Hohner 2016 Pro CBH
I had the chance to play one of these the other day and thought it was sweet. Anybody using one? Got any insights or feedback?
Thanks Winslow. I pulled the trigger on one on ebay for $175.00, thought that was a good deal. I never bonded with my Chromonic 280/64, seems a bit "leaky" and I loose a lot of breath easily. I played the 2016 and it seemed much better sealed, easy to play and I did like the tone. I didn't play it through a mic so I am interested to see about these isolated chambers and having to move the grip. I will report back later.
Another question - this is the first used harp I have ever purchased. Is there something I should do to sterilize/clean it? My wife freaked at the idea of me buying a used harp.
Thanks for the response Winslow. It is a real pleasure to have you as part of the blues harmonica.com community. When you gonna come play in SC?
Johnny -
$175 is a good price; these can go for over $400.
One thing I forgot to mention is that the 2016 has a GREAT profile for tongue blocking. Its smooth wedge shape lets you get it deep in your mouth without hitting a bump where the mouthpiece meets the covers. Playing all the wide splits that are part of the blues chromatic style is *much* easier on the 2016 than on the "bumpy" profiles of more traditional chromatics, and presents a profile that is also not uncomfortably thick (as some folks find with the CX-12).
The best thing you can do to sterilize it would be to completely disassemble it, wash all the parts in warm water and mild soap, scrub off any crud, rise and dry it. I wouldn't use bleach due to its corrosive effects. Not sure about hydrogen peroxide. But washing and drying should take care of any problems -unless the harp has been used as a bathroom key token in an infectious diseases ward.
The main danger here is to be careful not only of the reeds but the windsaver valves. Chances are that to really get this thing humming you may need to replace some valves anyway, as some may be buzzy or may have fallen off or may be about to, as glue can get brittle and weaken over time.
The other thing to be careful of is saving screws and springs in a jar lid or something that will keep them all in one place where they can't roll away, and to reassemble it carefully - parts in flush alignment, right screws in the right places, tighten to "finger tight" firmness, and no parts left over.
The 2016, first introduced in the mid-1970s and manufactured for about ten years, is a great harp and is the choice of classical virtuoso Robert Bonfiglio. It's capable of a lot of power and also a lot of nuance. It definitely has its fan club.
While Norton Buffalo continued to play the 2016 for the rest of his career, blues players such as WIlliam Clarke and Bill Tarscia used it for awhile and then stopped.
Why? For one thing it was relatively expensive and for another Hohner stopped making it after the inventor, Cham-Ber Huang left and took the patent with him in the 1980s. You can still get repair parts, though.
Other possible reasons are the way the thing works, which is radically different from other chromatics in two ways: The way the slide works and the way the covers work.
How do covers "work"? Don't they just sit there? In the case of the 2016 (and its baby sister the 2012), the covers place each blow-draw pair of reeds in its own tone chamber, formed by dividers that run front-to-back under the covers. This isolation means that your hand cup can be localized to just the pair on the harmonica that you are playing. When you're trying to cup the entire back of this 16-hole harmonica around a microphone, this can be a problem, as you have to shift your grip to the part of the harp that you're playing to keep it from being excluded from the cup due to the isolated chambers.
The slide has some unique features.
For one, the slide button is at the back of the harmonica, not the front. This can make it easier to work the slide while cupping the harp. (Norton used it to advantage by playing a keyboard with his right hand while holding the CBH in his left, and bumping the slide with his right shoulder!) Also the slide can be noisy, though customizers such as Steve Malerbi (who worked on Norton's instruments) can deal with that.
The other thing about the slide is kind of weird. Instead of being a flat piece of metal, the slide is a half-round piece of plastic about a centimeter deep, as if someone took a round dowel and sliced it in half along its length. The depth of the slide creates some unusual effects. Whenever you shift the slide while breathing through the harp, the slide jolts the airflow. You get a slight feeling of suction when you shift the slide while drawing, and a kind of sudden pressure drop while exhaling. If you cock the slide halfway in and hold it there, you lose all your air. This takes some getting used to. Clearly it doesn't bother Bonfiglio.
If you like playing the 2016 and like the sound, and the price is reasonable, go for it.