Happy Hour Harmonica Podcast

Bertram Becher interview

• Neil Warren • Season 1 • Episode 58

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Bertram Becher joins me on episode 58. 

Bertram is the Product Manager at Seydel harmonicas. He first landed this dream job when he made a name for himself by creating a software tutorial called The Interactive Blues Harp Workshop. 

Bertram tells us about the history of Seydel and how their use of stainless steel reeds led to the creation of the ‘new’ Seydel around 2007. As Product Manager for harmonicas he has a very varied role, including creating web pages, selecting pitches for tunings and helping customers directly with their harmonica needs. And being the harp player in the Boogielicious band, Bertram understands the needs of the gigging harmonica player.

Bertram then talks us through the range of harmonicas offered by Seydel, including the diatonic, chromatics and tremolos, as well as other offerings from the oldest harmonica manufacturer around today.


Links:

Seydel website:
https://www.seydel1847.de

Bertram’s band:
http://www.boogielicious.de

Seydel Artists Page:
https://www.seydel1847.de/Artists/en

Mundharmonica Live festival:
https://mundharmonika-live.de

Seydel Open:
https://www.seydel1847.de/Artists/en/SEYDEL-open

Little W effects pedal:
https://www.pedaltree.de/shop/pedals/little-w.-harmonica-boost/

Videos:
Doug Tate playing at NHL 2003: (I think on an original Renaissance harmonica)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmH8ZKozwlc


Podcast website:
https://www.harmonicahappyhour.com

Donations:
If you want to make a voluntary donation to help support the running costs of the podcast then please use this link (or visit the podcast website link above):
https://paypal.me/harmonicahappyhour?locale.x=en_GB

Spotify Playlist:
Also check out the Spotify Playlist, which contains most of the songs discussed in the podcast:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5QC6RF2VTfs4iPuasJBqwT?si=M-j3IkiISeefhR7ybm9qIQ

Podcast sponsors:
This podcast is sponsored by SEYDEL harmonicas - visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.seydel1847.com  or on Facebook or Instagram at SEYDEL HARMONICAS
and Blows Me Away Productions: http://www.blowsmeaway.com/

Support the show

SPEAKER_01:

Bertram Bescher joins me on episode 58. Bertram is the product manager at Zeidel Harmonicus. He first landed this dream job when he made a name for himself by creating a software tutorial called the Interactive Blues Heart Workshop. Bertram tells us about the history of Zeidel and how their use of stainless steel reeds led to the creation of the new Zeidel around 2007. As product manager for Harmonicas, he has a very varied role, including creating webpages, selecting pitches for tunings, and helping customers directly with their harmonica needs. And being the heart player in the Boogalicious band, Bertram understands the needs of the gigging harmonica player. Bertram then talks us through the range of harmonicas offered by Zeidel, including the diatonic chromatics and tremolos, as well as other offerings from the oldest harmonica manufacturer around today.

UNKNOWN:

Music

SPEAKER_01:

Hello Bertram Bescher and welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_00:

Hello Neil, I'm happy to be here.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you very much. So Bertram, it's a little bit different today. So you are the product manager for Seidel Harmonicas.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, that's me since I'm with the Seidel factory since more than 15 years already.

SPEAKER_01:

For all those harmonica players, you've got the dream job. You're the product manager for Harmonicas. So how did you first get this job?

SPEAKER_00:

When I was young, in my students' times, I wrote a book for Learning Harmonica, which actually was a software called the Interactive Bluesub Workshop. And this was a CD-ROM that could be put in the computer and you could learn on your computer. So this was something really new. And this was actually my first published work. This was during my biology studies when I was at university. I went forward with my biology studies, but because of this book work or the software I work. My name was on the schedule in the German harmonica scene, and I was in bands and played a lot of jams during those days. Yeah, when I finished my studies with a PhD in zoology, or even earlier, I found that there is a festival in Klingenthal. Klingenthal is the city where the Seidl factory is situated. I decided to go to this festival in 2002. This was actually the second festival they ever made in Klingenthal. From then on, I was there every year. So I really early learned a lot about the factory itself and the workers there. We talked a lot about harmonicas and reeds and reed work and what must be done to improve instruments and so on. Due to this relationship to the people in the Seidel factory, they had my name already. The factory was overtaken after times were really bad. There were two jobs German investors who bought, actually bought the factory. And they were looking for a product specialist who has a connection to the harmonica scene. They came to me and asked me if I could do the job. And this was fine for me because the university job, the current one that I had that days was not so fine. So it was easy for me to say, yes, I'm doing that.

SPEAKER_01:

So did they see your qualification in zoology as connected so you could deal with the animal as a harmonica

SPEAKER_00:

player? or to analyze harmonica beat responses and so on.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, fantastic. So Seidel Factory is the oldest harmonica manufacturer in the world, right? But it went and it came back again, didn't it? So what was the story there?

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, this was after World War II. The region where the Seidel Factory is situated became the Soviet Union area. So they were overtaken by the Russians, so-called GDR. What they did is they put together all the reed makers, so accordions... accordion fabric, harmonica section, and so on. They put everything together into one. And so the name Seidel was gone, but they were still producing at the same place all the time since 1847. So there was no interruption. And after the fall of the German war in 1989, they were reprivatized. And from that day on, it was named Seidel Zürner again.

