[Harp-L] Seydel Concerto

[Jonathan Ross]

I am a bit surprised at all the recent praise of the Seydel Concerto.

A few years ago I bought a batch of these (six in standard keys) and
while I liked the construction (nice plastic combs, good cover
design, overall comfort if a bit larger than an Auto-Valve) the ones
I got were not all that well-tuned--quite noticeable in an octave
harp. This was particularly true of the top octave in all the
harps. Simply put, they will not hold their tuning very well in this
range: the reeds drift and will not settle into a pitch for any given
length of time. I am suspicious that it might be an issue of reed
scaling not being well matched to the specific pitch needed--indeed,
these reeds are very narrow in relation to their length and pitch.
Perhaps this was just a problem with the batch I got (made before the
switch to having the tonic consistently in the first hole), such as a
bad bit of reed material, but there it is.

From my experience, I would not recommend these, unless you don't
mind retuning your own harps out of the box and never intended to
play the top octave.

()() JR "Bulldogge" Ross
() ()
`----'

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[Winslow Yerxa]

My Concerto was fine out of the box. After several days of fairly intensive playing, I find I have to warm the reeds into tune a little - some of the octaves sound slightly off when I first pick up the harp but settle in as I play. I may have to do some spot tuning a little later on.

I've ordered a backup for my G, as I'll be playing it in some concert performances, and also have ordered instruments in A and C (an octave lower than the Auto Valve in those keys).

Winslow

Winslow Yerxa

Author, Harmonica For Dummies ISBN 978-0-470-33729-5

--- On Mon, 4/13/09, Jonathan Ross <jro...@comcast.net> wrote:
From: Jonathan Ross <jro...@comcast.net>
Subject: [Harp-L] Seydel Concerto
To: har...@harp-l.org
Date: Monday, April 13, 2009, 5:27 PM

[Jonathan Ross]

Winslow writes:

My Concerto was fine out of the box. After several days of fairly
intensive playing, I find I have to warm the reeds into tune a little
- some of the octaves sound slightly off when I first pick up the
harp but settle in as I play. I may have to do some spot tuning a
little later on."

Warming does nothing to help my Concertos, at least not the really
bad notes; spot tunings for the upper octaves simply haven't helped--
they will not hold tune. This dovetails with the post I had on
consistency, as it seems people can have widely divergent experiences
with the same models.

[David Payne]

 
You mentioned  you got yours several years ago, before the tuning change. I know the tuning change occurred before I my affiliation with Seydel, so it would have to be before 2006 and likely made around the time Seydel was flat broke or immediately after Seydel was purchased by Niama Media and money started flowing again. There has been considerable improvement in all models since, which seems a possible explanation for the differences between you and Winslow and I.
Dave
_______________________________
Dave Payne Sr.
Elk River Harmonicas
www.elkriverharmonicas.com

: Tue, 14 Apr 2009 13:49:27 -0400
From: Jonathan Ross <jro...@comcast.net>
Subject: [Harp-L] re: Seydel Concerto
To: har...@harp-l.org
Message-ID: <D53CF26A-56B8-40EE...@comcast.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed

[Jonathan Ross]

Dave Payne wrote:

"You mentioned you got yours several years ago, before the tuning
change. I know the tuning change occurred before I my affiliation
with Seydel, so it would have to be before 2006 and likely made
around the time Seydel was flat broke or immediately after Seydel was
purchased by Niama Media and money started flowing again. There has
been considerable improvement in all models since, which seems a
possible explanation for the differences between you and Winslow and I."

Possibly. It depends entirely on what is causing the instability in
the tuning. If it is a case of bad quality control (ie, poor metal
used for the reeds) that might explain the difference. If it is a
case of a design flaw that has since been fixed (ie, poorly scaled
reeds which are no longer used) that might also explain the
difference. If neither of these has changed, then I cannot explain
the difference, though perhaps I'm more sensitive to out-of-tune
octaves than most. Further, the difference may also be explained by
length of time I've owned these, though that is unlikely since the
problems were evident early on. I will be interested in hearing
other people's long-term findings over the course of a few years.

I may try Concertos again down the road if people find that they
don't have these long-term issues, but for the time being I felt it
made sense to let people know that not everyone had a positive
experience with them.