[Harp-L] Best Out-of-the-Box harp for bends & overblows?

[The Iceman]

I'd like to learn to drive a car....the best car to learn on is a Mercedes or BMW - superior technology, superior response.However, I learned to drive in a Corvair -...still gets you where you want to go and shows you the basics.
I believe the original question was in regards to "learning to drive". Therefore, a decent OOTB Golden Melody may be just fine. Once one wants to "up their game" after learning the basics, one may move up to a Mercedes or BMW if desired.
Even A.J. Foyt didn't get his student drivers license in a Formula One race car!


-----Original Message-----
From: Laurent Vigouroux <laurent.vigouroux at xxxxx>
To: The Iceman <icemanle at xxxxx>; harp-l at xxxxx <harp-l at xxxxx>
Sent: Mon, May 11, 2020 11:38 am
Subject: Re: [Harp-L] Best Out-of-the-Box harp for bends & overblows?

#yiv9253472711 #yiv9253472711 -- _filtered {} _filtered {}#yiv9253472711 #yiv9253472711 p.yiv9253472711MsoNormal, #yiv9253472711 li.yiv9253472711MsoNormal, #yiv9253472711 div.yiv9253472711MsoNormal {margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;font-size:11.0pt;font-family:sans-serif;}#yiv9253472711 a:link, #yiv9253472711 span.yiv9253472711MsoHyperlink {color:#0563C1;text-decoration:underline;}#yiv9253472711 span.yiv9253472711EmailStyle25 {font-family:sans-serif;color:windowtext;}#yiv9253472711 .yiv9253472711MsoChpDefault {font-size:10.0pt;} _filtered {}#yiv9253472711 div.yiv9253472711WordSection1 {}#yiv9253472711 Iceman wrote : « don't know of any factory harmonica that can claim any sort of 100% consistency of anything - mass production and all....but with GM have had years of pretty good out of the box response for OB...after the fact gapping can improve that aspect, but tweaking will improve most aspects of almost any out of the box one.” Just to be sure we talk about the same thing, I’m talking about demanding chromatic playing. For example this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=da3LhYpTlqA It’s not possible for me to play this type of things on any out of the box standard harp.
And I think the better the instrument is, the better it is the for player trying to learn a technique. Learning to play overblows on a factory harp can be discouraging. The arkia very innovative design does bring much better sounding overblows and overdraws (especially the 1° and 7°) and a basic setup is done at factory.
Of course, it’s not mass produced…