SPEAKER_01:

I mean, for me, as a, you know, as a harmonica player, I remember Seidel sort of coming back into popularity. Or was it always going in Germany and just became more widespread around the world again or in Europe?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, they were international already because of the old history. You know, they were already strong in Australia, for example. Still, the boomerang brand was, the instruments from the boomerang branding was done by Seidel in Klingenthal, Germany. It's a funny thing that Orbitz music is still existing in is now dealing with big bands like ACDC and so on. They have no music stores anymore. It's funny. And Seidel was the maker of all the boomerang models in Australia. Yeah. And during the GDR times, many, many instruments went out of the factory and leave for the East. So the Soviet Union and they were not very famous anymore in the Western part of the world. The other brands had the chance to do advertising for 40 years in the America and everywhere else, but Seidel did not. So for many people, it seemed that there is a new brand being invented. But it's a continuous thing, you know.

SPEAKER_01:

So what made this kind of resurgence back into the Western markets?

SPEAKER_00:

It is, as a harmonica maker, you know, in the 1920s or even earlier, the harmonica was such a success for, and there were so many harmonica manufacturers existing in Germany. Even in Klingenthal, I have no number, it must have been more than 20 makers or names that you might never heard. After World War II, there was only one effect to be a small maker with a really good quality. And what helped us was the dream of one of the main engineers at Seidel, namely Karl Puchold. His son is now working for Seidel and he is retired already. But it was since the GDR times, it was his dream to produce use harmonicas with stainless steel reeds because he was in charge during the GDR times he was in charge for the accordion section as well so he was experienced with both worlds like the brass reeds and the steel reeds and he was dreaming of a harmonica with steel reeds because he is convinced that the steel is the better spring you know and better spring makes a better harmonica and yeah this was this idea with a new Seidel I name it now new Seidel since 2007 or 2007 2006, 2008. This period was the time when the stainless steel reeds were invented not, but, you know, changed into harmonica reeds. I got my first prototype from Carl when I was at Seidl's for half a year or so. And I still have it and it plays great. So after this invention, I was convinced that we could have a success in the harmonica world, you know, with this stainless steel reeds.

SPEAKER_01:

Were they the first ever stainless steel produced reeds?

SPEAKER_00:

No, No, no. There is so many things invented. You can imagine that the success of the harmonica during 1910 to 1920 or earlier, there were so many inventions done. And I think they had even lengthwise milled, not stainless steel, but steel reeds. The problem was the stainless thing, you know, or the older attempts to make steel reeds were with rusting steel. Now we have stainless steel. This makes a difference, I think. But there were attempts. went into production and some were overtaken by other manufacturers and the inventions were put into the drawer. never came back, you know.

SPEAKER_01:

Sure, yeah. And I remember that very clearly, say, when Seidel came out with the stainless steel reeds. That was the big differentiator and, you know, that the reeds would last for a lot longer and, you know, the sound characteristics would be different. So, clearly, that's worked for you. Most of your harmonicas do have stainless steel reeds, although you do have brass ones as well, don't you? So, clearly, you're still happy with the decision that, you know, you're going with the stainless steel reeds as the majority.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, and during the last 15 years, we changed the full portfolio of the Seidel brand. So all the tremolos, all the octa-pharmonicas as well, the chromatic all have now stainless steel reeds. There's only one model from the chromatic range left in the key of C and all the others have stainless steel reeds. All the other keys, G and low F and so on, everything is stainless steel now. In the diatonic range, there are three models left.

SPEAKER_01:

Might be just worth briefly reminding us all again what you believe the advantages of stainless steel reeds over brass reeds are.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I'm a player too. And I remember well, when I was a young player with a lot of jams and a lot of loud guitar players in the same band, I broke D harmonicas every 10 days or so. So I always had to carry double keys with me in order to sound good. Thing is, you know, if the note is there on the brass reed harmonica, the pitch can drop very really slowly. So what I hated was to have harmonicas always in my pocket that are out of tune. Because, yeah, the brass material is a weaker material where the little cracks that occur when the pitch starts to go down, this little cut goes inside the material really slowly. I think this is the reason why you can hear, even on some of the old recordings, that there are so many out-of-tune harmonicas. This was in the past, and when... When we had these stainless steel wheeled harmonicas, this never happened again. For me, it is really like that. In the 15 years of being a Seidel representative and a Seidel product manager, I found my band 15 years ago and we have gigs on a regular basis. Usually I have about 40, 50 gigs with them during one year. And all this time I broke, I think, three or four harmonica reeds. This is a complete different thing, you know. Even if they break, they go not out of tune before they break. They are in tune or they are broken already, you know. And this is a little bit more, you know, for me, it's better to have it that way than having harmonicas that are out of tune.

