logansays
2 posts
Dec 29, 2010
11:34 PM
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HI ,
Greetings!!
I havent posted here much. I have been playing for about 10 months .
cant really afford custom harps , so tried to learn whatever I could from the videos online. now I can play the 1,4,5,6, overblows without squealing and cleanly and bend them up as well.
what I understood from most videos is the gap has to be as close as possible for overblows , and the reeds straight( i cud be wrong) but when I blow hard the blow reed chokes..
now my questions is does setting up the harp for overblows compromise on responsiveness? and having never played a custom harmonica, does a custom harp with overblow setup allow u to play overblows as well as blow hard and stlll play perfectly without choking?
is chamfering the way to do that , cos thats the only thing I dont do ( apart from a lots of other customization techniques I have no clue about..)
how important is Chamfering and tip scooping? would appreciate any kind of help on this..
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jonlaing
163 posts
Dec 30, 2010
12:08 AM
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Usually tighter gapping means that the harmonica is MORE responsive. This also means it's more prone to choking if too much breath force is used. When you have a well set up harmonica, you usually don't need much force at all to get a strong note. Really, on some of my better harps I'm hardly breathing at all and they sound just fine. I also find that using less breath force makes you more nimble on the harp too, because you don't have to work your diaphragm as much.
I don't think chamfering or tip scooping is particularly important. I'm not sure how many customizers use them, and I'm not positive how drastic the effect is. Pretty sure you just need to use less force when you play.
Hope that helps.
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Greyowlphotoart
293 posts
Dec 30, 2010
12:17 AM
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You've done well to acheive overblows and bend them up in only 10 months. I think there is a bit of a compromise. If you close the gaps very tight particularly on the blow reeds to get the blow reed to choke easily for the overblow then this can affect the normal blow notes when you hit them hard.
This means you either have to live with this and play the blow holes softer or increase the gap until you can still acheive a clean overblow and maintain your normal playing style on the blow holes. It can be a fine line and I have experienced this myself as I found I have a percussive blow which can choke the reed. I am fairly certain this is largely down to a question of gapping.
EDITED TO REMOVE STRAY TEXT
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Last Edited by on Dec 30, 2010 4:01 AM
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boris_plotnikov
388 posts
Dec 30, 2010
3:16 AM
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I never see any advantages of tip scooping. Most home customizers don't do a really good embossing. When slot is embossed for whole lenght and good enough (I use microscope to emboss slots) your gap don't have to be tiny.
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Excuse my bad English. Click on my photo or my username for my music.
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logansays
3 posts
Dec 30, 2010
3:21 AM
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I do emboss the reeds..does embossing in any way affect the Tuning ?
does the harp have to be retuned after embossing.?
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boris_plotnikov
389 posts
Dec 30, 2010
3:42 AM
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It depends on how're you doing emboss. I usually ark reeds while embossing, arking sometimes (rare) make brass reed sounds lower, never for stainless steel. If you emboss too tight at rivet side, you can make reed vibrate not for all lenght, but from some scrap in the beginning, in that case reed sounds too high and it's very bad situation, you need to remove extra emboss, to allow reed vibrate properly.
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Excuse my bad English. Click on my photo or my username for my music.
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harpdude61
582 posts
Dec 30, 2010
5:20 AM
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Blowing hard is the issue. No need to. You will play more in tune, more cleanly, and be able to move around the harp much quicker and smoother by playing softly. Not to mention the harps will last much longer. Let the amplification system do the work.
I don't use overblow on hole 1,but on holes 4 thru 10 I set both blow and draw reeds as tight as possible. Finally after much much much practice the overblows and overdraws are starting to sound and feel just like any other note.
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