[Lowboy]

Hi,

Well after 6 months of thinking I found the best tubing possible for my style of playing, I spent three hours fabricating two pieces of tubing with mouthpieces and fittings.

Look at the difference between my custom fabricated tubing and the Hohner original equipment tubing in this photo.

https://jpdtta.dm2302.livefilestore.com/y4mxgCdnFJiwGupYhMDLE9_9lERIYBo9ERUIGcJPAIq9euO8QFDvLT3Q4n4nGuRyCVKppklh0kg6ATOELr50s3_dzeVXRbskjMumZgRl1tg-k0rQw_80TxLQ2WxQ2FbZBrwZUCoI9udY0wXVYHCmEIwkOQyTzG8YfPTUE8fM4DAAo-OIydami_ZydgbCTVQRDOE7lq6cW3Kc1LrlShnBpjgDA?width=900&height=600&cropmode=none

When I tested the new tubing (which is light, large diameter, and highly flexible), it seemed to perform beautifully, offering no resistance to air flow and enabling me lots of freedom to move my keyboard harmonicas around. In every way I was happy with the tubing.

Then as I played more and more and listened closely, I found one flaw that is a showstopper. This tubing acts much like a slinky. And when pressurized, it elongates along its length. This elongation–or give–delays the attack on the notes.

It is fine if you are just blowing steady and pressing notes down, but the melodica is much more musical and expressive if you blow each note separately (when you can or when you want to). When blowing each note separately (ala Jazzman1945), the response of the larger and spongy tubing is not fast enough for accurate playing.

I guess it is back to the drawing board. If anyone knows of a source of tubing that is like the Hohner original equipment (stiff against pressure but still flexible) and having a larger diameter, please let me know.

Regards,

Lowboy