Brendan Power & Alternative Harmonicas Forum

I decided to create a Seydel 1847 comb, based on the Seydel Noble comb (green in the photo).

The Noble comb (white in the photo) has the smalled hole chamber sizes and especially with my low harps seems to give the best response.
That said, the lightning comb (steel) has a different shape than the other combs, the ends of the chambers are rounded rather than square.

So I decided to print a Noble comb with the insides of the chambers filleted to look like the lightning comb (green to the right in the photo). I will sand it and give it a go tomorrow.

So now that I've tweaked my CAD drawing enough to be able to print combs that fit the 1847 platform, what else could I do to this thing to help it improve harp performance? Should I make the chambers as small as possible? Is there a particular chamber shape that could maximize reed response without choking it? A tapered or conical shape? I see Brendan has done that on his chromatic power combs, I wonder how that would work on a diatonic.

Should I build out a "mouthpiece" on the front of the comb to elongate the distance between the reeds and my mouth?
-The switch harp seemed to me to make it easier to valve bend blow notes without choking the reed, the only answer I had for that was the longer chamber created by the switch-harp mouthpiece.

Should I create something akin to Winslow's "discrete comb"?

I'm open to ideas and I have a bunch of filament to "blow"

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 response and no Helmholtz Resonance Coupling effect on tuning), and larger ones in the low octave (for bigger tone). But since you have the design and building ability, I'd say try everything and see what you discover yourself.

A couple of diatonic combs differ from the norm with claimed sound benefits: the Sjoberg comb (now made by Joel Andersson), and the French Arkia model, with chambers that supposedly enhance overbends:

https://en.arkia-harmonica.com/

They might inspire some ideas to follow in your own designs.

I printed a few more of these "Noble" sized combs with the "Lightning" chamber shapes.
Here are a couple I still need to finish the 400 grit sanding on, and one I've installed in my Low D. On my Low D and Low E they definitely improved the responsiveness of the reeds in holes 1 2 and 3 and I can play a fair bit faster down there now without it feeling so muddy. I can also feel the reeds slapping on the cover plates while doing fast licks down there. I think I can't get any better without removing a bunch of weight from those reeds and retuning them back down.
As an aside, I think I'm done buying "Low" harps. Moving forward I will buy a standard G and just tune it down myself with an engrave or solder.

The higher octaves sound fine until hole 10 for some reason. I'll have to play around with it more but I wonder if the size / shape is now simply too small for hole 10 to get a good response.

I noticed on the Arkia comb videos and on the Sjoberg comb (what little photos I could find on it) that they actaully widen the chambers of the smaller holes. They both do this, although Arkia does it to a greater degree. They both also includ comb cutouts and inserts to change resonance properties, this is a very interesting idea I hadn't thought about but should be rather easy to do with 3D printed combs.

they both also seem to have some sort of scoop or ramp at the end of the chamber which covers the the draw reed rivet. I find this curious and I wonder what its purpose is. One irksome thing I already ran into is that the smaller chambers, or having parts of the chamber cover the draw reed rivet, is that I have no more space for the PT Gazell valves! If I go with this style it looks like I'm going to have to order more of Brendan's Seydel half valving gaskets, I won't be able to fit my Gazell valves on the draw reed plates anymore.

At any rate, I'll call the combs a success. They are much cheaper than buying new Noble combs, and now I have a platform to play around with them more.

I'll start playing with some of those Arkia ideas, I also want to create a Winslow discreet-style comb; I love the idea of it.

Nicely done!

Here my thoughts about some details:

Brendan wrote: ↑Wed Mar 27, 2024 8:27 am A couple of diatonic combs differ from the norm with claimed sound benefits: the Sjoberg comb (now made by Joel Andersson), and the French Arkia model, with chambers that supposedly enhance overbends:

https://en.arkia-harmonica.com/

They might inspire some ideas to follow in your own designs.

Maybe you like to have a look at Yonberg from France as well. As far as I remember they have developed some sophisticated new design of the chambers as well.
https://www.yonberg-harmonica.com/en/

dominico wrote: ↑Fri Mar 29, 2024 4:09 am On my Low D and Low E ... I can also feel the reeds slapping on the cover plates while doing fast licks down there. I think I can't get any better without removing a bunch of weight from those reeds and retuning them back down.

