I have one, which I tuned to Major Cross--I don't use it. I did the same thing to an XB-40, I don't use it either. In terms of professionals, Bill Barrett is using the XB-40s, he is sending me some to refurbish. Not sure who is using the SUB30 professionally, but Richard Sleigh customizes them--as does Tom Halchek . And there is this company! Oh yeah, I've got a ChromaBender too, tuned to bebop, and it too languishes in a drawer. I just dug out a box of four 364 harps tuned to various altered tunings, gonna breathe thru those today, will they make it to the stage? My wife asked me, "How many harmonicas do you need?" And what did I say? "Just one more . . . "
Last Edited by Gnarly on Dec 01, 2016 8:20 AM
I am fascinated by the concept, though not in need of it to get the missing notes. The Sub 30 kinda fell off my radar. I can see this harp, equipped with optional overvalve plate (is that what it's called?) being a monster of a harp, that can do SO much stuff that can't be done on a regular diatonic.
I should get a couple, and the aftermarket additional plates, and set one of them up for a friend of mine who has been struggling for years to play the missing notes.
He has trashed several overbending harps. Super smart guy, hurricane force harmonica player. Thanks Heathen, for reminding me about this harp, and its capabilities. It could be the path my friend can take to 'chromaticity', finessing a custom overblow diatonic sure as hell isn't.
I alternate between being amazed and confused by the way you seem to be able to play all these different tuning schemes, Gnarly. Sometimes I wonder what it is that compels you to change from any particular standard tuning. I know there are specific benefits to some like Bebop on a chrome but I can't imagine this old brain coping with the plethora of tunings you use (or don't use...).
So I have to ask the question, is the reason these altered tuned harps don't get played because of the framework of the various brands you've modified? Or is it because they're tuned to all these different tunings?
Respectfully,
Michelle
---------- SilverWing Leather - Custom leather creations for musicians and other eccentrics.
I haven't played one, but I've played a Turboslide. I've never really put in the hours to get familiar with it. I think someone with more time on a chromatic might find it easier to pick up. I do love the sound it makes when you use the slide to bend notes though. I can't think of any other harmonica that can make those noises.
@nancoran I had Jim build me a Major Cross in G with a TurboSlide, it is a great harmonica. Of course, it is a Session Steel, so I don't play it at work!
Big kudos to Suzuki for the concept and their willingness to invest in innovation.
Big boos for the execution.
I have two and they don't get played. Even with the precisely milled aftermarket attachments from Blue Moon they just weren't up to snuff.
Bends on the lower three holes were weak and muffled; response in general was poor. Too bad. I really wanted them to work.
If you take apart a SUB30 you can see how little room for error they were working with. Tolerances for fitting everything together in an airtight fashion are pretty tight. Suzuki does good stuff. I don't know what they might have done differently with the SUB30. I just know that its performance is too restrictive for me to make good use of it.
The 30 reed concept can be done well. I haven't played one but the Power/Kovacs MB30 has received praise for not only being able to get the extra bends but also for being a wonderfully responsive harp in general. Problem is that they are so labor intensive that they can't as yet be produced in quantity.
Not a good experience for me. I was able to access the extra notes that make this fully chromatic, but it was physically hard to play and produced an awful sound. Truthfully, every good player I know who acquired one sounded terrible playing the SUB 30. Tom Halchack was kind enough to send me one of this kits to ease in the playing effort, and there was an improvement in sound and execution,but even this wasn't enough for me to have a high opinion of the instrument. It was a much hyped instrument and it failed in every promise made. ----------
As some of you may know, I have been involved with the SUB-30 pretty much from the day it was introduced at SPAH in 2012. Without bogging you down with all the gory details I will say this. It is not dead as far as I am concerned. I have built and sold about 100 custom SUB-30s using the BMH-30 comb that Brendan designed and I built, combined with the External Valve Plate I created, which is the next generation of the Over-Valve plate that Brendan designed. The SUB-30 is a complex instrument and it has taken me along time to unlock its hidden potential. Back in 2012, I didn’t know all that much about reed work. But in four years you can get a bachelor’s degree at a major university and having now built those 100+ SUB-30s plus another 2,000 diatonic harps, you kind of get the hang of things.
Roverharp and ted_burke – the components you got from me are a big help but the key is in setting up the reed plates. Part of the genius of the SUB-30 is that the arrangement of the notes is identical to a standard Richter Tuned diatonic. So you don’t have to re-learn how to play the harp. I dare say, I could put a custom SUB-30 in your hands right now and if you didn’t know any better you would think you were playing a very well made 20-reed harp – until you tried to hit an overblow or an overdraw and instead you got a blow bend on the 1-6 or a draw bend on 7-10.
