Rounded Reeds, And Concertina Nova

[Bruce Thomson]

Hi folks,

I've just made a video on YouTube...

- Whether anyone knows of any experiments in rounding the square ends of reeds, to mellow the tone, what happened.

- Another invitation for you to join a Google+ group for video conferencing about modernizing the concertina (the Concertina Nova group in Google+).

'Idea is, let's talk about options like: crowd funding some progressive R&D; using 3D printing & any new materials that we find surpass traditional ones, reshaping the fingerboard, buttons, bellows, or anything else we feel might be enhanced for sound, ease of playing, construction, robustness, cost and appeal to (especially young) audiences.

We all revere the beauty of good-quality traditional-form instruments, and the culture of self-sacrificing peril-fraught work to create them. But imagine if we could find ways to quite quickly and cheaply make almost-as-good by humbly rethinking the instrument in every way - trial and error with new ideas and today's resources.

For anyone interested I've posted the requirements specification

- as a draft .rtf file on Google Drive - you can view it at https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-4satLcOAKGV09JUFBkU2hqd28/edit?usp=sharing

- in Tumblr at http://palmytomo.tumblr.com/

The video's at http://youtu.be/VDYuu2T6gQo

Cheers,

Bruce (Tomo) Thomson

20 Lyndhurst St. Chelwood Village, Palmerston North, New Zealand

06 357 7773 021 176 9711 palmytomo@gmail.co

Edited April 14, 2014 by Bruce Thomson

[Johann]

Rounded ends on bass helicon reeds are in use, and from my viewpoint it makes no difference at all to the resulting sound.

Different material for the reed tongue like titanium softens the sound. The difference that is noticeable between using some sort of bronze, brass or steel is also well known. There are other fact that influence the resulting overtone consistence of e single reed, or of the reed and frame combination. All in all not very effective, because there are always some other effects that come along with this alterations.

 

To the question of adjusting the pitch of reeds:

There are patents around, but not relay in use because all this modifications are difficult to implement and very cost intensive.

Some of this pedants like adding adjustable strong neodyn permanent magnets near the tongue is from my viewpoint also big mistake.

 

Johann

[Chris Ghent]

A few years ago I performed an experiment with elliptical shaped reeds. The intention was to see if removing any sharp edges in the air flow might remove some of the higher partials.

 

Firstly I milled a step down in the frame between the screws so the reed would sit .5mm lower in the slot. I then rounded the top .5mm of the slot so there was no hard edge. The slot was now this shape ) ( with the tightest point a little higher towards the top than the backwards brackets symbols I have used here for convenience. The reed I made with rounded corners, the word elliptical describes its shape well. If you go here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellipse and look at the red animated ellipse half way down on the left, that is a cross section of the reed. I then shaped the reed tip accordingly. It was relatively easy to make a reed with tight clearances, the unusual shapes of the frame and reed added perhaps 10 minutes to the fitting process.

 

I now had a rounded reed passing a rounded compression point in the frame. I inserted a normal reed with the same pitch and similar clearances into the tuning rig and listened. OnceI felt I was hearing it clearly I changed to the experimental rounded reed. The effect was immediate and extremely clear, the new style reed had a much reduced upper load of partials. I was elated.

 

I put the reed into a concertina and sat back to hear it sound beautiful. I was shocked, I had trouble working out which reed it was. Suddenly it was a much more ordinary day.

 

It was easy to conclude why this was so; the concertina structure itself was already removing all of the high partials that I was no longer creating. Sort of like removing the dog whistle partials in a noise and hoping to hear a difference.

 

Some time later I heard reeds like this exist in Italy, though I am not sure the frame is rounded on them, perhaps only the reed. They are called 'Bombate' reeds.

 

A drive for mellowness is not necessarily a great thing. A friend who makes guitars ( a well known medium volume operation) tells me when at his factory someone says they love their guitar because it is mellow they think, mmm, crap guitar. It will have no highlights in the tone. better to have them and learn to play it mellow. that way you still have the highlights when you need them.

[Chris Ghent]

Some of this pedants like adding adjustable strong neodyn permanent magnets near the tongue is from my viewpoint also big mistake.

Johann

Johann,

what would the intention be here..? Why would someone do this..?

