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From: Mike Curtis
Date: Mon, 11 Sep 1995 00:36:10 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Re: Wood vs. Plastic (was Re: MB Natural Minor - Highs and Lows)

> > Another good point about plastic combs is that plastic doesn't swell into an oral version of the weed whacker. I'm not much into pain or the "Mick Jagged" lip-look.
>
> If you don't spit into the harmonicas, wood combs don't warp.

I have never had a problem spitting into my harps. I use pucker, and if ANY saliva gets into them, I can't get any speed. However, playing just one diatonic all night long for most of the night generates prodigious amounts of plain old condensation. I probably could minimize this if I tapped them out between numbers, but being a "one man band" and emcee, etc., it's just
another disruption that I don't need. With the rack pickup I use (a highly modified Guyatone), it takes about 15 seconds to 1. remove the harp, 2. tap it out (1 second), and 3. fish it back into the slot. During that time, the audience strays. I work VERY hard at reading the audience, working them into a frenzy, and keeping them there. 15 seconds can be an eternity under these circumstances.

But my biggest reason for using Oskars is that the reeds last me 10 times as long as Marine Bands. At the prices MBs go for these days, buying a new one every night is an expense I simply can't justify - especially when Oskars sound _S_O_ much better than Hohners. (Yes I know I said they all sound alike to the studio mic, but the action of the harp makes a tremendous
difference in what we get out of the harp).

A by-the-way: Would someone with a good selection of different diatonics in the same key (e.g. MB, Old Standby, S20, Pro, GM, Oskar, etc., all in the key of C) like to try playing the SAME exact musical selection into the SAME tape recorder (good one, hopefully), using the same mic, etc., and wait a week or two (until memory lapse strikes), then see if you can discern the
difference between the harps? I'd suggest NOT writing down which is which, because writing is well known to be a memory reinforcer. Just see if you can tell the difference yourself, i.e. the first sounds meatier, etc.

The reason I ask is that my hearing is kinda shot. Too many years in front of obscenely large amplifiers will do that to you. I rely extensively on the hearing of others (I HATE it when bartenders, etc., try to be "nice" and say it sounds fine when the guitar is making customers cringe because it's too bright, etc.), and have difficulty hearing the difference ON TAPE
between different harps, other then tuning differences. (I can spot a new Golden Melody a mile off! They're equal tuned). Winslow says there's a difference on tape, and I have far too much respect for him to lightly dismiss his claim, even though I don't hear it myself. When I'm playing
them, _I_ can hear the difference, but once it's on tape or disk, it's hard to tell - for me, anyway.

-- mike