Magnetically Attractive Reedplate Sliders

A space for players interested in my specialist harmonicas, alternate tunings, instructional material, recordings etc to ask questions and share information, experiences, videos etc.
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Brendan
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Magnetically Attractive Reedplate Sliders

Post by Brendan » Wed Feb 15, 2023 3:40 am

One of my best inventions so far! It has a lot of potential for many different types of harmonicas, I believe.
https://youtu.be/0EZn2AKX40I

(This invention is shared under a Creative Commons License:

MAGNETICALLY ATTRACTIVE REEDPLATE SLIDERS © 2022 by Brendan Power is licensed under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

(This license requires that reusers give credit to the creator. It allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, for noncommercial purposes only. If others modify or adapt the material, they must license the modified material under identical terms).

If anyone wishes to develop my Staggered Reedplates invention for commercial purposes, please contact me first: enquiries@brendan-power.com)

dominico
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Re: Magnetically Attractive Reedplate Sliders

Post by dominico » Wed Mar 27, 2024 3:48 am

I've been thinking more about this since you introduced it...

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?

To me the "perfect harmonica" would be something like a diminished tuned harmonica where every note could be a draw note. Diminished tuned chromatics only get you 2/3rds of the way there. With two diminished tuned chromatics, a semitone apart, stacked on top of each other you can get every note as a draw (ideally a bendable draw) AND every key would have the exact same note pattern.

I converted an East Top Forerunner 2 to diminished, its great because it allows dual reed bending, lots of expression, and it helped me start to get the hang of diminished tuning. 8 of the 12 keys are immediately familiar to me :-) I could get another Forerunner and tune it either a semitone or a tone different, but ideally I could all of this in one harp.

I started thinking of potentially building on the Seydel chromatic platform, with its steel reeds, using the tuboslide magnet concept to get a semitone drop across all reeds. Of course I have immediate problems with space.

At any rate, I'm open to ideas, I've even thought of trying to build some mechanism where I switch the path of air from under the blow reed to over the blow reed to turn it into a draw reed.

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Brendan
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Re: Magnetically Attractive Reedplate Sliders

Post by Brendan » Wed Mar 27, 2024 7:52 am

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 started thinking of potentially building on the Seydel chromatic platform, with its steel reeds, using the tuboslide magnet concept to get a semitone drop across all reeds. Of course I have immediate problems with space.

It wouldn't be all reeds, just the blow reeds that are magnetically affected, so it doesn't give you that full extra second chromatic you're after.

I've even thought of trying to build some mechanism where I switch the path of air from under the blow reed to over the blow reed to turn it into a draw reed.

I've dabbled with that idea too, but beyond reversing the breath direction of the two reeds in the chamber I found it doesn't achieve a lot and is complicated to make.

But your overall concept of a double chromatic is a good one, whether for Diminished or any other tuning. I've made bulky ones in the past that worked pretty well, and am currently working on getting the size down. But it's tricky to get double the reeds into the same space and retain good airtightness with two sliders.

Probably your most practical option currently is to simply stack two chroms together with tape or a magnet, and get used to switching between them. Players do this with tremolo harps all the time in Asia, so it should be possible to adapt the technique to twin chromatics 🤔

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