Gasket Valves for JDR Trochilus harmonicas?

[Marty]

The new JDR Trochilus harmonica is a valveless 10-hole with a button, offering a number of color coded configurations including:
- Richter Tuned (they call it Blues tuning) in color blue comb (1/2 step up with the button)
- Paddy Richter - Red Comb
- Solo Tuning - Yellow Comb (valvless chromatic)

I have the Richter tuned and am impressed with the quality and air tightness. It's like the old Hohner Koch (a Richter diatonic with a button when pressed brings you up a half-step), but not stiff and leaky like the Koch was. It bends like a regular diatonic with the added advantage of pressing the button and getting a 1/2 step up.

I do however, miss getting the expression (and added notes) offered by half-valving. I half-valve all my diatonics and use Brendan's excellent Gasket valves on all of them. I know that Brendan recently updated the Gasket valves with new and better material. But I can attest that the 1st generation Gasket valves are still working excellently on all my diatonics (set of 8). I was an early adaptor.

I know that the JDR Trochilus Richter tuned gives me many of the notes already (with the button 1/2 step up), so why need the half-valved options? Why the redundancy? Well, it's the expressive note bending offered by half-valving that I love, and having more options for notes with the Richter tuned Trochilus button would be a great combination.

I will also soon be purchasing the solo tuned JDR Trochilus. This will be a valvless chromatic, smaller than a regular 10-hole chromatic, slightly bigger than a regular blues harp, but small enough to cup like a blues harp, giving all the wah expression of cupping that I presently miss in the bigger chromes.

I am expecting this to be an excellent harp also, but I suspect I will miss the advantages of valving (and half-valving that Brendan uses), in terms of valved bends etc.

I may attempt to half-valve these harps myself, but given that the layout is in a smaller form factor, it may be tricky to add the valves, as its pretty tight in there. Plus the layout of the reeds on this new harmonica is probably not the standard layout, so I may be a bit lost as how to do it.

I think that Brendan's Gasket Valve system would be a great offering for this harmonica, and for those that realize the advantages of valving and half-valving. The JDR Trochilus harmonica is a great innovation (in terms of design and off-the-shelf quality) and I suspect will be around for awhile. Brendan's Gasket Valve system would certainly be a value added upgrade, for an already great harp.

Would love to hear from any others who have tried the JDR Trochilus harmonicas. And of course hearing Brendan's thoughts on this would be delightful

Marty Howe

[dominico]

I have one in A/Bb, and one in LowF/LowGb is on the way.

I haven't done it yet, but I'm going to retune them to one of the regular breath tunings that I like, I haven't quite decided which one...

Regarding half valving, I also like to play half valved with valve bends. I normally use PT Gazell valves, though since the "slide in" draw reeds are on the top plate I think the Gazell valves will hang down, and I'm not sure if breath would properly push them back up to block the slot or not.

Certainly half valving a harmonica like this one, which effectively has 20 holes, would go a lot quicker with gaskets The reeds are the same distance apart as the East Top chromatics are. I'm not sure if Brendan ever made "half valve" gaskets for various chromatics, but I think the "Trochilus / Gamechanger" might catch on popular enough to make sense.

The reed layout for the Gamechanger: [SO = Slide out, SI = Slide In, B = blow reed, D = Draw reed

SO | SI || SO | SI || SO | SI || SO | SI || SO | SI || SO | SI || SO | SI || SO | SI || SO | SI || SO | SI |
B | D || B | D || B | D || B | D || B | D || B | D || B | D || B | D || B | D || B | D | <- top plate
D | B || D | B || D | B || D | B || D | B || D | B || D | B || D | B || D | B || D | B | <- bottom plate

[Brendan]

I'd be happy to design a set of gasket-valves for the Trochilus, but ideally I need a DXF file of the reedplates.

Dominick: with your CAD skills, is there a way you could scan the reedplates of your Trochilus and convert to DXF? If not, a graphics file with accurate dimensions would suffice.

[Marty]

I'd be happy to design a set of gasket-valves for the Trochilus, but ideally I need a DXF file of the reedplates.

Dominick: with your CAD skills, is there a way you could scan the reedplates of your Trochilus and convert to DXF? If not, a graphics file with accurate dimensions would suffice.

Wow! This is great news! I'll be watching here.

Mucho Gracias!

Marty

[dominico]

I'd be happy to design a set of gasket-valves for the Trochilus, but ideally I need a DXF file of the reedplates.

Dominick: with your CAD skills, is there a way you could scan the reedplates of your Trochilus and convert to DXF? If not, a graphics file with accurate dimensions would suffice.

Hey Brendan, I can get you a accurate dimensional CAD drawing of the reed plate as soon as I get around to modeling this thing.

I use FreeCAD for my home use part modeling, I see it can export to DXF though I'm not how well it does the export.