At SPAH, I saw the Trochilus from JDR. (AKA the Bushman Game Changer) It's a 10-hole chromatic harmonica with various tunings, and no valves at all. You can bend and even overblow. Only $85 USD - but it plays pretty well.
I play PowerChromatic most of the time (even on diatonic harmonicas), so I got the C6 tuning of the Trochilus and converted it to PC. This involved tuning 3 F reeds to F#, 3 F# reeds to G, and lowering the (odd) high G down to F. It plays well, and gives me an inexpensive slide PC harmonica. Though I do miss having 12 holes.
Anyone else playing with this?
PowerChromatic Trochilus
Re: PowerChromatic Trochilus
Sorry for the belated reply...
PowerChromatic Tuning on a half-valved chromatic is my favourite for playing jazzy music with nice bending expression. I agree, 12 holes or longer is better than 10 for PowerChromatic. It's easy to retune PC out of standard Solo tuned chroms, and you can simply remove the outer valves.
PowerChromatic Tuning on a half-valved chromatic is my favourite for playing jazzy music with nice bending expression. I agree, 12 holes or longer is better than 10 for PowerChromatic. It's easy to retune PC out of standard Solo tuned chroms, and you can simply remove the outer valves.