Seydel harps (longish review)

[Pat Missin <pat@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

As well as the Boomerang, I also received a couple of other Seydel
harps for review. It is a while since I had the chance to look at some
of their harps and I must say that their production standards seems to
have improved considerably in the last few years.

First we have the Seydel Blues Musicmaster. As I mentioned in my
review of the Boomerang, Seydel's factory has made harps for a variety
of different companies and the Musicmaster is essentially the same
harp as the Weltmeister Blackbird and the Bushman Soul's Voice, except
for differently finished covers. The covers are plated mild steel,
painted with a green finish and attached with those pesky hex-head
bolts. The comb is plastic (ABS?) and the reedplates are fully
recessed into it in the style of the Special 20 and Lee Oskar, with no
brass exposed to the player's mouth. One thing that sets Seydel's
harps aside from those made by most other manufacturers is a slightly
wider hole spacing. An octave span on the blow notes of this harp is
about 24mm, as compared with about 22mm on most other brands of
10-hole diatonic, although I'm not sure how many players would really
notice this difference. The reedplates are of fairly standard
thickness (about .9mm) and attached to the comb with three Pozidriv
screws. The reeds and slots appear to be machined with good
tolerances. The reeds look very much like those used on Hohner
HandMade/Classic harps, although the reed profiles are quite
different. This is most noticeable in the lower octave where the
weighted tips of the reeds are much longer than they would be on
Hohner reeds of the same pitch. Another uncommon feature is that all
the reeds are the same width. Most manufacturers use narrower reeds at
the upper end of the instrument and older Seydels used to have
particularly narrow reeds up there.

This particular harp is in the key of A and uses a compromise
temperament, perhaps a fraction sharper than I would choose myself,
being rooted relative to about A=444. Octaves are for the most part
nice and clean, with little or no beating. The tuning has been done
with diagonal file marks, but the tuner appears to have used a very
light touch. The reed adjustment is very consistent, using a slightly
lower gap than you would typically find on most other brands. Response
is very even over the full range of the harp. All the bends are easy
and the mid-range overblows are there without requiring any further
tweaking. It is available in all keys from Low C to High A. Yes - I
did say LOW C. As far as I know, Seydel are the first company to
manufacture a standard 10-hole tuned an octave below the regular C
instrument. However, if you think that is low, let me introduce you to
the Seydel Blues in Low G.

Once upon a time, harps were available in 12 keys, if you were lucky.
Some models were only available in a few keys, but generally 10-hole
diatonics covered a range from G at the bottom, to F# at the top. Lee
Oskar upped the ante by introducing the Low F and the High G. A few
other manufacturers followed his lead and before long, we were treated
to harps all the way down to Low D. If you wanted anything lower than
that, you either had to switch to one of the 12-hole or 14-hole models
(with substantially wider hole spacing), order a customised harp, or
make one yourself. Now you can buy an off-the-shelf harp tuned a whole
octave lower than the regular key of G instrument.

The Seydel Blues uses the same comb as the Musicmaster, but has brass
covers shaped a little like the Hohner Meisterklasse. The reedplates
are also identical to those used on the Musicmaster, but are secured
with eight screws rather than three. Opening it up, I was a little
surprised to see that the reeds are not machined to this extra-low
pitch, but have been retuned from a higher pitched model. However,
they must have originally been quite low in pitch as the reeds as far
up as hole seven are milled with thicker tips. The lowest two reeds an
each plate has been additionally weighted with solder - regular
readers will know that I have some reservations about this method, but
they appear to have done an exceedingly neat job. The remaining reeds
have been retuned using abrasion along the length of the reeds. The
first three reeds on each plates are valved - this not only improves
the response of these reeds, but also reduces their travel, preventing
that annoying rattling against the cover you would otherwise get with
the lowest draw reeds. Overall, the response is extremely good and the
chords sound nice and crisp. You can probably pretty much forget about
bending notes in the first two or three holes, but that's due to the
laws of physics rather than any flaw in the instrument's design.

The relative tuning is excellent, almost spot-on traditional 7-limit
JI tuning, however the overall pitch is rather sharp, being rooted
relative to something like A=448. I'm not sure if this is deliberate
or whether the tuning of the harp has drifted sharp since it was
retuned. I suspect the former, as the relative tuning of the harp is
so good, but I shall be keeping an eye on the tuning to see how
steadily it holds.

The Seydel Blues is available in all keys from Low G to High A - I
make that a whopping 26 different keys for the standard major tuning
alone and that is before you add in the alternate tunings available
for this and several other Seydel models. And your spouse thought you
already had too many harmonicas...!

Seydel harps are available online from several retailers. I'm not sure
that they have a US distributor, but Isabella Krapf of Vintage
Harmonica Editions speaks good English, deals directly with the Seydel
factory and accepts credit card payment. She can be reached at:

krapf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

In addition to the various tunings that Seydel are producing
commercially, they have also expressed an interest in making custom
instruments in virtually any tuning you wish and I suspect that
Isabella would be the best route to explore these possibilities if you
do not speak German.

DISCLAIMER - I have no financial interest in either Seydel or Vintage
Harmonica Editions (most readers will know that I play Lee Oskar
diatonics almost exclusively).

 -- Pat.