Venerable Musicians, I dig the Marine Bands but am sometimes chopping my lips up on the protruding reed plates after a few hours of practise. Please tell me, what can I blow on that has decent tone, compromised tuning, bends as easily as a decent Marine, costs less than a hundred bucks and has recessed reed plates? I haven't yet warmed up to the one Lee Oskar that I own, so I would rather try some other brand next. Thanks for saying. Peace and warm regards
Special 20..You can open the cover plates for a more marine band-like tone..it is even possible to dremel the sides of the cover plates to let some sound out the sides. I have used emery cloth on my reed plates of my marine bands and trimmed the tines that protruded. I can play plenty long (a couple of hours continuous)before the cuts begin. When they to, i switch top a special 20 or harpmaster, but the harpmaster is ET tuning.
Maybe even the Suzuki Manji. The plates are not recessed but it doesn't have a wooden comb which may be your problem. The Manji has a strange compromise tuning though but some on here are impressed with them. ----------
Yeah, the GM's have a protruding plate, but if I was going to go through the process of sanding down the plates I might go with the GM. I love the rounded corners on my hand.
I've somehow made it this far without playing a Marine Band, but the protruding plates on the GM and Blues Harps bother my lips. A really like the Special 20's, but I prefer plastic combs (at least to stock wooden combs, custom combs are a whole different ballgame.)
edit- And welcome aboard!
Last Edited by on Jan 11, 2010 7:59 PM
Thanks. I will definetly try the Special 20, the Manji and sandpaper for the Marines. Might spring for something more pricey to gain access to more choices in a recessed plate
For comfort, hardly anything can beat a Suzuki HarpMaster. BUT!!! and a Big BUT!!!!I Can't deal with ET tuning anymore!
SPECIAL 20 i've finally decided is my favorite HARP bar-none and i've tried THEM ALL. Believe me, no matter how much $$$ you have to spend (or credit cards to charge up), stick with the Special 20's and you'll be a "happy harper."
They have tone and chords to die for and play SO easily, very airtight. Like someone said, you can open up the backs if you need to mimic the marine band.
I "like" the marine band, but i'm not able to deal with the wood and nails at the moment. I like to be able to easily open my instrument if need be without spending 7 hours modifying them. You can do the knife trick like Adam G. but they never seem as airtight to me after i mess with them.
Marine bands sound great though if that's your cup of tea, i'm a "Special 20" dude for now. (Hohner,...call me...555-.......) -$DR$ ---------- $Daddy Rich$ "The Blues is Ok!"
Sorry to come back, but just want to warn you about Hering. Please don't WASTE your $$ on the Vintage 1923. They could be a good harp, but TERRIBLE quality control and Set-Up, unbelievably so. (loose screws, bent reedplates from factory!) I've never tried a "recessed" Hering, but after receiving 4 different Hering 1923's with quality issues, i decided not to give that Company anymore of my hard earned $$. I worked on them the best i could and sold them half price on EBAY a week later. I hear their chromatics are alright. Dunno.
Psssst....dear Suzuki, if you would put out a harp tuned like the Hohner Special 20 you'd be rich and put everyone else out of business. Why can't we have a JUST tuned HarpMaster? I'm tired of compromising! The MANJI "just" doesn't cut it on the chords. I've got one in "A"
Once you play a smooth chord on a Special 20 or Marine Band, there's "JUST" (no pun intended) NO turning back.
Anybody out there have a link on how to tune HarpMasters and other ET harps to a JUST tuning? or is it even worth the trouble? ---------- $Daddy Rich$ "The Blues is Ok!"
Thanks for the Herring warning. Also thanks to the perpetrators for this solid website, all the fine info. As far as the E.T. harp redo goes, I myself know nary a thing about the arcane sciences. I suspect that you may have already known about Richard Sleigh for a long time now, but just in case it helps someone, his website - www.customharmonicas.com /r.sleigh When I stop drinking I'm going to try and figure out some tuning. Mr. Sleighs books and classes might not get down to your specific E.T. Conversion needs but I'm thinking he could at least provide entree into that occult realm.
I have and currently gig with marine bands, special 20s, harpmasters, promasters, blues harps and one big river. For tone, the marine band gets the nod on acoustic. Amplified, I don't think the crowd cares one way or the other. Actually, they probably don't care that much about acoustic tone...one harp over another. As for my personal, subjective tonal preference OPINION:
Marine band Blues harp with big river covers Suzuki Harpmaster Blues harp Special 20 suzuki promaster Big river with blues harp cover plates (can you see what happened here?)
Honestly, for a raspy tone, Harpmaster takes them all for me, since ET tuning can even accentuate this if you are careful about what chords you use and hit them in passing.
For sheer ease of play and acoustic tone, I prefer marine band.
For overall low maintenance, easy playing and good sounding chords..special 20.
This is really a sickness...lol.
Last Edited by on Jan 13, 2010 1:39 PM
Any harps you do not see listed there are tuned to ET.
No matter who makes them, all harps that are held together with screws will periodically need to have the screws retightened, but just make sure you just do it hand tight and no further or risk stripping the threads and making an eve worse air leak.
All of the tunings are listed as the number of cents sharper or flatter than equal. It is very important that you do the following:
a.) have an extremely quiet environment in which to work in; b.) use the SOFTEST breath force that you can physically manage because hard breath is NEVER accurate; c.) the ideal tuner will be a strobe tuner, tho you can get by with most chromatic tuners, but NEVER totally rely on the tuner because your ears are the most important tool of all; d.) With ET tuning, the octaves have to be right, and they're correct when the wavering or beating stops completely. With just intonation, not only this has to happen, but you ALSO need to listen to how the note sounds with the other two notes in the chord and when the chord is completely smooth and the wavering/beating stops completely, you're done.
IF you want just intonation, there are literally thosands of different versions of t and to see them all, go to http://www.justintonation.net.
The two that have been used are 7 limit and 19 limit. 7 limit was used for many decades on diatonics, and if you were to get all of the LW, BW, both SBW, and Butterfield recordings, all of their diatonics were tuned this way. The drawback to it is that 5 & 9 draw are tuned 29 cents flat, and anything past 3rd position isn't a good idea, as if you took a C and played it in F, then you'd have a root note tuned 29 cents flat.
19 Limit is more versatile so that you can play more positions and 5 & 9 draw in this tuning is tuned 3 cents sharp.
Most traditional blues players (inclding yours truly) much prefer just, especially for playing chords and double stops, but for other genres, where that's far less important, comprimise or ET tends to work better. Until the mid 70's, most harps were tuned to 7LJI, and then Hohner introduced the GM in 1974, which was one of the first to be tuned to ET.
In 1982, Huang were the first to come out out of the factory using 19LJI.
Right now, the vast majority of diatonics are tuned to ET, as the diatonic is now played in genres and areas that were once the exclusive territory of a chromatic, and many of the overblowers tend to favor that tuning more and those who favor ET rarely ever play chords and double stops. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
