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



Hi Rick,

The XB-40 specifications call for wholetone bends on all holes, blow and
draw, except for hole 3-draw, for which a three-semitone bend is specified.
If you have no trouble getting a wholetone bend on holes 1- and 3-blow then
perhaps there's something amiss with the 2-blow auxiliary reed.  Maybe it
has a burr or something lodged between it and the reed slot back toward the
rivet end or it's misaligned so that it's binding near the rivet end, either
way effectively raising its pitch and reducing the bending range for 2-blow,
or maybe it's simply tuned too sharp.

Best,
Rick Epping



On 9/7/06, harp-l-request@xxxxxxxxxx <harp-l-request@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

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Message: 5
Date: Thu, 07 Sep 2006 12:22:52 +1000
From: "Rick Dempster" <rick.dempster@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [Harp-L] Re: XB Altered tunings--Melody Maker
To: "rick epping" <rickepping@xxxxxxxxx>, <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx>
Message-ID: <45000F1C02000066000126FF@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII

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







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