Brendan Power & Alternative Harmonicas Forum

How hard would it be to set that hole up for overblows without a booster? The marketing says it's "easy to overblow" which I take with a spoon of salt, but I haven't tried the Trochilus myself.

How hard would it be to set that hole up for overblows without a booster?

Not hard at all. I just lowered the gap of the blow reed a little and it overblows well now. I could get it out of the box but it’s better with some minor gapping adjustments.

I like to tongue block though and I can’t reliably do overblows tongue blocked without assistance (on any harp).

The trochilus is amazingly air tight.

Brendan wrote: ↑Sat Nov 30, 2024 5:00 am This sounds like an interesting project @mozharp. If you have any recordings of your new Trochilus tuning in action playing Bluegrass, we'd love to hear them.

Here's a very rough recording. My parrot is chirping along in the background, and my wife and kids walk in at the end, but hey, it's bluegrass. I did have to compress the MP3 to fit within the forum's allowed attachment size.

I took Brendan's suggestion and just tuned hole 5 blow (and hole 2 and 8) to an E flat. It's not a note I use a lot, but it does add variety when I do.

I need to work more on my technique, but it is fun playing on a retuned Trochilus.

Steve

Sounds good @mozharp!

Nice!

mozharp wrote: ↑Sun Mar 02, 2025 11:48 pm Here's a very rough recording. My parrot is chirping along in the background, and my wife and kids walk in at the end, but hey, it's bluegrass. I did have to compress the MP3 to fit within the forum's allowed attachment size.

I didn't hear the parrot. And I didn't realize any loss by compression.
But if you like, you can try to upload your next record on soundcloud and set a link into your post here. I do not know how much they compress the files. But you can try out and maybe it is better.
You can check out my soundcloud files for a comparison (link in my signature below). There are to hear very rough recordings, done by a bloody amateur merely with basic recording techniques (USB-Micro + Audacity without any postprocessing).

triona wrote: ↑Mon Mar 03, 2025 1:22 pm I didn't hear the parrot. And I didn't realize any loss by compression.
But if you like, you can try to upload your next record on soundcloud and set a link into your post here. I do not know how much they compress the files.

Thanks, Triona. I'll do that next time! I'm going to woodshed some more first. I spent a lot of time learning how to tune harmonicas (with solder, etc). I have a tuning I like; now it's time to practice more on it!

In the uncompressed version you can hear the parrot better, but I can also hear my little glitches better as well.

But a perfect recording is not not really the point for me - we're not trying to win a Grammy, just just sharing rough recordings of different tunings, alternate harmonics and stuff.

mozharp wrote: ↑Mon Mar 03, 2025 2:38 pm But a perfect recording is not not really the point for me - we're not trying to win a Grammy, just just sharing rough recordings of different tunings, alternate harmonics and stuff.

It is the same with me. Before I spend a lot of time to struggle with audio recording and computer technique I prefer to practice and improve my harmonica playing.
For the same reason I try to avoid electrical amplification and effects and prefer fully acoustic performance.