[Harp-L] Re: XB Altered tunings--Melody Maker

["Rick Dempster" <rick.dempster@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Rick;
                Over to you! (see below) Thanx in anticipation.


You should probably direct this question directly to Rick Epping, 
rather than myself, I can only venture some speculation.  I don't 
have a good guess.  I haven't really investigated the XB that 
closely, and frankly didn't know that this was the case.  And I own
one!

Regards,

-tim


At 07:07 PM 9/6/2006, you wrote:
>Tim;
>         Can you see any logic in the fact that the 'E's on a 'C'
>Richter tuned XB, bend only a semitone on hole 2 while  the 'E's at 5
and
>8 bend a whole tone?
>RD
>


>>> "rick epping" <rickepping@xxxxxxxxx> 6/09/2006 19:00 >>>
Hi Gary and all,

It's been some time since I last surfaced - here's hoping everyone is
alive
and blowing...

As Tim said, retuning the regular reeds of the XB-40 will not alter
the
pitch of their bent notes.  To do so requires retuning the zero-offset
auxiliary reeds and, as their plucked pitch or natural frequency is not
the
same as the pitch they produce at full bend, the way I use to fine tune
the
auxiliary reeds is to lay the reedplate on the comb and play the bend
between strokes of the reed file or scraper.

Another thing to consider is how much tolerance you want to leave for
the
bent note.  When first establishing the factory tuning charts for the
auxiliary reeds I allowed a little extra room both for expression and
so
that one could reach the full bend without excessive effort.

Best regards,
Rick Epping

PS. I'll be touring the Southwest (Texas to Calif.) in October-November
with
the Irish group Dervish.  Details at http://www.dervish.ie/tour.htm 

---------------------------------------------------------------
On 9/5/06, harp-l-request@xxxxxxxxxx <harp-l-request@xxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

>
> Message: 8
> Date: Tue, 5 Sep 2006 09:37:43 -0700
> From: "Gary Lehmann" <hqr@xxxxxxx>
> Subject: [Harp-L] XB Altered tunings--Melody Maker
> To: <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx>
> Message-ID:
>       
<20060905163749.DZXS6711.fed1rmmtao04.cox.net@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Content-Type: text/plain;       charset="us-ascii"
>
> Hi all-
>
> I ain't no Jason Ricci, so I have taken to using harps with notes
> changed-just got an XB back from Pat Missin, he changed it to Paddy
> Richter
> and generally made it a fine instrument.
>
> How tough is it to create a custom tuning on an XB? I know Jazzmaan
is
> using
> XB Melody Makers, did he create them himself? Anybody?
>
> I am a little reluctant to experiment on these since they are more
> expensive-I already have lots of harmonicas, but can always use
more.
>
> Gary
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