SPEAKER_01:

I absolutely agree with that because the steel reeds do go sometimes absolutely black. you say they just kind of go completely don't they so yeah so in a way maybe that's an advantage because they don't sort of you know sort of slowly go out of tune like

SPEAKER_00:

you say yeah it's like that you know if you have the feeling that that a steelweed is a little bit out of tune and if you draw let's say on the five draw and draw hard on it you can hear the pitch falling you know and then and then it's gone and this is how it happens with stainless steel reeds and this same process that can be done in 30 seconds is sometimes on brass reeded harmonicas takes you two weeks or so or even you try to retune it again up and so on and perhaps it is good for one song then but I would never wanted this back you know

SPEAKER_01:

it's probably worth at this point then talking about you know your competition so clearly there are other harmonica manufacturers who don't use stainless steel reeds and not for you to get the strategy, but why do you think that is?

SPEAKER_00:

No, it's always a kind of machinery thing as well. You know, we had the chance to reinvent the wheel a little bit, you know, because we were starting from scratch more or less. You know, we had the brass reeds, okay, but you can imagine after the Soviet Union times, the machinery and all the techniques that were used to make harmonicas were still 50 years old or whatever, you know, and in order to make a new, you know, start. We anyway had to go through all the techniques and make them new, buy new machines and make better tools for cutting, replays or whatever. Every step was done new after 2007. And this is not the case with other makers. So they stick on their old production method and we had the chance to change it. It's not a milling, it's more a sanding thing. And you need completely different machines in order to make profiles in into stainless steel sheet metal than into brass sheet metal, you know.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so you made a big decision at that point to go down the stainless steel reading. It's definitely paid off. I think, you know, it's well established that, you know, you make some very good quality harmonicas. So I've mentioned a few times on the podcast that I think we're definitely in a golden era of harmonica manufacturing. I remember when I was young and I started playing, the quality was much lower and now there's a tremendous array of harmonicas available from yourselves and other manufacturers so you know I think you probably helped push that bar but when you came out with the stainless steel reasoning I think the other manufacturers had to step up then and so so so what's it like with it with the competitors do you do you all talk to each other you know do you do you compare notes you know how is that

SPEAKER_00:

we're friendly together you know it's no problem and you know it kind of contract that you not overtake endorsers for example or whatever you know there's no struggle you know each other and we respect each other for sure we are competitors as you you said I think for players it's great because the quality of all the brands improved in my opinion nearly no sharp etched harmonica models anymore you know or swelling combs are a matter of the past for all brands you know I think this came up with yeah with our idea of making really high quality harmonicas available for harmonica players

SPEAKER_01:

yeah no absolutely you're doing a great job we're all very pleased with it and one thing I wish I'm pleased to see is that there are you know more premium more expensive harmonicas available I think the view used to be I'll make them cheap and you know so that people buy more but I think you know players who are more serious are happy to pay that bit more you know if they're getting much better quality instrument which we are doing these days so it's great yeah so back to your role as product manager then of harmonicas what does that involve

SPEAKER_00:

you know we are such a small team that each of us has to do a lot of things you know there must be a name for my job and this the name is product manager, you know. I'm doing the webpage. I'm writing the newsletters together with our designer who is taking all the great photographs. But in this team, yeah, sometimes there is product development and we check, for example, thicker comms for low harmonicas. So then I'm involved again to check everything or to also to define the exact pitches, you know, and if you play octaves and so on, we have to define the exact pitches for all, keys and this is where i come in as a musician Then I have the hotline. When somebody calls me, he gets a good answer mostly to his questions. It's a job with many, many different things that I have to do.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and are you involved with dreaming up new harmonica designs? Because you have quite a varied selection and quite a lot of different approaches to it. So is that something you're involved

SPEAKER_00:

with? The first thing I think where we took one of my ideas, I think, was the final result is the teamwork. But the initial idea for the big six, for example. This was during my studies times. I cut 10 holes because I found out that only six holes are well out always. And I never played during that days. I never played in holes seven to 10 so much. So I made myself a cut. I don't know that the brand I took, but I think there were the Piccolo cover plates I took from the little Hohner one. And I took another wooden combed model and glued the edge again on that one to have a six hole harmonica you know and yeah when I came to Seidel this initial idea came back you know and we made a product out of it you know but mostly it's teamwork so we discussed a lot for example during our drives to Bristol with our team it was a long journey in a car and during these journeys you made kind of brainstorming what to do in the next year you know and this worked out very nicely

SPEAKER_01:

yeah no fantastic again it's a dream job for us harmonic players So back to your sort of playing side, but then we'll touch on that a little while. So as you say, when you were at university, you were actively playing the harmonica then, yeah? You were in bands, as you say. So you've been playing from a young age?

SPEAKER_00:

Not so early. I played piano for a long time. So since I was 15, I was a keyboard player in different kinds of bands, like rock bands or Beatles revival stuff and so on. I think I took the harmonica first when I was at university already. So in the at the age of 23 or so. And then from that moment on, the harmonica became more and more my first instrument.

SPEAKER_01:

What sort of harmonica players were you listening to when you were starting out?

SPEAKER_00:

I think at the very beginning, I tried to figure out many things on myself until I found a guy who played harmonica too. And he was a big, big blues guy. And he introduced me to Sonny Boy Williams' first, second, Little Walter. What I liked a lot is Mark Ford. Later on, my hero, kind of hero, is Paul Delay. He is one of the most surprising solo players that you can find. And I like the playing of Rory Platt, you know, from Canada. He's the master of rhythm, you know, and accent and so on. He's really punchy.

