hoe 3 draw the last note not working
I have many harmonicas from different companies and all are fine except my Seydel blue sessions brasIt is F harmonica the 3 hole draw bottom note Db does not sound at all no matter how hard I try.Does working on gap of draw hole resolve the issue?Does the gap need to become closer to plate ?
Wow great information I need to read it over and over to digest all that but just for your ref. Do you see any thing wierd?
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/MZ-DHUp3JyHdGYh3lz4K8Dva8uhWGqyZypBdr1...
https://photos.app.goo.gl/I7Mzu8ozLYoGdh1x2
https://photos.app.goo.gl/TgGvnbdtiM9rPcuO2
https://photos.app.goo.gl/YKyLoZAjDKLZqpn83
https://photos.app.goo.gl/NtzXxh7ORkUSEBgc2
https://photos.app.goo.gl/7kSk0XaTprIVzfIQ2
These are just my thoughts I'm anxious to hear what Winslow has to say.
I think the gap is a bit high. I think it's high because the reed is curved at the center. About halfway between the from the rivet end to the tip. I think if you held the reed plate up and looked at it from the back side I think the center would enter the slot first. Flatten the reed and see what happens. I know it will lower the gap. If you have to raise the gap later move the fulcrum point further back. A little less than a quarter of the way from the rivet end.
Again these are just my thoughts I'm anxiuos to learn too
thanks.....Mike
Are these all photos of the draw reed? You don't say, and it could make a difference.
The Draw 3 reed is often gapped high on out-of-the-box harps and can benefit from being lowered. That said, because it bends so far, it can benefit from being a bit high, as the draw reed gets pulled lower and lower to the slot as it bends down, and will blank out when it's pulled down so far that it can no longer emerge from the slot. On in Draw 3, the widest bend on the harp, alittle extra gap can help allow the reed to bend all the way down.
Per Mike's suggestion, you could try changing the curvature and not just the gap. THe ideal behavior is for most of the reed, including the tip, to enter the slot at the same time.
You can change curvature by different methods:
- By flexing the tip of the reed up or down while holding the rest of the reed down with a finger, at whatever location along the reed's length you want the new curvature to end.
- By running a stylus, with some pressure, along the upper surface of the reed to curve it upward, or along the underside to curve it downward. You can target very precise portions of the reed's length with theis method.
To make that bend work, first try gapping the blow reed slightly lower and the draw reed slightly higher.
Gapping affects both bending and response to soft-to-hard attacks. Lowering a reed makes it respond more reasily to soft attacks but can make it clam up on hard attacks. A higher gap makes it respond better to strong atttacks but more likely not to respond to a sift attack.
So, while gapping for bending response, you need to also take attack sensitivity into account.
The blow reed opens during this bend, and the closer it's gapped, the farther it can bend up during the bend.That isn't your problem here; rather it's the bottom of the bend, where the blow reed is closest to the plate. If the blow gap looks suspiciously high, you could lower it to see if that helps, keeping in mind you don't want it to choke out during normal play.
However, I suspect that, aside from playing technique issues, the draw reed gap may matter more.
The draw reed is the one that bends down. The higher it's gapped, the farther down it will bend, within the limits imposed by he respoder (blow) reed. If the gap is too low for this very wide bend, it could keep you from bending the note al the way down. So try widening the gap slightly and see if it helps. (That said, I've noticed on my Filisko harps that the isolated draw 3 would bend only a little by itself - most of the bend was coming from the blow reed).