Roverharp and ted_burke – if you want to send your SUB-30s to me, I will be happy to do some reed work on them and you will see a big difference.
Out of the box, the SUB-30 has some issues. There’s no doubt about that, but it can be made into a very good harp. The “problem” that the SUB-30 has had is that there just are not very many people who work on them. If you think about, for example, the Marine Band, there are 1000’s of guys who customize Marine Bands to one degree or another. The pool of knowledge is pretty deep. Lots and lots of people have gone through trial and error for years and the secrets have been unlocked for a long time. Not so with the SUB-30. I only know of about 5 or 6 guys in the world who have worked much with the SUB-30. It has taken a while but the innovations and ideas are coming. And seeing as I am pretty much the only guy making custom components for the SUB-30, and I only have a zillion other things going on, it has been a slow process. That said, I am at a point where I will soon be re-designing and improving my custom SUB-30 comb and the External Valve Plate. I expect to see a significant leap forward.
I don’t expect the SUB-30 to be the world beater that some hoped it would be, but I don’t think it is dead. And with continued progress I hope we can start replacing some of the negative experiences with positive ones and turn things around a bit.
---------- Tom Halchak www.BlueMoonHarmonicas.com
Last Edited by florida-trader on Dec 01, 2016 7:11 PM
Thank you, Tom, but I've decided to chalk this up to experience . It was an expensive lesson to learn. I would, though, like to return the EVP you were kind enough to let me experiment with. It did help , but I think I am hard wired in my playing habits and that the SUB 30 isn't suited for how I instinctually attack the instrument. ---------- Ted Burke tburke4@san.rr.com
Tom, thank you very much for the situation report, an honest appraisal of the ups and downs of the state of the 30 reed harp. Your love of harmonica is apparent. I am Glad to hear that you are coming out with improved comb and plate designs.
Gnarly, I've love magnets to start with, but I'm fascinated with the Turboslide. I exchanged a few emails with Jim when I was working on my magnetic covers (more on marketing than magnets specific). At the time he was talking about adding a second slide, I think, for the other plate. You don't technically need it to get the chromatic features since changing the pitch changes the available bends, but man, I want a whammy bar for all the notes!
David Payne mentioned a Seydel from before the wall fell in Berlin that was designed so it would choke- the one reed plate was flipped upside down, I think. Wouldn't bend. At least that's what I remember. It seems the trick with adding that second slide, from looking at it (didn't discuss that with Jim) is that the top reed plate reeds are out in the open. You can get the magnets close to them. On the bottom though, to get that close you'd almost have to have them built into the comb. I wonder if a no jam, no bend solution like that Seydel would work. You'd lose a lot of function, but it would be a simple way to fully whammy bar it up, and maybe with a careful pick of tuning it might be really useful.
I've contemplated lots of ways to try to convert harps from one tuning to another on the fly- a magnetic slide to convert the harp from major to minor... I've had an idea for a replacement for a standard chromatic slide with different patterns stamped where the holes should be. Wouldn't be hard to make a slide that could turn a specially tuned harp from major to a minor, but some of my more crazy tuning ideas just wouldn't work. I tried to figure out a pattern that would let you stamp out a different slider for each key. You'd slide it into a specially tuned chromatic and based on which slider you put in you could play any key with the same note pattern, only starting on a different note. For a while I was fixated on carrying as few harps as possible (without learning how to play a chromatic). I just couldn't make the note pattern work with two holes. It might work with more holes per 'hole'?
I'm just fascinated with different ways to become chromatic.
My dream harp would take Jim's magnet tech to electromagnets that would let you micro tune the reeds electronically. Plug in a USB to your phone to power the pitch shift and all the sudden your harp could be any key and any tuning with the flip of a switch- all for the low low price of $57,986.47!
I wonder what would start happening if someone used magnets on enabling reeds?
I think I am going to have to do one of my crazy idea rants again soon. :) ---------- Nate Facebook Thread Organizer (A list of all sorts of useful threads)
I thought by now we'd have a lot of good videos of the Sub-30 showing the possibilities of the instrument. Wasn't Christelle going to play them regularly?
For those of you that have Sub-30 (or Sleigh MBH-30) harps, can you play "regular" blues stuff the same way on it? I think for someone like me, who is so ingrained at playing 2nd, 3rd, and 1st positions, a harp like that maybe would help me take things a bit jazzier without too much stress.
I really can't overblow well, and I think it would take me a thousand years to get the tone/timbre of them correctly, and that's before even learning to use them in a musical way. So I've been curious about the Sub-30.
The SUB30 is a great concept, unfortunately poorly executed by Suzuki (that was the main reason I left the company...). The problem is the upper 20-reed reedplate: it has really big reed gaps, making the harp very leaky.