Or maybe you should try the covers of Seydel's 1847 low harmonicas. They leave about 50% more space above the reeds to avoid slapping the lowest reeds against the cover. I play some of them. And since then I never had reeds slapping against the cover any more again. So I changed all the covers of my old low harmonicas I had bought before Seydel had developed the higher covers. (Seydel started with these new covers some years after they had issued the low and extra low tunings.)

The low covers seem to be on request. I can not find them in their online shop. But I have already bought some of them separately at the same price as the standard 1847 covers.

And one more thing about the comb design of Seydel's 1847 low harmonicas: The comb is about 1 mm thicker than it is on the standard 1847. And on their highest soprano tunings the comb is about 20% thinner than on the standard ones.

https://www.seydel1847.de/epages/Seydel ... rrency=USD

https://www.seydel1847.de/epages/Seydel ... TaxModel=0

dominico wrote: ↑Fri Mar 29, 2024 4:09 am As an aside, I think I'm done buying "Low" harps. Moving forward I will buy a standard G and just tune it down myself with an engrave or solder.

This would surely be cheaper than buying complete harmonicas from Seydel. (The low reeds of the Seydels are weighted up with solder as well.) But it does not solve the problem with the lowest reeds slapping against the covers. Before Seydel had developed the higher covers they tried to solve the problem by mechanical reshaping of their standard covers. But this is technically quite limited. And the reshaped covers look a bit quirky as well.

Btw: Hohner uses wedge shaped covers on the Thunderbird low. They are only higher on the left side of the bottom covers. And Easttop does so as well on the Lucky13, designed by Brendan.

dominico wrote: ↑Fri Mar 29, 2024 4:09 am I also want to create a Winslow discreet-style comb; I love the idea of it.

How do those look like?


dear greetings
triona

triona wrote: ↑Fri Mar 29, 2024 3:44 pm And one more thing about the comb design of Seydel's 1847 low harmonicas: The comb is about 1 mm thicker than it is on the standard 1847. And on their highest soprano tunings the comb is about 20% thinner than on the standard ones.

I did not know this. This is great to know! It also means that overall comb thickness is another variable I can play with, which makes me happy

triona wrote: ↑Fri Mar 29, 2024 3:44 pm dominico wrote: ↑Thu Mar 28, 2024 11:09 pm
I also want to create a Winslow discreet-style comb; I love the idea of it.
How do those look like?

It was basically a comb with a divider down the middle of each hole, so you can either play the hole normally or with your mouth choose to isolate just the blow or just the draw reed. This gives you the ability to produce "valve-like" bends or overblow/overdraw any reed.
https://www.angelfire.com/tx/myquill/DiscreteComb.html

Winslow Yerxa came up with the idea a long time ago but it did not catch on. I think now that folks are succesfully 3D printing combs the idea can and should be revisited.

dominico wrote: ↑Fri Mar 29, 2024 5:44 pm I did not know this. This is great to know! It also means that overall comb thickness is another variable I can play with, which makes me happy

I did not expect that you did not know this.
But thinking about this just now I hit upon a top crazy idea going out from this:
Why not thinking about a comb where the thickness is increasing from High on the right to low on the left?
Something like this:
The depiction is slightly exaggerated for better distinguishability.



This would be easy to produce by 3-D-print. It is just necessary to design the non-orthogonal channels in a way that they do not interfere the oszillation of the reeds.

dominico wrote: ↑Fri Mar 29, 2024 5:44 pm It was basically a comb with a divider down the middle of each hole, so you can either play the hole normally or with your mouth choose to isolate just the blow or just the draw reed. This gives you the ability to produce "valve-like" bends or overblow/overdraw any reed.
https://www.angelfire.com/tx/myquill/DiscreteComb.html

If I did not overlook something important, this looks to me very much like those traditional folk harmonicas of the "Vienna" type, both as octave harmonica or as tremolo harmonica. Contemporary models are e.g. Seydel Club Steel, Sailor Steel and Skydiver, Hohner Unsere Lieblinge, Contessa, Comet, Echo and many others, Suzuki Humming SU-21-H and Baritone, Tombo S-50 and 1577 and many other asian models.

If you can read German you can have a look here for more information:
https://www.harpforum.de/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=125293
https://www.harpforum.de/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=116384
https://www.harpforum.de/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=111632

Pictures and descriptions of the respective harmonicas you can easily find by net search in case of you do not know the one or the other.
Pat Missin might have reviewed most of those harmonicas as well.


