RE: Suzuki reviews (long)

[Pat Missin <pat@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Steve Shaw wrote:

>I'd like to know what Pat, or any other harmonica technician, thinks about
>spot-welding as opposed to the more "traditional" way of securing reeds.
>The Suzuki way seems a lot less "tinkerer-friendly" - or perhaps there are
>advantages I'm not seeing!

Obviously there are advantages for Suzuki, otherwise they wouldn't be
doing it. The welded reeds are certainly much less tinkerer-friendly,
but then the overwhelming majority of Suzuki's customers are not going
to be messing with the reeds, so it makes little sense for Suzuki to
cater to those few who do.

The advantage on Suzuki's part is that as part of the overall
manufacturing process, the welding process presumably streamlines
their production lines and enables them to turn out harps more
efficiently. Also it virtually eliminates the possibility of reeds
getting knocked out of alignment, or of the rivet being driven into
the reed too hard causing the heel of the reed to crack (the latter is
either uncommon, or it is usually intercepted by quality control, but
I have seen a few reeds that have left the factory in this condition).

The downside is, of course, that if one reed fails, you are expected
to replace the whole reedplate. This is a drag for those who do their
own replacement of individual reeds, but as that probably accounts for
a small fraction of 1% of Suzuki's customers, it makes no economic
sense for Suzuki to consider them. To Suzuki's credit, replacement
reedplates seem to be available for most of their premium harps.

Replacement of welded reeds is by no means impossible, though it is a
much slower process. The price I would have to charge to replace reeds
on one of the cheaper Suzukis generally means that it is often cheaper
to replace the reedplates or sometimes the whole harp, particularly if
there are two or three reeds that are dead. 

One of the main challenges is not so much the process of replacing a
reed, but finding a new reed of the right size and pitch. Removing a
dead reed from a reedplate is easy enough, but removing a good reed
without damaging it is much harder. For the Suzuki ProMaster you can
cull replacement reeds from the older riveted reedplates. I've also
managed to fit slightly altered Lee Oskar reeds to Suzuki tremolo
reedplates. However, when it comes to the unique tapered reeds of the
Alto and Soprano Singles, finding a suitable replacement is going to
be very difficult indeed.

The good news is that most people find that Suzuki reeds generally
have pretty good longevity, almost as good as those used by Tombo/Lee
Oskar, so it's not like you should be replacing reeds on a daily
basis. It does mean that if you are into radically altered tunings,
Suzuki harps might not be the best choice for you, unless you enjoy a
challenge.

 -- Pat.