Random notes on XB-40

["M. Erickson" <erickm@xxxxxxxxx>]

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I've had an XB-40 for about 10 days now. Here's a couple of random
observations:

The more I play it, the more it sounds like a regular diatonic and less like
a chromatic. It's probably just my ears and technique, and has nothing to do
with the instrument.

At this point, I would not recommend this instrument to a beginner. You'd
kill 'em with all the bends. Some of the bends are easy and expressive, and
some occur when least expected. In my opinion, unless you are skilled at
draw three bends, you'll have a very hard time with this instrument. 

Habits I developed while playing a regular diatonic cause trouble with the
XB-40. Draw 5 can do into a bend unexpectedly. Odd flat notes can occur at
unexpected moments, draw and blow. Just sitting around playing this
instrument you can pull a million melodies out of this instrument, but while
playing with others this instrument can be problematic. Those bad notes can
really make you sound bad.  (Of course, this could just be happening to me,
and others won't experience this problem....)

I could not work out the myriad of bends on the XB-40, without a keyboard of
some sort. Intonation is so critical with the XB-40. 

Bent notes differ in timbre from unbent notes. This is true on a regular
diatonic. A good mic and a tube amp will mitigate the differences for blues,
rock and some jazz. For clean playing  the chromatic is the instrument of
choice. In fact my interest in the chromatic has grown while I've been
working with the XB-40. 

The XB-40 is tougher to play than I first thought. It'll take work to master
it. That work should be well worth the effort.

I don't think the XB-40 looks like a toy -- I think it looks like a well fed
Special 20. It looks like it means business.