SPEAKER_02:

Anyway,

SPEAKER_00:

I always try to play by myself and not to sound like anybody else, you know. This was never my focus. Yeah, I try to surprise myself during my playing and sometimes I'm succeeding.

SPEAKER_01:

And so you're in a band now, it's called Boogalicious.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

They've had a few albums out. I think you've been on a few other albums, haven't you, over the last few releases they've made?

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, I think our trio, last trio album was done in 2018. We joined in a piano shop here, in a local piano shop here in my hometown. A good friend is running this one. It's a It's a Steinway house, you know, they have only Steinways. And yeah, he gave us the key and we could record in his rooms. And this was really great. Yes, there's another album together with Abbie Wallenstein, who's, he's one of the, you know, most famous blues players, guitar and singing in Germany. I think it has the blackest white voice ever. Yeah, he won the German Blues Award, I think in a nine times in raw so it's crazy

SPEAKER_01:

yeah you did a live album with

SPEAKER_00:

him yes i'm very proud of of this album because it was only two gigs with him and we recorded the full gigs we succeeded in making one album out of it which really sounds like it sounded when we played i always care for making you know recording sound lively not so compressed you know

SPEAKER_01:

It's a boogie-woogie band, isn't it? How are you approaching playing boogie-woogie harmonic?

SPEAKER_00:

I'm thinking a little bit bigger, like in Little Big Band, you know? Because our drummer is doing a lot of brushwork and our piano player is doing... It sounds more full than the usual boogie-woogie stuff. And I try to fill it with brass sections, you know? At the beginning, it was really hard for me because I came from blues playing and came from pop and rock playing, and it was much slower. And they really pushed me hard. I had to follow this fast stuff, you know. This is really fast. And it's not easy to not repeat oneself all the time if you have to play that fast.

SPEAKER_01:

Another difference as well is the trio is made up of piano vocals and a drummer. So there's no guitar, which is unusual for the vast majority of people playing in bands. And playing with a piano is probably a little bit different, isn't it? How do you approach that? You play piano yourself. I

SPEAKER_00:

enjoyed it a lot not to have a guitar because most of the guitar players that I knew, they were too loud, simply too loud. And this was my kind of music. Yeah, we could play with a volume that... doesn't hurt you know so I just had to find a way to have an amplification system that gives me the punchy Chicago sound with a low volume so because I mostly play with amplified harmonica in order to get punchy sound like a saxophone or like a whatever trumpet or so it's mostly done with an amplifier and a bullet microphone so

SPEAKER_01:

yeah yeah great and you know like you say you've been you're doing well with these guys I think you've been with them what since about two 2008 or so and you know you you've like you say doing 40 50 gigs a year you've toured around europe so um you know been in france netherlands switzerland belgium england portugal so yeah you're doing pretty well with these guys

SPEAKER_00:

yeah yeah this is it's a great band yeah during the crisis now it's it's hard um especially for them because they have no other job they oppose yeah i'm happy to have my job as a product manager and it seems that um that during crisis harmonica's sellings are okay we really okay so I'm really happy not to suffer too much you know

SPEAKER_01:

yeah I think that's one of the things isn't it where people at home a lot over the pandemic they would spend things on hobbies and pastimes more so things like musical instruments I think did quite well didn't they so Seidel did okay through the pandemic

SPEAKER_00:

yeah until now we can't complain you know it's fine and we're keeping on doing new stuff like the alternative chromatic with a non-slider system with a double row mouthpiece and so on. And this was a product of 2020, you know.

SPEAKER_01:

You've got some dates of coming up with the Boogalicious band in April and May. I'll put a link onto the podcast page. People want to come and check you out. So is it extra pressure being the product manager for a harmonica manufacturer being the harmonica player or is that help?

SPEAKER_00:

You know, the fine thing is for me as a, yeah, a steady job that my factory, so my boss and I, we agreed on the fact that I never, have to get me holidays for making gigs, you know, because I'm spreading the word live, you know. And this is fine for me because I feel no pressure with my family in order not to have enough holidays or whatever. You know what I mean. And then this is a nice fact. Yeah, I think it's a big advantage for for being a touring musician because I also do the artist relations in our factory. And so if I talk with people and they talk about their experiences on the road or so, I know what they are talking about, you know.

SPEAKER_01:

It's a busman's holidays would be the English phrase to use there. Are you familiar with that one? So great, yeah. So let's get on now to talking a bit more detail about Seidel's harmonica ranges and the products offered. So first of all, talking about the diet tonics so clearly you've got your 1847 range and 1847 is when Seidel was formed in Klingenthal in Germany that's where the 1847 comes from you've got the range of 1847s you had what was the classic with the wooden combs and then you then got the noble and then more recently you came out with the lightning which is a metal bodied harmonica which is the most expensive of the range so maybe tell us about the 1847 range

SPEAKER_00:

the aim at the beginning at the very beginning was to make a modern classics you

SPEAKER_01:

know

UNKNOWN:

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00:

