Re: [Harp-L] Stainless steel reeds - do they sound different? Somedata



I had the pleasure of playing this harp at Buckeye this last weekend. Rupert was kind enough to give me a Bb for evaluation. The lower octave is very responsive and has a nice bell like sound to it. The 1 hole draw was flat and required tuning which was very different than brass. I had to file quite a bit to make a difference. However I suspect that it will hold it's tuning better. The same can be said for the gapping. Since I play valved harmonicas, I tend to open the gaps a little more than today's out of the box models. Again, this was a little more difficult to achieve due to the makeup of the reeds. But I'm willing to bet they stay put better. It's a very cool thing and will only get better. I think Seydel is really making some great moves. I am not a tech but I do know what I hear... and I like it.


PT Gazell pt@xxxxxxxxxxxx www.myspace.com/ptgazell www.ptgazell.com http://www.sonicbids.com/PTGazell www.cdbaby.com/all/gazell

----- Original Message ----- From: "Vern Smith" <jevern@xxxxxxx>
To: "Winslow Yerxa" <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>; <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, April 24, 2007 3:38 PM
Subject: Re: [Harp-L] Stainless steel reeds - do they sound different? Somedata




----- Original Message ----- From: "Winslow Yerxa" <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>
To: "Vern Smith" <jevern@xxxxxxx>; <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, April 24, 2007 1:05 PM
Subject: Re: [Harp-L] Stainless steel reeds - do they sound different? Some data



Vern -

I agree with your qualifications, but it's nice to see a step in the
right direction.

It is indeed!

As to the question of stiffness profile having an effect: to the extent that such differences are required by differences in the properties of the materials, they could perhaps be seen as secondary effect of differences in materials.

I agree with this reservation. I have a Hard Bopper with one home-made SS reed. I have found no one who can find that reed by listening to or playing the harp. Even if we can see differences in the spectrogram, the question remains if the differences are perceptible to humans. This is like the hi-fi buffs who used to listen look at square waves on an oscilloscope.


I still think that it is possible to design a SS reed which will not be perceptibly different from a reference copper-alloy reed. The two reeds will have large differences in geometry. When and if I complete my SS reed making project, I'll stand on firmer ground to debate the matter.

Vern
Visit my harmonica website www.Hands-Free-Chromatic.7p.com


Winslow



--- Vern Smith <jevern@xxxxxxx> wrote:


I applaud the person who made and published the spectrograms and to
Winslow
for bringing them to our attention.  This sort of thing will
contribute to
our understanding of reed function.

Especially, I applaud Seydel for making harps with SS reeds.

That said, here are some cautions on drawing conclusions from the two

spectrograms.

I found that the spectral differences of supposedly-identical but
different
reedplates on the same comb material were surprisingly great.  I
believe
that differences in the gaps and the clearances between the reeds and
slots
can show up in the spectrograms. That means that you can't attribute
all of
the differences in the spectrograms to differences in materials.

It would be interesting to see several spectrograms of  sets harps
with
brass and SS reeds.  That would let us assess how much of the
difference was
attributable to the difference in reed materials and designs and how
much to
other variables.

The other thing that would be interesting to know is how much the
stiffness
profile (the resistance to bending at each point along the length of
the
reed), and the mass at the tip varied from brass to SS. If this was
not
carefully controlled, the spectral differences may arise from
differences of
reed design and not from differences in material.

The spectral differences may have arisen from differences of
materials,
differences in reed design., or in differences of installation such
as gap
and clearance.  It would require more data to sort that out.

Vern
Visit my harmonica website www.Hands-Free-Chromatic.7p.com

----- Original Message ----- From: "Winslow Yerxa" <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, April 24, 2007 9:21 AM
Subject: [Harp-L] Stainless steel reeds - do they sound different?
Some data



> Bertram Becher of Seydel sent me an interesting link: > > http://www.seydel1847.de/epages/Seydel.sf/en_GB/?ObjectID=211764 > > He recorded two otherwise identical harps, one with stainless reeds and > one with brass reeds, then ran a frequency analysis on each. There are > differences that are both audible on the recordings and visible in the > frequency graph. > > Winslow > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around > http://mail.yahoo.com > _______________________________________________ > Harp-L is sponsored by SPAH, http://www.spah.org > Harp-L@xxxxxxxxxx > http://harp-l.org/mailman/listinfo/harp-l >




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