Once the plates are embossed it plays a LOT better, and it can really wail. Here's a video demonstrating the sound:
RICHTER SUB-30 in C, Embossing Only
With the addition of my OverValve Plate, the SUB30 plays even better. Here's an example:
POWERBENDER SUB30, with OverValve Plate
@cliffy: the x-reed harp is great for blues! Check out this 12 bar blues, with tab and bends explained:
RICHTER MB-30 in A, with full OverValves included
CURRENT X-REED STATUS Due to practical considerations we stopped customising the SUB30, though Zombor has plans to bring back the ExtraBend variant with his very clever comb design soon:
X-Reed ExtraBend Harp Demo & Explanation:
We made 50 MB30s in partnership with Richard Sleigh adding his customising skills, but Zombor got a full-time engineering job and we stopped the project. However Richard Sleigh hopes to bring it back with a USA made version. Hope he can, though it's a very tough harp to make with extremely intricate CNC milling half-way into the reedplates.
If you want a customised SUB30 right now, Tom Halchak is offering them with his development of the OverValve Plate (he calls it the Extravalve Plate) and metal comb that I helped design. They are very nice products and do help, but the first essential thing for good performance of the SUB30 is GOOD SLOT EMBOSSING. If you can get that plus the Blue Moon extras you'll have a nice playable harp.
SUMMARY The work done so far proves the x-reed concept to be a very good alternative approach to achieve chromatic ability on the small 10-hole harp with draw/blow bending alone. However the only commercial 30-reed model available is flawed, and to make it play well takes quite a bit of time, skill and extra cost.
Unfortunately there is no OTB low-cost good-sounding x-reed harp out yet. When such a harp in all 12 keys eventually comes I'm sure a lot more players will be keen to explore this very expressive and easy-to-play alternative approach to chromaticism on the blues harp.
Personally I'm a total believer. I was one of the inventors of the x-reed concept back in the 1980s and have been using it in various kinds of harps in recordings and gigs for a long time. These days it's mostly in the form of my home-made 13-hole PowerBender SUB30 hybrids, but also in newer variants like the all-draw AsiaBend:
Once you have the ability to do interactive-reed bending on all notes it's very hard to go back!
Last Edited by Brendan Power on Dec 04, 2016 6:19 AM
I think I'll take you up on your generous offer Tom. Thanks!
I have somewhat the same mindset as yourself and Brendan in that I think the x-reed concept will eventually catch on. I just wanted it to be now and was disappointed when the SUB30 failed to deliver but if you say it can be done I'm willing to give it another go.
I'm not looking for you to divulge your techniques (unless you want to??) but for clarification do I understand that the work you do on SUBs is specific to that model? I'm fairly comfortable setting up SP20 to my liking but are you saying the SUBs require a different approach?
I have two SUBs and two Extra-Valve plates I'll send to you. I 'm pretty sure I had two of your SUB combs as well but I can't find them at the moment.
One last question. I've thought that I might like a full step bend on Blow4 and Draw9. Should I tune those myself before or after you do your magic. Or, just leave well enough alone?
Brendan - thanks for your input on this thread. The stuff you are doing now that you have your 3D Printer and a working relationship with East Top is amazing.
Roverharp – if your questions are directed at me, just send whatever harps you want me to work on and let me know what you want done.
Thanks to Brendan for pointing out what should have been obvious - embossing.
I normally do so when working on a harp but I guess I simply looked at those impossibly narrow divisions between the chambers, assumed they couldn't make a good seal and blamed the SUB's poor performance on them.
A precise comb is a necessity but a good embossing has made the harp much better. Tom's Extravalve Plate is a great addition. I gave it a light sanding (just in case) and stuck a pellet of modelling clay in the chambers of the top holes to deal with Helmholtz. I now have a 'C' SUB that plays rather nicely. It's not perfect but I like it enough to reconsider the SUB.
@florida-trader - I may still send you my 'A' SUB to rework. It would provide a good baseline for comparison with what I've been able to improve.
Tuning is difficult. The Extravalve Plate seems to drop the pitch but you have to remove it physically get at a reed for tuning. A lot of disassembly and reassembly. Is there a rule of thumb offset you use to tune in comparison with a regular harp.
Same thing for the auxiliary reeds. They are tuned a step lower to allow for half step bends. I don't think they are tuned to the same temperament as the closing reeds though. Don't they need to be tuned a nice bit lower to achieve juicy half step bends?
Cheers
Last Edited by Roverharp on Dec 11, 2016 11:51 AM
Roverharp - rule of thumb regarding offset - you need to gap them a little tighter than a regular harp. As far as tuning, I don't like the stock Suzuki Tuning. I re-tune all my Suzukis to Modern Compromise Tuning so that means I have to adjust everything accordingly. ---------- Tom Halchak www.BlueMoonHarmonicas.com