So that's why the 8047, the first 8047 did not look like coming from Mars. So not so fancy, modern, but really traditional. Because I know that harmonica players, mostly very, you know, traditional guys. And we just wanted to make sure that they would love our things to be harmonicas as well. So we put them on a wooden comb, which was, yes, it was rounded and it was fully sealed. So it could not swell anymore. Shortly after it came out, we changed the reed plates material from brass to German silver so there was no green stuff anymore on the reed plates after playing and the covers from the beginning were stainless steel and even the screws and the rivet material are non-corrosive and so this was our aim to have something really really good available for the players but still looking like a harmonica you know yeah the next step was the plastic body because many people like plastic and were convinced that plastic is better than wood. So this was the silver then. Interesting thing with the silver is that they have a full solid plastic comb, not a die cast in this way that there are any cavities inside or so. It's really a sandwich like a wooden comb. That's why this one seals really good as well. Next step was the noble. with an aluminum comp that was CNC milled. So this is the most technical difference. And the wood is laser cut and then sanded. The plastic comes out like it is. Aluminium is CNC milled and anodized afterwards, you know, black anodized. Yeah, the last step was the lightning. There were some custom harmonicas out with stainless steel or even brass combs. We played them and said, okay, this is, again, another quality. Just the haptics is completely different. So you have a heavy, heavy metal harmonica And it turned out that as well, the wind response or perhaps it's the treble range, the really high frequency and the comb makes it a little bit more crisp, I would say. Like the Noble already has this crisper sound combined compared to the Classic. The Lightning is even more crisp or more rough. I don't know how to explain it.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Great, yeah, so a great range. And then you've got the Session Steel as well, which is sort of cheaper than the 1847 range, but they've got plastic combs and really good quality harmonicas. I have some and I've got to say they feel like some of the most airtight harmonicas that I own.

SPEAKER_00:

After a while, you know, they are recessed. It's a recessed reed plate like other makers do as well. So you have no contact to the reed plates with your lips because the reed plates are inside the body. And this makes a difference from the feeling. like especially chromatics they play better after you played them a few hours you know the reason for this is that the saliva enters the harmonica and fills all the little, little, tiny, non-airtight regions. And then everything dries out. And if you repeat that, there is a kind of a protein glue sticking everything together and making it extremely airtight. And this is what happens to the session steels as well with its recessed reed plates.

SPEAKER_01:

Are you telling us we shouldn't clean our harmonicas then?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, not too much. I would not suggest a chromatic player, for example, to unmount the reed plates too often. This is actually as well given in the Renaissance manual. You know the Renaissance harmonica from Douglas Tate? Yeah, Douglas Tate's ones. And he wrote a manual. And in this manual, he said that harmonica seals while playing due to the saliva. He natural sealing process.

SPEAKER_01:

So talking about the Renaissance and we can jump onto the chromatic. So didn't Seidel make a version of the Renaissance for a while?

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. Douglas Tate, he had some meetings with our main engineer and Karl Puchold again. And Karl Puchold was, he was really gifted, gifted person with, you know, handwork. So he overtook the plants from Douglas who already suffered from, I think he had a brain Two more. So, yeah, we decided to continue his work, you know. And he agreed on that. And he gave us all the plans. And Karl Puchold did the Renaissance for a few years. And when he retired, there was no person anymore who could do that, you know.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. So it's not available

SPEAKER_00:

now. No, it's not available anymore. So this range of chromatics is closed forever, I think. Because everything was handwork.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. And just to explain to people who don't know, so the Renaissance, as you say, was designed by Douglas Tate. and it was a very top-end handmade harmonica, a chromatic harmonica, wasn't it? So well done for carrying on for a few years. So on the chromatics then, was the Saxony one of your first ones? You had the one before then, didn't you, I think, and then the Snacktony came out.

SPEAKER_00:

As a maker, you have to always be sure about the investment that you do if you bring out a new model, you know? And so the Saxony and the Deluxe steel models are further developments of an older model called the Deluxe that had brass reeds. And we just overworked many, many parts in order to have the Saxony. Finally, the Saxony that has a better, more airtight mouthpiece system. And yeah, stainless steel reeds, different cover plates, they are opened wide at the back. There's an aluminum comb in, not anymore, a wooden comb. There are no wooden combs anymore in the chromatic line anyway, because I think the tone wood that was available in the past for a reasonable price is gone from the market. And you just get young wood. And if you produce wooden combs with tiny little cavities, like on a chromatic comb, at the end, we had 50% that were not good.

SPEAKER_01:

And I think because the chromatic is more complex than the diatonic, it probably needs that more precision comb, doesn't it, that plastic can provide?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, plastic or even milled aluminium. And the plastic that we have is actually acrylic glass and this can be milled as well. So we have no die cast for the chromatics. It's all machine milled like CNC machines are doing the job.

