The Bass Harmonica

The double bass harmonica is not exactly a common instrument. It was more popular several decades ago, when harmonica ensembles were more common. The bass harmonica is a double-deck instrument with two hinged bodies, the lower having all the natural notes, and the upper having all the sharps/flats – so it is fully chromatic covering a range of two octaves, starting with EE (like the lowest note on a bass guitar). Each of the holes of the harmonica has two reeds tuned an octave apart – thus this harmonica has 58 reeds total. The double bass harmonica is an “all blow” instrument. It was a tough cookie to catch the real timbre and authenticity of this giant harmonica. Thus we tested several recording settings in which we recorded at least every second note in a long sustained and a short variation. We ran with velocity layer and Round Robin variation and came out with three seperate sample sets recorded with different microphone set-ups. Beside this we recorded a typical flutter fx and added some scriptings to provide more opportunities.