Ideas for changing a diatonic harp tuning on the fly

[triona]

... the dual draw and blow turboslide design.

Is this the bottom side of the comb in the picture?
And were is the reedplate? I can not recognize it.

The "integrated plastic spring" worked

That was what I did expect, because on Jim Antaki's Turboharp it is working as well.

slider spring mechanism work through magnetic repulsion

Seydel is already using magnetic repulsion on the slider of their new chromatic "Symphony 48". Maybe you might have a look on this:
https://www.seydel1847.de/symphony48


dear greetings
triona

[FingerSinger]

...
Regarding the "magnets as an even quicker alternative to blu tak" its only been one day but I've carried the thing around in my pocket and played a bunch and the magnets haven't budged. I'll keep carrying it and see what happens.

I still wonder if that's the good way to go. I have my Melody Maker promaster retuned to normal richter via small magnets as weights for a few days already, and tuning holds well. But I'm still concerned a bit about future use of this technic, it doesn't really sound safe to me.

[EdvinW]

The other thing I did was put a magnet on a reed and then put the opposite polarity magnet in the turboslide.
It raised the pitch!
This is very cool. Though it would require even more coverplate clearance than I currently have in order to further explore this idea as something practical.

That is so cool to hear!

I've been trying to figure out the physics of exactly what the magnets are doing in the turboslide, just to understand it myself, and it's good to see it's enough to make some predictions.

In many holes in many tunings it makes more sense raising the draw reed than lowering it. Changing Richter to Country, for instance!

Another possible application could be to raise the blow notes in the top octave of a Richter harp. They can already be bent down so the turboslide is a bit redundant there. That would give the same notes as the overdraws, in the same hole even

———
It's been really nice to see the forum bubbling with activity again! I'm rather busy these days, but at least I read it all.

Keep the posts coming!

[dominico]

n many holes in many tunings it makes more sense raising the draw reed than lowering it. Changing Richter to Country, for instance!

With a small magnet glued to the reed with some vibration resistant epoxy this is probably immediately achievable. On the draw side I could only raise it a semitone before it closed the gap and choked the reed. On the blow side, since this would be increasing the gap, we might be able to get it to raise a full tone.


Progress Video on the draw plate turboslide : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAbJ-r5oMAU

Here I've combined Brendan's magnetic reedplate sliders with the turboslide concept to get the draw plate slider to work, with the covers on!

I'm excited to try Triona's advice of the slightly large Low covers, but until they arrive I'm still using a coverplate spacer to add clearance.

I flubbed my tolerances on the blow plate; I'm making some edits and then we'll try again probably Friday. Hopefully by the weekend I'll have the ability to switch instantly between natural and minor tuning,
or to make the world's smallest 10 hole chromatic

[dominico]

Fully working magnetic "chromaslide" prototype video
https://youtu.be/B2W5BN9jHKw

In this video I give a quick demo of using the slider to switch immediately to a minor tuned harp. Then I open the thing up and show how it works.

I'm still making more magnets. This weekend I'll have it working where the slider drops every single reed down a half step, making it a fully chromatic harmonica in diatonic size.

Regarding dropping a full tone to be able to pull off Paddy or Easy Third. I found I accidentally dropped Hole 2 Blow three semitones when tuning for the "minor tune" in my demo video. I'm assuming the same could be done for Blow 3. You could possibly start with a Paddy Tuned reedplate, and use the magnet to drop 3 blow down to the standard G again. Actually you might be able to do that with the normal Turboslide. I have a paddy tuned Session Steel, I will try that out.

I may break the "chromaslide" into its own thread. There were other ideas in this thread that deserve more development as well.

The Trochilus with a smaller slider would be great for exploring all sorts of slide diatonic tunings.

The "quick change" with blu tak or small magnets to temporarily weight the reeds. (I'm loving the magnets so far, I got 1mm x 1mm ones which work great on the blow reeds. Because I only ever put them on the coverplate side of the reeds I think the risk of inhaling one is very slim. )

Plus, other possible ways to add extra reeds to each hole.

[triona]

First question about what confused me:
Are you a left-hander or is your video mirrored?


And here my contentual thoughts:

I do not think that you can omit the spacer between the draw-reedplate and the bottom slider. The draw reeds do not only stick out of the surface of the reedplate. They even need some more free space above themselves than their mere thickness. This is because they need some additional space to oscillate freely and without touching the slider or any of the magnets as well.

And btw: Why do you want to omit the spacer or substancially change it? It does not interfere anything - neither function, nor sound and not even the look. And it does not complicate the set-up, maintenance or repair in any aspect. It is only one simple part in addition. It does not cause big additional costs in production or big efforts to assemble. And it is neither prone to cause any malfunction or failure nor to excessive wear.

And this spacer does not concern the free space between the slider and the coverplate as I thought some days before. So there is no need of using those high coverplates from the Seydel 1847 Low Harp as I suggested then. The only difference to the default harmonica is that you need screws which are a little bit longer than the default ones.


But anyway: It is a very interesting and fascinating design.

And I do not think there is any substantial risk to inhale or swallow one of those tiny magnets as far as I can estimate from the video. This is because all of them are located outside of the reedplates. And between the magnets and the mouth are the reeds. They would quite surely stop any magnet coming loose from its place accidentally. And a simultaneos break-off of a magnet and its corresponding reed ist very unlikely. Or did I overlook some magnets on the very reeds?


dear greetings
triona