Brendan Power & Alternative Harmonicas Forum

Welcome to the forum Dominick! It's nice to have a trained engineer with obvious curiosity about harmonica design and the skills/tools to make stuff accurately contributing here 😊 The general consensus about diatonic comb design is that it's better to have small chambers in the top octave (for good ...

Yes, bending the 5 and 4 of the scale a wholetone are essential if you want to emulate guitar players... Have you tried the Hohner XB-40? It will give you those wider bends. The intermediate semitone bends are trickier to control (similar to hole 2 on a Richter harp), but it can be done with practic...

Since it roughly halves the comb size, could you use this to fit two chromatics on top of one another in about the same thickness as a typical chromatic? I don't think so - because you'd need four reedplate sliders, including two in the middle of the sandwich. It would still end up fairly thick. I ...

Re. Half-valved chromatic: reduce the blow reed gap on the odd numbered holes where the outside valve is removed, to minimise air loss. Embossing will always help if you want to go that far, but isn't necessary. Here's the link for the other thread: Lhttps://www.brendan-power.com/forum/viewtopic.php...

Hi Ken, thanks for your post. Playing Irish traditional and related folk music (eg. Old Time, Bluegrass, Quebecois) with greater bending expression than stock harmonicas offer is a topic I find particularly interesting. On both slow and fast tunes, fiddle players in particular use bending all the ti...

Those two tracks were using the same instrument (X-HARP #2), in the same key, on two versions of the same song (The Thrill is Gone), and using the same effects. So yes, they do sound similar

Sure...

https://youtube.com/shorts/_IVzpouMwug? ... -bjl9KYyOJ

https://youtube.com/shorts/UPT5CEsrcAg? ... kUPk_s08DQ

https://youtube.com/shorts/M1sT-gvfuz4? ... VGM6hILPlx

https://youtube.com/shorts/YgyFEbkb_u0? ... VuzqFijG9i

I've recently posted a few more clips playing a couple of newer versions of my experimental x-reed harp project. These are on Instagram, but can also be found on my YouTube and TikTok channels: X-HARP #2 BB King Solo https://www.instagram.com/reel/C2iInsgoWeN/?igsh=bDN6eGZoMnJ6djE= Tracking Joe Bona...

I didn't hear anything bad there... Feel free to remove the two outside valves if you wish, though you might find the low draw reeds more 'airy'.

You'll need an audio interface to get your mic signal into the iPad. iRig is a well-known maker, and there are many others. If in doubt, search for "play guitar with iPad". The iPad speakers will wii, but they're pretty weak and quiet. It's better to run a signal from the headphone socket to a small...