RE: Removing valves

[Pat Missin <pat@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Laurent Vigouroux wrote:
>
>I don't know how this would apply to a regular chrom (solo tuned). Can
>anybody out there give more details on that subject?

There are both advantages and disadvantages to having both reeds in
the chamber interacting.

If you remove just the outer valves, you are now able to get
full-throated blues harp style dual-reed bends on the D, A, Eb and Bb
notes. 

However, you will have to do some careful adjustment of the draw
reeds, otherwise they will tend to sound somewhat weaker than the blow
reeds. Even then, you may still find that the F and F# may sound quite
weak, particularly in the lower register. The B and B# notes are
likely to be even worse. In fact, on a 64 or a tenor chrom, the lowest
B and B# notes will note play anywhere near as well as on a valved
chrom, as they are tuned a semitone below the corresponding blow reed.
They will probably need to be gapped slightly wider than the
neighbouring reeds, otherwise they will tend to stall under sharp
attack.

This is less of an issue in the upper octaves.

 -- Pat.