RE: Omnibender

[Winslow Yerxa <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>]

- --- In harp-l-archives@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Robb Bingham 
<robbingham@xxxx> wrote:
> 
> Does anyone on the list HAVE an Omnibender already?
> Have you talked about it somewhere? Is it in the
> Garply archives? Are they still unsearchable?

I don't own one, but I did get to play one for awhile
at SPAH 2002 - there should be a post in the harptalk
archives about it.

The instrument I played was a late prototype and not a
production model. It was a G-harp. The size of the
instrument is similar to that of an AutoValve, but it
has a plastic mouthpiece, which the AutoValve does
not.

It played pretty nicely - most of the notes both blow
and draw bend very nicely throughout the range of the
harp. Though I do recall having trouble bending some
of the lowest notes. It felt like it could have used a
bit of custom tweaking. 

Rick Epping was playing Irish tunes on it, not so much
exploiting the full bending capabilities to bend
notes, but more using the bendability of all the notes
to give them a full tone and subtle pitch-based
vibrato, thereby making it a melody instrument with
consistent sound from all the notes as opposed to an
instrument where there is a strong blow/draw contrast
in sound.

Winslow



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