Richter-tuned Harmonica - Hohner XB-40

Hohner XB-40

The Hohner XB-40 is an entirely new body design, though in practice is still a Richter-tuned (diatonic) harmonica. Here the blow reeds and the draw reeds are sealed off one from another with valves, effectively creating two separate cells in the comb for each hole in the mouthpiece: one for blow and another for draw. A second reed is then placed in this cell at a zero-offset (no gapping) so that it does not sound under normal playing. However, it is placed on the opposite side of the reed-plate from the speaking reed and tuned so that it responds when the player “bends” the note downwards in pitch. This allows for every note on the XB-40 to be bent downwards a whole-tone or more, whereas on standard diatonics only certain notes (the higher-pitched in the cell) will bend at all.

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
blow	B♭ B C	D E♭ E	F G♭ G	B♭ B C	D E♭ E	F G♭ G	B♭ B C	D E♭ E	F G♭ G	A♯ B C
draw	D D♭ C	G G♭ F	B B♭ A A♭	D D♭ C	F E E♭	A A♭ G	B B♭ A	D D♭ C	F E E♭	A A♭ G