Seydel 1847 Slipslider Project

[dominico]

Demo video (from my basement)
https://youtu.be/ABmjrQxieNI?si=GHeWadC-F4kqJPXJ
Standard Richter tuning in G: Slipslider to play in A minor in the middle and upper octaves.

[WoozleHarmonicas]

Fascinating stuff!
As I explore embedding magnets into my 3d prints for more than just fastening and mounting purposes, I’m sure there are going to be a lot of options that I just hadn’t considered. Great work, Dominick! I’ve got some initial reactions that I think might be useful, but I’m trying to flush them out a bit in my brain before I respond. Hopefully we can chat about it sometime.
Cheers!

[Brendan]

Belated thanks for your video, Dom. It certainly shows that your ingenious assembly works to alter draw reeds pitches in the Seydel 1847. The magnet spring back is cool, and the fact it works on both blow and draw reeds is a first. Well done!

BTW I sent your demo video of it to Jim Antaki and Seydel, with positive words

Bertram Becher came up with a much more limited approach to the magnetic draw bender for his own use. He installs it in his Big 6 harps, specifically to lower just a couple of notes. He kindly gave me a sample; here's a photo.

IMG_20240429_164543_840.jpg (1.97 MiB) Viewed 141 times

[FingerSinger]

Brendan, this is similar to Seydel "All Minor" harp as far as I understand.
This is something I'd consider to switch between Paddy Richter / Richter / Country tuning, if only I

1. played Seydels and not Suzuki with phosphor bronze reeds
2. didn't have nice shiny promaster gold coverplates which I really don't want to drill

The first one probably can be solved by gluing micro magnets to the middle of the reed - so it doesn't affect the pitch by itself but allows reed to be moved by magnetic field.

[Brendan]

The first one probably can be solved by gluing micro magnets to the middle of the reed - so it doesn't affect the pitch by itself but allows reed to be moved by magnetic field.

Good luck with that! Jim Antaki spent quite a lot of time trying to extend his Turboslide invention to harps with non-steel reeds by gluing magnets on reeds. He found he couldn't find an adhesive that held them on reliably over time. The combination of the reeds constantly flexing and the magnet trying to grab on the Turboslide magnet meant they inevitably became detached.

I've tried it as well, without success. It's also a very fiddly job and difficult to avoid getting glue in the reed slot.

But maybe you can achieve it - I hope so! If you do, please let us know what glue does the job.

[dominico]

My day job kept me especially busy this week, I didn't have much time to move forward on any of these projects, let alone time to practice.

Belated thanks for your video, Dom. It certainly shows that your ingenious assembly works to alter draw reeds pitches in the Seydel 1847. The magnet spring back is cool, and the fact it works on both blow and draw reeds is a first. Well done!

I really appreciate your kind words and also that you wanted to share it with Jim Antaki and Bertram, both folks who I met last year and I admire.

Jim Antaki did respond to me also, with kind words on by magnetic prototype.
I've iterated on it a bit more, as I found I needed to move a couple things around to get a better response out of the magnets on the higher end.

Jim mentioned he had also gotten the pitch to raise by attaching magnets to the Seydel reeds and using one of opposite polarity to repulse it. I was able to do the same, although I couldn't get quite a full semitone before it closed the gap and the reed choked.

I am excited to show my prototypes to Bertram at SPAH. (We had a very cool engineering conversation last year at SPAH about how the Big Six has such a great reed response because it uses the upper hole reeds which are tuned down. Theoretically you could make super responsive harps by repeating the smaller reed sizes in the lower slots as well, though it would come with other drawbacks.)

Jim Antaki spent quite a lot of time trying to extend his Turboslide invention to harps with non-steel reeds by gluing magnets on reeds. He found he couldn't find an adhesive that held them on reliably over time

Indeed that adhesive would have to be very vibration resistant.

Regarding the slipslider project, I made a video of it playing a standard G richter harp in 3rd position, using the Slipslider to get familiar draw bends in the higher octave: https://youtu.be/ABmjrQxieNI?si=GHeWadC-F4kqJPXJ

[Brendan]

UNIVERSAL TURBOSLIDE
I'm glad Jim Antaki got in touch with you about your development to the Turboslide concept. He's a busy man and can be rather unresponsive.

SLIPSLIDER
Your video demonstrates well what I tried to explain to Richter players about the SlipSlider in the past: just put it in one position and leave it there, then explore!

In some ways you have an advantage, because you don't have years or decades of muscle memory dominating your brain when you move to hole 7 and above in Richter tuning. Those that do seemed to find it so disorienting when the SlipSlider gave them their familiar breathing pattern from holes 3-6 but placed it an octave higher in holes 6-9.

No matter that it's EXACTLY the same note pattern as the lower range they know so well, because it was now in the area where they automatically switch to a reversed breathing pattern, they literally couldn't play!

I was amazed, quite frankly... But then I'm so used to switching between tunings from doing it all my career, that I clearly didn't grasp the power of the entrenched muscle memory the pure Richter guys have developed.

Hopefully younger players will realise the beautiful extra expression and chromatic ability the SlipSlider can offer and start using it from an early stage, before their brain circuits get hard-wired.

Your enthusiasm for this concept is refreshing