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From: Pat Missin
Date: Tue, 3 Sep 1996 18:12:54 +0100
Subject: Various ramblings

Midi harmonicas - I recently did a piece about electronic harps in AHN. As
well as Ron Schille's ECH and Walt Miller's Millioniser, Casio hold a couple
of patents for harmonica-style MIDI controllers. Will they sound like a
harmonica? Well, does the electric guitar sound like a guitar? (Not
according to Segovia, it didn't!) They are synthesisers, not harmonicas and
will sound like whatever it is that synths sound like - the advantages of a
harp-synth as a practise tool must be considerable, but it's going to be
kind of hard to stick in your pocket and go camping with it...

Low F harps - I've tuned some Lee Oskars down to low F#, low E, low Eb and
low D. They sounded better (to my ears) than my low-tuned Special 20s, but
the rattle from the 1 draw was not pleasant. I stuck some Hohner MS covers
(Blues Harp) on them and they work fine - still get a little bit of a
rattle, but I did with my low S20s anyway. The low S20s wound up becoming a
low C and a low A - again with MS covers - sound lovely!! I miss the
stainless steel of the LO covers, though.

Soaking harps - want to get that soaked harp feel, without the problems of
swollen wood? A simple dodge is to go to your local hardware store and buy
some double-sided adhesive tape. Take your wooden bodied harp apart, place
the tape on the comb, trim carefully for a good fit, then replace the reed
plates and press firmly. Bingo - all air leaks sealed. I've heard it said
that this reduces the vibration of the reed plates, muffling the tone a
little, but I'm not so sure. I've never really noticed much difference,
besides, I'm not convinced that the reed plate is acoustically active. (Try
striking a tuning fork and holding against the reed plates, covers, comb or
any part of the harp - the resonance is minimal.)

Ears versus spectrograms - hey, if your ears tell you that a certain harp
sounds better, then go for it! I din't say there was *no* difference, but
that the difference is minimal, all other things being equal. Of course, all
other things are *not* equal (nor is it an ideal world)! There are too many
factors to take into consideration (airtightness, adjustment of reeds,
temparture, relative humidity, phase of the moon, etc.). However, I must
tell you something I learned from a sound engineer - one day I was in the
studio and I got what I though was a good harp sound. I was then told that
my amp needed les trebel (or something). I smiled politely, bent over the
amp and preetended to make a couple of alterations. Actually, I didn't alter
a damn thing, but when I played a few notes and said "How's that?", I got
the answer "Yeah that's a lot better!" I've puled this stunt a lot of times
and know other who have done it and it always seems to work. Moral: people's
ears hear what they're expecting. If you firmly believe that wooden harps
sound better than plastic harps, or vice versa, then that is what you will
hear! Try getting a vaiety of harps in the same key and play the same piece
on them. Record each version on a separate tape and mark it. Then (whilst
blindfolded, if you're into that kind of thing ;-)), get someone to play the
tapes back to you and see if you can tell them apart. I've done this
experiment (OK, not always with scientific precision, but I think it proved
the point) with musicians who I know to have very good ears and none of them
could tell the difference 10 times out of 10.

...but the bottom line is, if it sounds good to you - then use it!

End of transmission.


Pat Missin - pa~lobalnet.co.uk

"...my music's a lot better than it sounds!" (with apologies to Mark Twain)
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