[Harp-L] octave - and baritone - chromatic

[Jonathan Ross <jross38@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Winslow writes:

"While the present body, reedplate, and reed dimensions of the Suzuki
tremolo chromatic are not suitable for building an octave chromatic,
they are very close."


Except not easily modifiable, either after-market or by Suzuki.  As  
is you essentially have the same reed doubled in the trem-chrom,  
whereas for an ideal octave-chrom you'd rather have the two reeds  
scaled differently--one higher, one lower.  Now, reeds can be scaled  
to work at various pitches with the same overall length and  
thickness, but the other problem with a 64 is what do you do at the  
top octave--it gets very, very high and I'm not sure that the reeds  
can really be retuned to produce those pitches efficiently and with  
decent response when they are scaled for an octave lower.  Were the  
trem-chrom a 48 design, things might be easier to modify by making it  
an octave-chrom with one set covering the tenor range and the other  
the standard range.


"The Hohner "bass" (really more of a baritone) Polyphonia has reeds only
a few mm longer and maybe 1mm wider that the lowest reeds in a
four-octave chromatic. Those reed dimensions could be incorporated into
the lowest octave of either a baritone slide chromatic or a single-comb
octave chromatic built in the same manner as the SCT-128."


The Leo Shi "bass" also has reeds scaled to the baritone range which  
while large (I haven't measured) are not so huge as to make the idea  
of a baritone slider chromatic using those scales ridiculous.  The  
question is not whether it can be done, IMO, but rather will anyone  
do it.  Indeed, I've thought of ways to modify various things out  
there which could be made into a baritone chromatic, but these are  
not as elegant as if something was simply designed to be such from  
the start.

Personally, for an octave-chrom I was thinking along the lines of the  
tenor-standard range mixture rather than the baritone range, but I'd  
be happy with any of these seeing the light of day.  In any event,  
whether one wants the octave to be lower or higher than the current  
range of the SCT, there are significant problems involved with  
attempting to modify it to become an octave rather than tremolo  
instrument.


"Dripping the pitch of existing chromatics with solder has proved
unsatisfactory, if I read correctly what Brendan Power has had to say
on the subject; response is just too sluggish. "


Which is logical and can be seen when solder is used to drop reeds on  
diatonics (as in the Super-Low Seydels).  Reeds are ideally scaled  
for a certain pitch range (actually, ideally for a single pitch, but  
that's not practical) and trying to extend them too far below this by  
means of solder or the like will effect their responsiveness, timbre  
and volume.  This is true for all free reeds regardless of the  
instrument in question.


"But a lsight change in
reed dimensions changes all that; the bass Poly is plenty responsive."


It's also an all-blow instrument without a mouthpiece, slider or  
anything else which might leak air.  It is likely that the factors of  
actually making a working bari-chrom will effect issues of  
responsiveness and the like even if the scaling of the reeds is  
correct--perhaps to a more significant degree than between a standard  
range chromatic and a diatonic, perhaps less even, until it is tried  
with a purpose-built design it's hard to say what the issues will  
be.  But, you are correct in that there is no reason baritone range  
reeds cannot be properly scaled so as to be every bit as efficient  
for their pitch as are reeds in other ranges.


"But it means new reedplate and comb dimensions; the longer Poly reeds
won't fit on a standard 64 reedplate."


Which is why I'd like to see some harmonica company build a purpose- 
designed baritone chromatic, as Suzuki finally built a purpose- 
designed tremolo-chromatic.




 ()()    JR "Bulldogge" Ross
()  ()
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