SPEAKER_01:

And of course, your most recent chromatic is the Symphony.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, this is one that we it from scratch you know after a while it yeah we had no 16 hola in our range we had yeah to really make it from scratch and we had the chance to make it from scratch and the result is the symphony so first one that we had was the Symphony 64 or also called Grand Chromatic with stainless steel reeds and it has an aluminium comb with recessed reed plates individually screwed on so like you can remove only one cover and one reed plate and the other side is untouched so this is really nice the slider the slide spring is on the left hand side so on the lower notes and this is the reason for being able to just open one screw at the back of the instrument, the screws come from the back, the mouse piece screws come from the back. And if you open it on the right side, so on the side with the slider knob, push it a little bit outwards, you can slip out the whole sliding slider in order to clean it. This is a much more convenient method to clean the slider. If you want to make outstanding sounding and airtight harmonica, and if it is chromatic, the tolerances are really small, have to be small in order to have the optimum of tone control and no air loss. So the player has the chance to really modulate the tone. And, you know, it's easy to make a harmonica that is not airtight. Everybody can play on it, but you can't control the note, you know, or the tone. And our aim was to make it really high-end for high-end players who don't want to have this air loss.

SPEAKER_01:

So it's interesting. It's got a magnetic slide, hasn't it?

SPEAKER_00:

There's 64 models with a four-octave range. It has a usual spring mechanism built in. And the shorter one that came out later has two differences. One is that we polished all the reeds. On the surfaces, the milling marks or the sanding marks are really reduced in order to better durability, even better than the usual stainless steel has. And the sound is a little bit more even than two with the polished reeds. And the other thing was the idea of having two magnets that do the job. that usually is done by the spring. And

SPEAKER_01:

has it been a success, the magnetic slider, would you say?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, many players love it, but there are some who produce a lot of saliva and get sticky sliders, and the magnetic force is not that powerful like the spring is.

SPEAKER_01:

Pop it out, can't you, yeah, to replace it with a spring,

SPEAKER_00:

yeah. It can be replaced with a spring, or even you can put in both, like the magnets and the spring, whatever you want. I like it a lot because Because for me, it's no problem to clean the slide from time to time and to make it work. But for many people, they say, okay, you have to work on the slide more often. That's the fact. But in return, you get a really smooth feeling while pressing the slider that starts really easy and soft and becomes harder at the end. Because then both north poles, you know, the north and north come really quite close. And then you have a spring force. But at the beginning, the touch of the slide It's really, really light. And this is what I really, really like.

SPEAKER_01:

Very good idea to the magnetic slider. And like you say, if you can just swap it out after a spring, if you don't like it, it's the best of both worlds, isn't it? So it's a great innovation. So again, well done for bringing that in. So let's move on. You also create tremolos and some stainless steel tremolos, as you said, because I think tremolo reeds are notorious, aren't they? They're quite thin. And they have to be in tune with each other, of course, because there's two and they've got the same note, right? So I think the the more resilient steel probably works very well in the tremolo, does

SPEAKER_00:

it? I would say yes, yeah, because especially if you tune them to, yeah, decent amounts of tremolo. So we have two models. One is the Skydiver.

UNKNOWN:

.

SPEAKER_00:

And the Skydiver has this kind of Asian tuning, which comes from solo tuning, but without any double C notes, you know. And this is the most commonly used tremolo tuning in the world. And the Skydiver model has a really light tremolo. It's not too fast and really light. In order to keep it like that, it's always important to have the leads in tune, for sure. Same with the octave harmonicas. On the octave harmonicas, you have, otherwise you get a tremolo sound out of an octave harmonica and this is not what you want

SPEAKER_01:

yes just the octave harmonicas you know

SPEAKER_00:

on tremolos two reeds work at once all the time and then they are all individual chambers if you have this double row square mouthpiece you know you have one in the upper in the upper row there is a draw and a blow hole and the same in the lower row of the mouthpiece and a package of four makes a usual blow and draw note so two reeds work together and produce the tremolo, like a 12-string guitar, you know. And on the octave harmonica, it's like having an octaver put to a guitar. So you have as well two reeds working together, but they are tuned one octave away from each other. So

SPEAKER_01:

as well as harmonicas, you also provide some... some additional. So you have an amplifier now, the HyperAmp HA1510. How long have you

SPEAKER_00:

had this one out? This is Mark II already, so it must be out for 14, 15 years already. So after five, six years, we made the MK2 version, which is the current version, where we added gain control and reduced the amount of reverb that is built in. Actually, this amplifier is not done in the saddle factory. It's like a boutique amp, you know, like a small maker who's doing only small amounts of a series is about 30 amps or whatever you know if we order we 30 50 amps like that and they are all hand wired and handmade the aim was with the mk2 version was to have a yeah a tube amp that provides the right amount of you know chicago feeling even with low volumes

SPEAKER_02:

so Thank you.

SPEAKER_00:

So this one is really sizable. You can add another speaker or you can crank it up in order to sound really big on a big stage. There's also a line out so you can amp it to the PA directly.

SPEAKER_01:

So it's a small tube amp?

SPEAKER_00:

It's 15 watts only, 15 watts only.

