Andrew's blog

I make my tools by hand. These have been cut, polished and sharpened. Ready to be packaged.

I now offer Dark Combs™ for Brendan Power's Lucky 13 harmonicas.

Order them here: Other models including Marine Band 364, 365, pre-MS Meisterklasse, Seydel Big Six, Easttop 008

I strongly recommend you obtain and use The F Tool to straighten both the blow and draw reed plates. These are fine harps, but they suffer a little more from the difficulties associated with mass production than a higher quality harp.

Hohner reed plates are "Long-slot" in keys up to and including C. Keys of Dd and higher are "Short-Slot" meaning the reeds are shorter.

Marine Band combs for these keys have shorted channels.

On the highest pitched harps, you may start to run into trouble getting the 10 blow half-step bend. It may sink into the full step bend offering you very little control. The trouble here is not only a matter of technique - although you do need to master fine motor control.

The trouble is mostly a matter of physics.

The acoustics of the reed chamber can interfere with the resonance of the 10-hole half step blow bend. Short-Slot Hohner Marine Band combs try to compensate for this. I've taken it a few steps further.

My solution has been to change the shape of the chamber so that the acoustics cooperate with the resonance you create as you play.

Until now, I have only offered this innovation in my custom harps.

Starting today, I will offer this design on all Short-Slot Hohner Marine Band and Golden Melody combs I make.

Here is a Factory Short-Slot Marine Band comb compared to my Short-Slot comb:

"Country Tuning" is one of the simplest altered tunings. You raise the 5 Draw by one semitone.

Using the Grobet 0-cut file and a good reed support tool, this can be done in a minute or two.

You get a major seventh instead of a minor seventh. If you use the 12345 draw chord, it's now a Jazzy-sounding major seventh chord.

The 456 draw chord is now a major chord, too! On a standard tuned Richter harp, that's a minor chord.

This tuning also enables a draw bend on the 5 Draw reed.

I now offer Dark Combs™ for Easttop Blues 008K and 008S!

Order them here: Other models including Marine Band 364, 365, pre-MS Meisterklasse, Seydel Big Six, Easttop 008

I strongly recommend you obtain and use The Flatness Tool™ and Reed Plate Claws™ to straighten both the blow and draw reed plates. These are fine harps, but they suffer a little more from the difficulties associated with mass production than a higher quality harp.

I recommend the ones with riveted reeds. There is no advantage to spot-welding reeds unless they are put on perfectly centred at the base from the factory. They are not. Riveted reeds can more easily be centred at the base than spot-welded ones.

I also found Easttop tuning to be quite imprecise. Tuning was plus or minus six cents! As such, it's not possible to lay out a meaningful tuning table of offsets for these harps.

I recommend you tune them yourself using a chromatic tuner and your ears.

This is a custom comb I first made in February 2016

You can tune the 7 hole any way you like. Here, by lowering the 7 blow, we gain a draw bend. Add 7 blow into the top end blow chord and you get a minor seventh.

You can modify a standard cover plate to fit by trimming away the top end and doing a little folding and smoothing. Sorry, I don't have a photo of the finished product.

I offer Custom made combs here.

Barry bought my tool kit and overdid it on a reed. In this video I will show you the steps I take to correct this problem using pressure and counter pressure.

Would you like me to make a video about your "best" mistake? Contact me and let me know your ideas!

https://harp.andrewzajac.ca/

This is part of a series of checklists I am making available to you.

Click the "Printer-friendly version" link at the bottom of the page and feel free to print out as many copies as you like!
----------

Basic embossing checklist
(Half slot embossing)
version 2016/12/13

Items needed
___ Tools to disassemble the harmonica (screwdriver)
___ A hard round object (Example, a chrome-plated socket) or a specialized Embossing tool
___ Plinking tool
___ Reed work or gapping tool
___ Reed wrench
Prep work
___ The harp is airtight
___ The reed shapes are favorable
___ Gaps are set
___ The harmonica plays well (Embossing will never, ever fix a problem)
Embossing
___ Take the harmonica apart
___ Lay reed plates reed-side-up on a flat surface
___ Press the Embossing tool or round object into the middle of a slot. Advance to the tip (not the base) using gentle downward force
___ Use your fingernail to feel for a catch on the inside of the slot. If none is present, repeat the previous step with slightly more downward force.
___ Plink the reed to make sure you didn't use too much force and over-do it.
___ Repeat the process for the other slots

Troubleshooting
___ If the reed won't plink, consider reed alignment.
___ If you embossed too much, apply pressure to "un-do" the embossed ridge using the reed tool or the plinker. Look through the slot and press the tip of the reed through. Can you see where the reed is contacting the slot? Apply gentle pressure to the slot wall in that area.

Here's a way to fix tuning problems that goes straight to the heart of the problem. Don't worry about temperament. Forget about the numbers. Use your ears to figure out what's wrong.

The goal here is to only tune the worst one or two reeds on the reed plate.

The trouble with "hunt-and-peck" tuning is that you can make things worse if you tune reeds at random. If two reeds are out-of-tune with one another, which one do you adjust? Do you focus on chords or on single notes?

Use this opportunity to decide what sounds good to your ears. If you have trouble deciding if something sounds good, an out-of-tune harp will make it easy for you to hear what sounds bad!. This will help you identify what is in tune and replicate it to the rest of the reed plate.

Method:

- Divide the blow plate into three octaves. Play 456 as a chord. How does it sound to your ears? Do the same with 123 and compare. Which one sounds most in tune? If you are in the habit of playing chords on the top octave, try the 789 and 10 hole chord.

- If one octave's chord is much better than the others use it as a reference. If all the chords are bad, break down the 456 chord by intervals (tonic octave - 1-4 blow, thirds - 4-5 blow, and fifths - 4-6 blow). Consider what reed in the 456 you need to change to make it sound nice. Use a piece of paper to write down your plan.

- Play a melody in the middle octave and try to notice if any notes sound off. If you can accompany yourself using a jam track, do so.

If you are in the habit of playing in positions other than First, Second or Third, play a melody in that position and listen to what notes sound out of tune. Compare the same melody in another octave (use the same position.)

- Decide which problem is worse: Do I need to fix chords? or Do I need to fix individual notes?

- Play all the octaves on the blow plate and find the ones that are our of tune.

1-4
2-5
3-6
4-7
5-8
6-9
7-10

You have already determined what reed(s) are the culprit in the earlier steps. Example, if the 1-4 octave sounds bad, but you like all the notes of the 456 chord, then tune the 1 reed to agree with the 4.

- Pick the one or two worst reeds on the plate and fix them. Don't aim for perfection, just make things sound good.

Remember: "Better" is the enemy of "Good". If the tuning is "good", move on and forget about making it "better".

- The process is almost the same for the draw plate. Focus on the 234 draw chord; do not consider any other chords on the draw plate. Play the chord and play a melody. Identify whether the chord or the individual notes are out-of-tune. Adjust individual reeds by using the following octaves:

1-4
3-7
4-8
5-9
6-10

Would you like me to make a video about your "best" mistake? Contact me and let me know your ideas!