[Harp-L] Another tiresome XB40 thread, or non-thread...



Here's yet another XB40 rant, so hit delete if you like, but have pity as I haven't been able to get my hands on one till now!

I got my XB40 (in G) two weeks ago. I played it at home for a week as it came out of the box, got that informative harp-L reply from Rick Epping about retuning, then tinkered....

I did the Paddy Richter Shaw-style retuning (on the 2 draw, not the 3 blow, as I've always done - don't ask me about it, but inertia's got a lot to do with it!). I've left the auxiliary reed alone for the time being. It still works fine. I might get round to retuning it if needs be. I had played the harp quite a bit before doing anything to it in case there was any settling-down going on inside. I tried to make and use one of Rick's reed-lifting tools but I thought I was risking damaging the reed (I'm clumsy, and one false move...), so I did a little fine-tuning of the blow reeds with the reed-plates off instead (lots of little screws, but they come out and go back in OK as long as you go progressively - dig those different lengths!), testing the result by just holding the plates back in place - that worked fine, and I felt happier than if I'd been fishing reeds up through the holes, especially the shorter ones.

The gapping of the harp was fairly consistent, but as for tuning I found the 8 blow and 9 blow were quite audibly flat. I know that this (8 blow anyway) could be a function of the Hohner intermediate tuning, but these reeds were not even tuned consistently with the equivalent ones an octave lower (5 blow and 6 blow). I fear that this was a quality control issue. A peculiar thing I noticed was that the lowest auxiliary reeds did not have a zero offset. As the sounding reeds down there bend OK I haven't done anything about this.

Overall the harp feels a little leaky to me (from the word go, not as a result of my tinkering!). Unless I'm using considerable wind the notes seem in danger of just not sounding. This is a consistent feature throughout the harp's range. The gapping doesn't seem excessive, which is the first thing I looked at. At the moment I feel that the harp is restricting my dynamic range as a result, i.e. I have to play moderately loud to loud. Maybe I'll get used to this, but note the harps I like the best....

.....I can see a use for it in my playing but it certainly isn't going to replace my Lee Oskars and Special 20s for the tunes that work on those harps. A particular problem I'm having with the XB40 is fast runs, e.g. up and down the first position scale, with a lot of changes of air direction, without it sounding very choppy. That's a consequence of what I said in the last paragraph.

I'll see if the harp "plays in" in the next week or two, though I've always been very sceptical about the concept of breaking-in. Maybe it needs to break ME in!

As far as I'm concerned, the jury's out still on this harp. Its construction is ingenious, but undeniably we're getting away from the beautiful and functional simplicity which is to me one of the most appealing attributes of the 10-hole harp. But the bottom line is whether effortless playability can be achieved in the LO/Sp20 sense. I'm curious as to whether I'll find the same things when Santa brings me my low D XB40 (and I do know, as does one wonderful guy over on your side, that he IS bringing me one!)

Steve

http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/trad_irish_harmonica

Steve's CD of mostly traditional Irish, "Blowing Through The Reeds," is now available! Hear clips at http://www.gjk2.com/steveshaw/cd.htm

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