SPEAKER_01:

Quite a lot for a tube

SPEAKER_00:

amp. But it's a tube, it's a tube watt, so it's a little bit, yeah, it's loud enough, I can tell you. There's a volume control and a gain control and if you crank the gain control there is enough distortion even with the low volumes you know and this is what people aiming for most people who buy amplifiers are not pro players and do not step on big stages all the time but they want to have this exact sound in their living rooms together with the playback by the way there is an auxiliary in on that amp too so you can do your street music with it as well if you want.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, sure, yeah. So great. And another thing you've done really well with is this Gecko harmonica holder which uses magnets again to attach the harmonica to it. I've heard a lot of good things from people about this harmonica holder.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I think swapping harmonicas never was so easy. The idea came from a maker in the US, Pete Farmer from Foot Drums. He's the guru of foot drums and he has invented this harmonica holder as a side product and he We are now producing all the Gecko harmonica holders in Klingenthal directly. So they are made in Germany, according to his ideas. You have to look at the product itself. It's a sturdy thing and many ideas went into it. The fixed position, for example, you know, usually if you put on your rack holder or harmonica holder, you have always to adjust the angle again. And sometimes it's fine in a live situation. Sometimes you have to put your head in front. And because you have not the chance to readjust it while playing guitar or whatever, but this one, the gecko holder has a fixed position. You can adjust it before you play it. Then you can easily put the harmonica down and up again with the very same angle you adjusted before. This is one of the most important or most clever features besides the magnetic holder.

UNKNOWN:

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01:

Another thing which, you know, you're very hot of there, Seidel, is offering different tunings. And you've got various different players promoting their tunings. You've got a couple of the players. I don't know, you've got PT Gazelle's, his harmonica with the half valves. It's not just tunings, but you've got Major Cross from Tony Ayers. You've got the Wild Tuning from Will Wild. Yeah. Brendan Powers. So all sorts of tunings. So that's something, you know, you're very keen on making those available for people.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. You know, this was a specialty that we had from the beginning but at the beginning it was like that someone wrote us an email with some crazy stuff inside and we had to figure out if it is possible to do or not so we decided very early decided to have this harmonica configurator on the net on our webpage where you can figure out your own tunings and we get exact information from the players in how to do it this was a really big step forward yeah the services can be done with a tool on the internet called the harmonica configurator It gives the opportunity that you can really try to figure out a certain tuning variant that is suited for any other kind of music that is not blues. For example, we had in the past, I had Scottish players who have a draw and a blow Bordeaux note. I think I made myself one of those. I have this... This is Dawn. This is blow. So this kind of stuff can be done easily with a configurator and otherwise you have to retune by yourself and not everybody is...

SPEAKER_01:

So the configurator came first and then you started offering, you know, tunings such as the major cross and the wild tuning as a result of the configurator.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, you know, many players started out making their own configurations and for example, Will Wild, he was endorsed by us already when he tried to figure out his own Will Wilde harmonica tuning. He did it in a configurator until he was happy with it. And then he said, okay, this could be a good, nice product. He was the ambassador for this kind of tuning, like PT Gazelle is the ambassador for the half-valved PT Gazelle method harmonicas that can be played chromatically and so on. Not all the tunings have the potential to be a serial product or a speciality product, but as soon as it becomes commonly used by many players and they are asking for this model, we can do this signature model I would call it.

SPEAKER_01:

And probably a good time now to talk about the endorser scheme that you have. So you've got lots of players that you have as endorsers and lots of people from all around the world. You've got people from obviously lots of European players, South American players, even some Iranian players on there. So you really try to spread it and get those different styles and music from around the world.

UNKNOWN:

MUSIC

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I think the harmonica has the potential to do it, especially the Richter-tuned harmonica. I think it's one of the most versatile instruments that I can think of in terms of making folk music in different contexts, like Iranian music. The bending, bendability, you can have all the scales. And modern players, even better if they are able to play overblows or half valve bendings or so. There is one guy, he plays a mix out of overblows and half valving. Brilliant too. He took the best out of two worlds, you know. Overblow one, for example, is not easy to get. So he has a half valving method on that one in order to get that note. And in four, five and six, overblow is not so hard. Then he takes the overblow approach. Overdraws are really ugly notes sometimes, you know, you have to set up your harmonica so good in order to get them right. Again, he's doing the half-valving on those ones, you know, and at the final result, he has full chromaticity. So

SPEAKER_01:

what does it take then to become a Seidel endorser? You know, why do you choose a place that you do?

SPEAKER_00:

Usually we ask them to write us their ideas of how to promote the brand. Some of them are not experienced yet with our instruments, instruments then we give a testimonial that is mostly paid we have our policies not to give away free harmonicas that we are much too small for doing that yeah people are interested and we talk with them and I figure out mostly what they can do if they have students for example and a full schedule of gigs there's no question you know they are already more or less pro players but others perhaps have a good working Instagram account perhaps not yet great players but they They reach a lot of audience and they can spread the word. So this is a qualification then for them for being endorsed. This is the modern times, you know, with Instagram. And sometimes there are some guys who do brilliant tutorials or serials of tutorials. It's quite a mix out of interesting harmonica guys.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so other stuff that Seidel will do. You've got a harmonica festival, Mund Harmonica Live, which is held in Klingenthal each year, yeah?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it is always in the third September week.

SPEAKER_01:

And that's happening this year. It did happen last year as well, didn't

SPEAKER_00:

it? Yeah, we had the chance to do it last year as well, and it was great. So this was one of the first ones that could be done during this crisis. And this year seems to be okay too. So we already have fully booked schedules for all the workshops.

