Re: [Harp-L] The Low Rider rides again; Messe Report

[Phyllis731@xxxxxxx]

I purchased a Seydel Saxony recently and I absolutely love it.  The  sound 
and tone is rich, delicious, and warm.  I also just got a Suzuki 16  hole 
SCX 64, which is great, but not quite as full a tone as the Seydel.  
 
Blues Girl Phyllis
Isn't it wonderful the  way the world holds both the deeply serious, and 
the unexpectedly  mirthful?




In a message dated 4/18/2015 8:39:32 A.M. Central Daylight Time,  
bren@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:

Michael  Easton told me to look out for this new chrom at the Messe, and
yesterday I  went to the Tombo booth and gave it a test run,



It's a truly  beautiful harmonica and the slider assembly is very clever.
Great to see  some creative thinking coming through after a long period of
copy-catting  from the main harmonica manufacturers. The two-piece slide
action gives  bigger holes with short stroke, which is a useful  
combination.



The playability is nice but I wouldn't say it's  anything out of the 
ordinary
compared to a good quality Hohner or Suzuki  chrom. You have to have great
reedplates matched to a great slider action  to produce a special chromatic,
and I'm not sure yet if the Tombo plates  match up to the high standard set
by Hohner and Suzuki. I'd also wonder if  the two-piece slider would 'gum 
up'
after sustained playing - that remains  to be seen.



However the Tombo staff reminded me this very cool  new chrom is still in 
the
testing stages, so I look forward to trying the  production model. Good luck
to them for its success.



One  manufacturer that did impress me a lot with their big range of
chromatics  (and diatonics) was the rising Chinese brand Easttop. Their
chroms look  superficially like Suzuki copies but are subtly different, with
narrower  sliders and a smaller comb. Most have injection moulded combs with
a  two-piece slide assembly, but they have one brass-combed model that  is
quite unique. It is CNC milled and includes a front lip as part of the  same
chunk of brass! This is a really impressive piece of 5 axis CNC  milling, of
a complexity unmatched by any other harmonica manufacturer  AFAIK. Their 10
hole diatonics are really starting to wail too, with  phosphor bronze reeds
on the pricier models, that overblow stably  out-of-the-box. Watch out for
Easttop, folks.



I was working  in a freelance capacity on the Hering stand, promoting my own
Hering-made  models (the Slide Diatonic, Irish Session Harp and
ChromaBender), and  helping out with demonstrating the stock Hering harps.
Hering chromatics  have a traditional 270-type slider matched to short comb
chambers, due to  the fact all their reeds are rear-facing. This is a very
good combination  as it gives small chamber volumes, resulting in good
compression, and as a  result Hering chroms remain amongst the
easiest-playing, sweetest-sounding  out of the box despite the fact that 
they
haven't changed much in the  essentials in decades. 



I checked out the nearby Seydel stand  and had a good chat with Lars Seifert
and Bertram Becher, the two main men.  In my opinion Seydel do the best job
of all the manufacturers at these  music trade fairs. Their black-painted
booth always stands out, and the  presentation of the harps and staff is 
very
smart. Added to that you have  the most energised, switched-on and welcoming
reps of any harmonica company  in Lars and Bertram. Even though Seydel had 
no
really new models to show in  substantive terms, just some new colours for
their Summer Edition, there  was always a buzz around their booth. Lars 
tells
me they are turning work  away, they are so busy. Well done to Seydel; what 
a
turnaround since the  new crew took over the company after the Wall  went
down!



Hohner had no stand at the Messe, though I caught  up with their astute 
young
product manager Richard Weiss, and jammed on a  couple of impromptu blues
with the always engaging Steve Baker. I didn't  have time to get over to the
Suzuki stand, which was in a different hall to  the other harmonica
manufacturers. However my spies reported they had no  major new harmonica
models to present either.



All in all an  interesting Messe, but missing new models from the two 
biggest
harmonica  manufacturers. I guess we'll have to wait for SPAH for that - 
hope
to see  you there!



Brendan

<http://www.brendan-power.com/>  www.brendan-power.com

<http://www.youtube.com/BrendanPowerMusic>
www.YouTube.com/BrendanPowerMusic