Re: [Harp-L] DDR Seydel Bandmaster,what the? A pleasant surprise

["bbqbob917@xxxxxxxxxxx" <bbqbob917@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,
I remember seeing their ads in Guitar Player magazine in the 70's (I still have copies of them) where they had harps under the Bandmaster name as a brand new and they were advertised as "better than Hohner at half the price," but having tried them, they were horrible (but not as quite as bad as the stuff made in India, or some of the stuff Hohner began putting out in the 80's when they really went down the tubes before retooling), and the Yamaha's of that time period weren't much better.

Sincerely,
Barbeque Bob Maglinte
Boston, MA
http://www.barbequebob.com
MP3's: http://music.mp3lizard.com/barbequebob/

-- David Payne <dave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
OK, I got out this Seydel Bandmaster, not the super-cool prewar, the awesomest harmonica of all time, one of the German Democratic Repulic harps, back when Seydel was a nationalized company, owned/operated by the East German Communist Party. It's probably from the 1980s. Coverplates are shaped like a Solist Pro. Comb is plastic with rounded corners, held together with pins. Coverplates held on with a machine screw and these flat nuts that look like something you've have left over after rebuilding a Chrysler 340 engine... 
I said "this looks leaky. And it is. Gaps on the blow side are too open, although the draw side is OK. Has the wide Seydel reed format, like the Solist Pro, etc. 
But there is something strange about this harmonica. The blow reeds are upside down, the vibrating end of the reed is up, like a draw reed. 
Now when I blow into it, I can hear all this air rushing around the reed, it's a very leaky setup. BUT, WTF, it overblows all over the place? I mean, the way this harp is set up, I should be able to overblow ZERO holes, since I'm not a good overblower. On a normal harp, I can coax overblows out of 4,5,6... no lower. 
On this Bandmaster, however, I can overblow 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. WTF? It is so leaky! There's somet kind of very strange dynamic happening with this inverted blow reed. I can only imagine what it will do once I get this embossed and properly gapped.
Dave
_________________________
Dave Payne Sr.
Elk River Harmonicas
www.elkriverharmonicas.com 

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