to keep it simple the needle on my tuner is way over to the left on my c blow note nearly minus 50 set at 443 kz do i remove material from the tip or the base of the reed
i have probably ruined this harp but its old and im using it to practice reed work embossing etc
If your tuner is showing needle to the left, that indicates the reed playing flat, so remove material from the free end of the reed to make it play sharper.
If the reed started playing flat to that extent and not as a result of some interference like gapping or shaping or tuning, there’s a strong chance it’s fractured and beyond salvation.
thanks if its fractured gapped out of tune well i did it haha i dont mind as i only tinker with this one harp its not as easy as youtube makes it look these guys are experts
What I mean is that anytime you adjust a reed there’s a likelihood the tuning will change. usually it will go flat. So if you change the gap, you often need to tune up afterwards. The frustration can be that the process of tuning will sometimes impact the reed shape or gap and require you to reset, followed by more tuning. It kind of sounds worse than it really is, but it can be frustrating at times.
When you do a few you develop a feel for it. There was a time when I was doing a lot of harp work and got fairly slick with it. I think it’s one of those things where once you have got it worked out, it doesn’t really leave you. You just need to do it enough to get the feel.