UNKNOWN:

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and I'll put a link on to the festival so people can find that. And it's also got a competition, isn't it, called the Seidel Open, where there's a competition and you provide backing tracks for that?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, the idea for the Seidel Open was to give people or players a chance who usually are not playing with a band. You know, they get free backing tracks after they registered for the contest, and they can choose one or two songs out of 11 songs that are actually played by a band. So, um, In springtime, I always visited the bands and did some recordings for the playbacks. And in autumn, after they could rehearse with the backing tracks for six months or so, they came all to Klingenthal and as well the very same band is there and plays more or less exactly the same backing tracks. I take it not too serious, you know. My thinking is measuring music is always kind of, I don't know, you know. Especially if you want to say, okay, this is the best blues guy. He did the best improvisation or whatever. This is even harder then to judge about that because sometimes it's not only the technique, playing technique, it's also the appearance or how they are in the music if they are on stage or whatever. And all this is covered by a jury and we have the audience as well who can vote for the first, second and the third.

SPEAKER_01:

So a question I ask each time time is if you had 10 minutes to practice what would you spend those 10 minutes doing

SPEAKER_00:

this is easy to answer for me because i think what is mostly missing is rhythm skills so you know practicing on on the on the right rhythm or on syncopes or on you know exact for example if you play um These are all the right notes, but it's not at all interesting. What I'm thinking is like... Like this, you know, like fun rhythm exercises.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, thank you. So here's a question for you then, which I'm guessing you play Seidel harmonicas only, but what's your favorite ones?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I have most of them are 1847 classics because I started on them because that was the first 1847 that we had and I fell in love with it. I have some of the lightnings now in my gig set, because it turned out that for soloing, they were quite better than the actual classics that I had before, even without adjusting them. So I kept them in my gig set. But most of my harmonicas are still the classic ones.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, great, yeah. And do you use any overblows yourself?

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, yes. At the beginning, it was just sports. From time to time, I use them in to produce some jazzy stuff.

SPEAKER_02:

Like...

SPEAKER_00:

whatever. For a beginner, I would say, okay, learn the rest before you learn overblows.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Are the saddles set up well for overblows out of the box?

SPEAKER_00:

I would say if you know how to produce an overblow already, they are all overblowable. No problem. Sometimes you have these squealing issues that come from torsion mode vibrations, these high squealing noises. Then you have to work on these a little bit by customizing by yourself. So this is not guaranteed that there's no squealing, but it's much less less than on other models.

SPEAKER_01:

And which embouchure do you like to use?

SPEAKER_00:

I started with pucker. The tongue block is important too because many octaving or other intervals cannot produce without and vamping and so on. But I would not say that tongue block is so much more important if you are a modern player. Perhaps if you are a traditional blues guy then it's even more important to play more tongue block. But I mix it up and I think first place it's still pucker

SPEAKER_01:

and what about your chromatic of choice that we'd like to play

SPEAKER_00:

i don't play a lot i would say to be honest the symphony is too good too airtight for punchy blue stuff because you know if you if you play uh like what is it called blues in the dark or whatever if you play um punchy blues west coast swing stuff on on chromatic you better choose the deluxe steel because the other is too high-ended

SPEAKER_01:

and uh so what about amplified Do you use the HyperAmp or do you have a selection of others too?

SPEAKER_00:

You know, the HyperAmp is fine. From time to time, I'm still using it. But, you know, when we are out with the band, we have only one car. The room in the car is restricted. And so I went for AER, Acoustic Guitar Amplifier, which is really clean sounding. And I use a booster that is made from a guy in Erfurt. It's called the little W, like the little water. This is a little harmonica booster and this is my dream combination because it's small, loud enough with my band, does not take any space in the van or in the car.

SPEAKER_01:

Right, and you're playing a clean sound as well with that band too, are you? So you like a clean sounding amp?

SPEAKER_00:

I have this distortion booster thing for my usual sound and a bullet microphone that I really cup a lot so in order to get a really fat Chicago sound out of it. But these amps have another input where you can plug in, let's say, a condenser microphone for acoustic sound. I usually do it like that. I have my acoustic microphone on a stand. That is where I can talk to the audience as well if I want. And this goes into the very same amplifier. And so I have my own box or sound on the stage, which is always the same. And the second channel, the line in, the guitar line in, is used for the distorted sound.

SPEAKER_01:

Last question then. So just any more future innovations coming out with the non slider come out most recently any more innovations coming

SPEAKER_00:

there will be soon in starting in April there will be the summer edition but this is just session steel with another color at the moment I think there is no innovation from the pipeline but from time to time we check out new things I'm sure that there will be something else again I'm sure.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm sure they will. So thanks so much for joining me today, Bertrand Boettcher.

SPEAKER_00:

You're welcome. And I was happy to be in the podcast here. Thank

SPEAKER_01:

you. That's episode 58. Thanks so much for listening again, everybody. Really appreciate it. Appreciate Bertram giving us his insights into the life of a harmonica product manager. He's definitely living the dream there. He's a lucky man. Remember to check out the website, harmonicahappyhour.com and any donations gratefully received to help with the running cost of the podcast. It's just over to Bertram now to play us out with his band Boogielicious, Alabama Blues.

UNKNOWN:

......

SPEAKER_02:

so