input the Captcha.
3. The captcha is not case sensitve so you don't have to bother with Capitals. My current captcha is NWE2Lc but I would input nwe2lc
This is a good thread. I like snowman's cut-down toothbrush idea, I tried it, it works well.
Re garry's blue tape to mark your gear. I knew someone who did that, and over time, gradually, all shared gear seemed to a acquire a strip of blue tape. Hmmm :)
Grey Owl's 'how to coil a cable'. Brilliant. I'm going to share that one with my band :)
Computer: When using Windows Media Player in the "Now Playing" view (default is the dark screen), if you right click on the screen anywhere you get a list of options to adjust a bunch of settings like speed, equalization and more.
In the "Library" view you can add a custom column to say what key the song is in or include a short note.
@grey owl: I've tried that coiling trick before, and it works well, but I can never seem to remember the sequence. Guess I need more practice.
But that reminds me of another thing, which is that I've gone to braided cables for the most part now. They're a little more expensive, but at least one I have comes with a lifetime warrantee. And they're several gazillion times easier to deal with than the typical audio cable.
And incidentally, those cable ties are cheap enough that you can use them for everything: phone chargers, patch cables, usb cables, iphone cables, etc.
I file down and polish the protruding reed plates on my Golden Melody harps. I noticed the GM cover plates typically have a tiny bump at each forward corner that keeps them from setting perfectly flat on the comb. It's not much but I file this area flat to get a tighter fit and reduce the mustache gaps.
A lot of jeans have that funny little change pocket. It's a perfect spot for packing a Seydel Big Six everywhere you go. ---------- It's about time I got around to this.
I try not to use slide oil on the chromatic, since it finds its way onto the reeds, valves, and reed plates (I have a chrom on the bench from a customer who used something horrible on the slide, the thing stinks to high heaven), but have found that the Suzuki Japan slide oil is excellent for use as a lubricant when embossing. Sorry, we don't sell it in the US. Here's a link tho http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/121804219023?ul_noapp=true&chn=ps&lpid=82
Last Edited by Gnarly on Feb 20, 2016 10:29 PM
The Suzuki stuff comes in a cute little bottle that allows you to release a drop at a time--very convenient. I don't know what it's made of, for all I know, it IS mineral oil!
@Grey Owl - I've built and coiled a gazillion miles of cable. for a while I used the "under over technique. I found that when uncoiling I always ended up with knots in the cable. And the over/under technique is why. When either end of the cable passes through one or more of the other coils, KNOT.
I coil all in one direction. First I throw the cable out more or less straight so it can just spin on the floor while I'm doing this. Roll the cable between thumb and forefinger on each wrap to help it happen. Uncoiling - grab one end, toss it across the floor. Roll the cable through thumb and forefinger to get out any remaining twists. Fast, neat, NO KNOTS.
So - to each his own..... ---------- *************************************************** /Greg
I fold my cable in half first, then coil it up in one direction. Its twice as fast to coil it up, always un-coils without knots. I just hold my two ends and toss it out, both ends are in your hand, one to hook up your mic, and the other to plug in. Works great for me, and my cables don't get kinked up either.
I like what either Andrew or Brendan do (I can't recall which) for dispensing embossing oil.
After seeing his solution, I took a small plastic jar and cut a piece of sponge to sit snugly inside. Then I filled the sponge to saturation with regular mineral oil.
It works great for dispensing just the right amount of oil onto your embossing tool of choice. Not too much so as to make a mess, not too little to keep from lubricating properly.
When I'm done, I just recap the jar and it's ready for next time.
Michelle
---------- SilverWing Leather - Custom leather creations for musicians and other eccentrics.
Last Edited by mlefree on Feb 21, 2016 10:52 AM
Greg & Bass410man The last thing I want is to get my coils in a twist so I will try your methods as well and see what works best for me. I have got on ok with the under/over method so far albeit with short cable runs. I think it’s important when tying the coil not to let the plug end folded up last to drop down into the coil.
Dchurch Thanks I’ve got that tuner and its good. This puts me in mind of another couple of useful Android apps
The first is an app from Seydel called Harmonica Key finder which is available for free on Google play.
It will show the harmonica layout for all 12 keys It will allow you to look at the scales for Major, Blues, Dorian Minor, Natural Minor and harmonic minor. You can select a song key and position of harp and it will show the harmonica needed with the harp layout and the Tonic and scale notes indicated in colour including overblows (which you can choose not to see if you don’t use them) and you can select a number of tunings including Richter, Natural Minor, Country,Paddy Richter, Melody Maker, Power Bender.
