Is this a game-changer for the Harmonica Industry? I just watched Brendan Power’s video on his Modular Reed harmonica. Do you have a broken reed? No problem, switch it out in 15 seconds. Do you want Paddy tuning? Country tuning? No problem, switch out the indivdual reed in 15 seconds. Whats all your thoughts? I think this will be a big change for us players!
Something fairly new ? ? ? Is to me anyway . . .
Very interesting - thx Butch.
Yes, this is a new innovation. Brendan Power is such a great innovator of all things harmonica. I don’t know how much of a game changer this will be for harmonica. The concept is awesome. And it sounds great in BP’s hands. Not quite 15 seconds to change tuning, as you have to remove cover plates, etc. It’s not something you’d wanna try and do at a club! But it still is an amazingly cool concept.
I was very excited about another of BP’s innovations, the Slip-Slider harmonica. I just went and looked at his website and he’s on Mk3 of the idea now. The version I tried was probably the first iteration and you’d slide the top cover plate to change note, and the harmonica just wasn’t responsive enough for me to want to play it, so I ended up sending it back.
The Lucky 13 harmonicas are another innovation of his. I was so excited to get mine in the key of F. It’s made by East Top. I still love the concept, but for some reason when I bend the bottom 3 notes it sounds like crap (I’ve been meaning to reach out to him and/or East Top about this and find out why.)
His new modular harps sounds like are made by Kongsheng. I’ve played some decent Kongsheng harmonicas.
In fact, I actually have one of his PowerBender harmonicas which was manufactured by Kongsheng, and, while I haven’t really gotten comfortable with the tuning yet, it does play well and sound great.
Anyways, all that to say - this modular reed thing is a great concept, but time will tell if it’s a game changer. I’d be hard-pressed to pull away from my favorite brands of harmonicas. Until I play one and see if it feels/sounds good to me, it’s really tough to know. I do LOVE the concept though!!!