[Johann]

It is quite a wile since i did see this pedant but i don't have the link, would need to search.

I think it was in relation to pitch bending with moving the magnet, i dont think it was meant to fine tune or readjusting the tuning of reeds.

 

To your comet above, also interesting what you explain about this special reed setup.

It is also my impression that reeds in test condition always behave different as in real environment.

 

So it is a known fact not only me, that certain reed types fit better to certain box constructions.

This is also that one builder my stay with one special suppler of reed and the other with someone else because the think the combination the got at the moment is the best fit. And not always the most expensive a mano set must be the best sounding combination. Still if one finds a box is not sounding well then changing the reed set will usually not solve the problem. It is always difficult to tell what contributes most to the resulting sound. I would not say that the sound cant be influenced at all by changing to rounded shape but for me the difference i could get is so minimal that it is not noticeable on Helicon reeds inside the box. I could get more effects by changing the slop shape of the reed. Still not worth to spend time with it. Well it is good to know about. I only tested this on very low pinched reeds.

On reed organs the had more experiences in this respect and the did do some "intonation" so a set of reed could suit a special register better as an other.

[Graham Collicutt]

http://www.turboharp.com/customharmonicas/turboslide/th-09-ss-turboslide-sessionsteel.html

 

Magnets combined with harmonica.

[Terry McGee]

 

Some of this pedants like adding adjustable strong neodyn permanent magnets near the tongue is from my viewpoint also big mistake.

Johann

Johann,

what would the intention be here..? Why would someone do this..?

 

 

Chris, it would be interesting to put a reed in your tuning rig and bring a strong magnet up to it to see the results. I can imagine several effects, so the question is which one wins?

 

Do we happen to know what the susceptibility and remanence of the steel used in these reeds?

 

I'm also wondering what the market advantage is for a concertina that always points north?

 

Terry

[Chris Ghent]

It is quite a wile since i did see this pedant but i don't have the link, would need to search.

I think it was in relation to pitch bending with moving the magnet, i dont think it was meant to fine tune or readjusting the tuning of reeds.

 

Thanks, I know the one you mean, I was wondering if you were referring to some other application.

 

So could get more effects by changing the slop shape of the reed.

 

I think I understood everything else in your post but I am not sure what you mean by the slop shape? Do you mean the profile..?

 

cheers

 

Chris

[Chris Ghent]

Chris, it would be interesting to put a reed in your tuning rig and bring a strong magnet up to it to see the results. I can imagine several effects, so the question is which one wins?

Terry

Terry, there is a harmonica which pitch bends by introducing a magnet which slows the reed. See the link from Graham above. I find downward pitch bends very unexciting.

[Łukasz Martynowicz]

Chris, if you construct and tune your concertina with a magnet affecting the reed for an unbended note, then you will have an upward pitch bend by removing the magnet.

[Johann]

 

So could get more effects by changing the slop shape of the reed.

I think I understood everything else in your post but I am not sure what you mean by the slop shape? Do you mean the profile..?

Sorry about my English, yes profile i should have called it.

 

Best regards, Johann

[Johann]

I never have heard such a harmonika with magnets.

My limited tests with magnets ware in a way that the resulting sound of the reed was a bit distorted through the unsymmetrical vibration.

May be the position of the magnet was to close to the vibrating tip.

[Terry McGee]

 

Chris, it would be interesting to put a reed in your tuning rig and bring a strong magnet up to it to see the results. I can imagine several effects, so the question is which one wins?

Terry

Terry, there is a harmonica which pitch bends by introducing a magnet which slows the reed. See the link from Graham above. I find downward pitch bends very unexciting.

 

 

Yeah, it wasn't so much the pitch change feature that interested me, although it's an interesting thought if fine tuning could be done by careful placement of magnets. In the close confines of a concertina, interactions might be very confusing!

 

I was more interested in what Johann reported - the possibility of tonal variation, particularly through asymmetry. Asymmetry normally increases even-order harmonic content, making things "warmer". It's why valve (tube) aficionados like their amps - they don't brickwall when overloaded like semiconductor amps, but go into a zone of warm compression. Not HiFi, but comforting. But Johann doesn't sound like he liked the effect!

 

Terry