Re: [Harp-L] comb material (was big sound



Zombor wrote:

"I have already read that article. What is the point
making different comb materials then?"


Different materials have different properties which make them better
suited for being a comb than others.  As a manufacturer, things such as
cost of production, ease of machining, durability, feel and others come
into play.  Aesthetics also play a role--people tend to consider
plastics as "cheap" and thus inferior to metals or wood, so will often
pay more for metal or wood combs.

>What is the way of amplifying the sound in a
>non-electronic way then?

Not by the comb--even if comb material does alter the tone somewhat,
it's not about to make the harmonica any louder.  There just isn't
enough of a surface area on the comb exposed to air which it could then
vibrate and move to amplify the sound.

A megaphone-type device is something which can increase volume and
projection, but there are problems there particularly that these tend to
be highly directional--projecting to one area and excluding others.
Another idea is to simply use your hands to create resonant chambers
around the instrument which are tuned to the note in question.  Douglas
Tate was a master at this and could get an incredible volume and
projection by shaping his hands for each note--again, the archives have
a lot of information on this, though the best place is Douglas' book
"Play the Harmonica Well".  Further, you could get into the range of
doubling the reeds being played, which is part of the allure of octave
tuned harmonicas: two reeds an octave apart are louder than a single
reed. 

An idea I haven't tried but that might make for a fun experiment would
be to try playing the harmonica somehow connected to a large Styrofoam
container such as an inexpensive cooler.  The hard part is, of course,
translating the vibration to the cooler as the harmonica itself doesn't
really output a lot of vibration, but rather a lot of air.  I wonder if
you could play into a diaphragm of some sort and then have this be what
moves the Styrofoam.  

A final thought is to create something similar to what Cham-Ber Huang
did for his CBH: individual resonant chambers for each reed.  Size is a
problem here, but you could make cover-plates with resonators going up
and down which enclose each reed (perhaps with a small cut-out for air
intake near the reed-plate for the draw reeds).  This concept has worked
rather well for increasing both the amplitude and altering the tone of
free-reeds in several reed organ and harmonium designs of the 19th
century.  

In the end, I don't think comb material can make a difference to the
volume and projection of the instrument, as those are factors which
relate to the airstream created by the reed itself and the comb (or
standard reed-plates) simply don't generate enough vibration over a
large enough area to move a significant body of air.




 oo    JR "Bulldogge" Ross
()()   & Snuffy, too:)
`--'








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