And as a matter of fact on the octave types - but not on the tremoloes - you can bend each single reed by a semitone with a non-interfering bend. I do not know what Winslow has meant with "valve-like" bends. But I suppose that he is meaning maybe the same.
And there is no limit to tune such harmonicas in any other tuning system different to the traditional Richter, solo or chromatic asian tuning.

dominico wrote: ↑Fri Mar 29, 2024 5:44 pm Winslow Yerxa came up with the idea a long time ago but it did not catch on. I think now that folks are succesfully 3D printing combs the idea can and should be revisited.

That is the fate of those who come too early in history with a new idea. The inventor of the computer mouse did not earn a single penny for his groundbreaking idea for there was no use for it for decades while his patent was valid.


Btw:
A similar construction is the "Knittlinger" Octave harmonica like e.g. the Seydel Concerto or the discontinued Hohner Autovalve. They have a blow reed and a draw reed in each hole and the octave notes in the corresponding hole of the other reedplate. But contrary to the "Vienna" types with only 1 reed in each channel the "Knittlinger" Octave can not be bend non-interactively. And interactive bends are quite difficult to play. In the folk music styles like Alpine styles or Cajun etc where they are intended for there is no need for bends.


Btw 2:
And another interesting thing is the unfortunately since long discontinued Hohner Chordomonica II - a diatonic chord harmonica with 2 sliders.
https://www.patmissin.com/ffaq/q31.html
And a little bit more extensive information for those who can read German:
https://www.harpforum.de/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=131613


dear greetings
triona

I really wish I could read German now!

Tonight I made the first iteration of my version of the "Winslow" Comb.
First impressions of the first iteration:

The "valved" blow and draw bends, by using my mouth to isolate one reed, are very strong. This effectively created a "fully valved" harmonica where you can also overblow, using just the Comb.
Dual reed bends are very weak. I am perplexed by this, I would assume if my mouth os covering g both the upper and lower chamber a dual reed bend should work as normal. Instead I get nothing but air as soon as I start going for bends. Perhaps the chambers are too small to allow proper dual reed interaction. I will play around with chamber sizing in further iterations, as I also attempt to put together an "Arkia" style comb.

Nice comb!

Regarding overbends working but not normal bends:

A full draw bend, especially in holes 2 or 3, is mostly produced by the blow reed. Effectively, it's basically the same as an overdraw. What happens if you try blocking the draw reed and play a bend? Can you produce an overdraw? Compare this to overdraws on a normal comb where you block the draw reed.

If it works on your new comb as well as a normal comb, this has me confused. If you get it working on the normal comb but not your new comb it might be you need to make it more air tight.

After playing around with it more, the problem with the dual reed bends was my embouchure. My bottom lip blocks the draw reed opening with my normal embouchure. When I tilt the harp down and play, I get all the bends, and overbends. Its actually pretty cool to be able to quickly switch between dual reed draw bends and single reed draw bends.

Things that are awesome:
* It is possible to do every kind of bend on every reed I can overbend or valve bend on any reed, in addition to the normal dual reed bends.
* the "valve" bends are easy, strong, and I can get most of them to bend 2 or 3 semitones. I haven't made any gapping adjustments yet to do so.

As far as things that need improvement:
* it feels awkward to have to tip the harp down to play. I'd rather not have to change my natural embouchure to play normally.
* the center divider makes it harder to "feel" where the separation of the holes are. I'm getting lost a lot.

My next iteration I'm probably going to increase the hole thickness on the draw plate side. I "may" decrease the blow side thickness, I'm not sure. I don't want the combe to wind up being too much thicker than normal. If I decrease the blow side thickness I will widen the chambers behind the hole.

How many reeds did you place in each semi-hole?
Is it a 10/20- or a 20/40-harmonica?
What is your note layout like?

dominico wrote: ↑Fri Apr 05, 2024 7:34 am I really wish I could read German now!

This could be no mistake.
Germany and Austria are the countries where the harmonica had been invented before it conquered the world.
And it is still the country where some of the world's leading manufacturers of harmonicas are operating.


I can tell you a lot about different combs (and slides as well) which already are in use since long and I do not know whether you already know them, including detailed pictures (I have a large archive) and practical experience with most of them. If I have a look onto your adaption of the Winslow comb, I guess you are maybe re-inventing the wheel again.

Tell me, what you are especially interested in:
- Octave harmonicas system Knittlinger and Viennese which look very much like your comb.
- various slide techniques as 1 slide, 2 slides and none slides in comparison.
But I do not want to translate loads of text in which you maybe might not be interested in or what you already know.


dear greetings
triona