Another good Android app available for free or buy the Pro version cheap is the Harmonica Key finder. As above it will show multiple harp layouts and different positions notes highlighted and various tunings. It will detect your harp sound and indicate the note being played including all bends and Overblow/draws and show you how close you are to being in tune which is useful when trying to get your intonation correct.
@ Grey Owl The exact way I do this when packing up is: I grab the two ends ends of my cable, then slide it through my hands until I get to the other end, middle of the cable (if its a particular dirty floor, stage or whatever, I slide it through a rag to clean it as I go). Then I coil it up from the middle loop out to the jack ends, that way any twisting comes out of the cable. Then as I said in my other post, when I want to use it, I just throw the loop end out and hang on to the jack ends, and your ready to plug in both ends. May not work for everyone but works for me. Also that tip on slowing down media player, great Thank You.
For general cleaning I like small squares of old t-shirts and a 2 oz spray bottle of 91% alcohol. It cuts through that opaque film that can form on cover plates. A piece of a chopstick or a wood cuticle stick are good for breaking up gunk. Chopsticks are good for tab areas like on MBs or SP/20s. I use a chopstick to insert in the slots to support blow reeds when tuning w/ a tiny Dremel/dental tool thingy. I cut a groove so it clears the rivet pad or a screw repair. Have good day. M.A.P. ---------- Have good day. M.A.P. .
By the way. I'll use barkeepers friend on really crusty oxidized reed plates if I need spare parts. It shines them up like new. I'll give them a baking soda bath afterward to neutralize the chemicals. Used to do that to horns when I fixed band instruments. (the baking soda bath. ---------- Have good day. M.A.P. .
I also use the baking soda bath on horns and harmonica plates. I don't play much chromatic (yet) but I was wondering how a trombone slide cream might work on a chromatic slide. It is designed to stay put and get slipperier when it gets wet. I find the creams work better than oils on a trombone slide, I have yet to have to lubricate my chromatic slide.
Someone mentioned the little bottles of slide oil that are designed to dispense a controlled amount. Here is a mischievous tip for those that I used in high school band. Take the top of an empty slide oil bottle out and pack it with damp baking soda. Fill the oil bottle about half way with vinegar. Get to the band room early and carefully install the tip to the bottle and leave it on a stand in the trombone or trumpet section, without the screw on lid. Try to feign ignorance when some poor musician gets hit with the nozzle and doused with vinegar after picking up the bottle and shaking it to prepare it for use.
Last Edited by STME58 on Feb 23, 2016 3:34 PM
Nate Yes I reckon a lot of the knotting comes from the fact that if you don't secure the coil with a twist tie or similar the plug ends can slide back through the coils and cause knots.
Here are a couple of useful harp maintenance tools I use.
One is a stitch unpicker or seam ripper and cheap at a couple of dollars or less. It’s great for cleaning crud at the comb ends and along the cover plate grooves on the reed plates. It’s good for plinking the reed or lifting them by easing up the reed from inside the comb. You can also slide the end under the reed and hold it in place for tuning or easing towards the rivet end to profile the reed or use it as a lever the other way round to remove any kink along the reed.
I have removed the tiny plastic ball on the shorter arm as it gets in the way.
The other device which you can obtain from model making craft shops is a handy thin file for tuning reeds. I like how thin this file edge is (less than 1 mm) and the curve which seems to make tuning easier. I got a whole set of these files in various sizes for next to nothing.
Should anyone want to find one, that curved file is called a riffler file. Riffler files are handy for many little tasks where a straight file won't fit.
if you right click on the play arrow on windows media player you can select slow play which remains at the correct pitch when the song is slowed down.
For any Samsung phone users my Galaxy S7 and no doubt the S8 & S9 have an inbuilt sound recorder which contains a slowdown feature that is pretty cool. (I'm sure other smartphones will have similar features.)
Here is my demo video. It features a slowdown example using part of the song in the video posted by One Palm John. It doesn't have the ultra slowdown of the Amazing Slowdowner software or Audacity but it's pretty handy for the casual practice of tricky songs on your smartphone.
An earlier video I made for getting a cupped harp sound from a vaccum cleaner attachment! Useful if you play racked and also hand held.
This thread started with Grey Owls tip: 2. A quick way to embed a video on the forum is to right click on the youtube video you want to showcase and click on ‘copy embed code’ then start your post on the forum and right click in the text box and select paste and the weird HTML code will appear which will display the video after you have posted it.
Is there similar way to share Facebook videos so that they open immediately on this page?
