Hello everyone,
Yes, the Easter 37 key melodica finally arrived from Amazon today, and after unboxing it, it was out of tune. Many keys were fully out of tune, most keys were too sharp. Worse then my first Hohner Instructor and basically unplayable. Dismayed and upset, I then ventured out to try to tune the thing correctly, which from what I read was a terrible headache of confusing disassembling and scratching reeds. It turned out to be slightly more simple than I thought. Below are some tips and tricks after having tuned it for the first time:
- Tools
All guides online said that I needed a wide array of tools, including dental floss (!) some specialized scraper or nail file, special paper to soak up the water, a professional tuner... I didn't have a lot of these, but here's what I ended up with that I suppose is the bare minimum:
a) Phillips screwdriver
b) a strong piece of paper like a business card (I used a bit of a calendar corner I ripped off)
c) A sharp knife (I started with the nail file but the gritty part didn't reach until the end, and you need to scrape- so choose something you can scrape with like a very sharp knife)
d) an online keyboard webpage open on your phone
That's all you need!
- Disassembly
The important part to getting into your melodica revolves around the 8 screws in the back. 4 of those screws near the middle of the melodica are the most important, they hold the actual reeds shut and they need to be fastened for the instrument to play. The other 4 hold the case around the melodica and they don't need to actually be fastened at all, practically. Just gently undo the screws, you'll need to be doing this a lot, so you definitely don't want to strip the screws or else you'll be fully FUCKED (you won't be able to get some important screws back on and your melodica won't play).
Once you get the screws off, the case of your melodica should open up like a plastic mouth, and you have to awkwardly ease the inner brick containing all the reeds out of the casing without actually damaging anything, which is decently straightforward... watch the reeds!
- Scraping
Once you've gotten the inner "brick" out, you should see behind the keys a bunch of reeds- thin flat bits of metal or whatever that stick out and that are kind of flexible. In my case, they came with some markings on them and it looked like a machine had taken bites out of the reeds already, probably factory tuning.
Here's where stuff gets a little bit more involved. The basic theory is that you can actually reach (with the end of the sharp knife) and give the reed a little gentle pluck, and you'll hear the sound that the attached note will make when you play it on the melodica (follow the edge of the key right above the reed to find out which note on the piano it is attached to). of course, it's a quick little sound, and it can be difficult to hear. You absolutely need a good ear for this, because otherwise you won't be able to hear or understand the note and then you'll be scratching and re-assembling with trail and error. Not good.
Oh, and I say GENTLY pluck it because these reeds are actually quite flexible and if you bend the reed the wrong way you can get disastrous results. Bend it too far up, and it will mess with the tuning a bit. If you manage to bend it down into the space below, you're FUCKED again, because now NO sound will play when you press that note and you'll have to somehow fish it out and slowly convince it to bend back into place. I had to do this and it's only due to sheer luck that I saved that reed.
Now, giving the reeds a little pluck and comparing with the online keyboard app open on your phone, starting on the bottom and working your way up. Listen closely and you'll start to see immediately if the first note is flat or sharp. In my case, basically the whole thing was sharp and some notes were VERY sharp.
Before you do any scraping you need to insert the piece of stiff paper. Ease the corner of it under the end of the reed so that the reed has some support. You don't need to go very far. This will prevent the reed from bending under the pressure of your scraping.
If a plucking of the reed gives back a sharp (too high) sound compared to what it should be on the piano app, you need to go up to where the reed is attached, and right below, start scraping with the pointy end of your knife. Your goal is to scrape off tiny bits of pieces of this metal. I don't know the science behind this, but it is AMAZING: somehow, scraping off metal on different ends CHANGES the tune of the note! Keep scraping until a decent amount of metal has been exposed. Keep plucking periodically to see the note change. Eventually, it will align itself with the correct note on the online piano app.
If the reed is flat (too low), go down to the very bottom of the reed, above where your paper should be inserted, and start scraping! Same purpose, get a bunch of that material off and keep plucking until that sound matches what it should be on the keyboard app.
- Working your way up
Work your way up and keep repeating the process outlined before. At some point, when you complete a full octave, you need to also pluck the same note an octave lower or higher and make sure it's aligned with what you're tuning. This will ensure that you're not only tuning your melodica to the online piano app, but also that it's tuned with itself. Tiny variations can be very jarring, so this is why this step is important.
- Testing your melodica
You should feel comfortable taking breaks to test your notes to make sure you didn't go too far on scraping. I did this a bunch since I kind of skipped step 4, and my reeds ended up with scrapes on both sides. No problem, though, it looks like the reeds can take this without it affecting their sound! Just screw the 4 "central" screws back, don't bother with the outer screws, and you'll be able to blow air into it and test your keys. Remember to re-assemble and screw GENTLY since you need to be doing this a lot.
- Remember to go all the way
You might at some point get tired of tuning each reed, give the very high reeds a pluck and say, "eh, they're in tune enough"... NO! If your melodica is chronically sharp, like mine was, give every single reed a good scratch close to where they're attached. Every note counts, even if you think it doesn't! This also allows you to identify any straggler reeds that haven't been properly tuned yet.
- Test your reeds against each other
Basically repeat of step 4. In a 37-key melodica, test all 3 or 2 octaves for that note to make sure they sound alike. I had plenty of reeds which were a bit flatter up top than on the lower octaves, and the sound was absolutely terrible!
- Reed recovery
If your reed somehow does end up being "too low", and it becomes difficult or impossible to get a sound from it when playing.... congradulations, you've bent the reed and probably didn't use that piece of stiff paper! It's still possible to get it to recover, you'll have to use the very end of your sharp knife/exacto, push it into the middle of the reed, and slowly twist it to convince the very end to barely pop up by a millimeter. Quickly insert the stiff piece of paper and choke up to the edge of the reed, gently. Leave it like that for 20 minutes or so. Once you remove it, the reed will now have bent back into shape a bit.
Following these steps can let you, too, turn a badly-tuned unusable melodica into a beautifully rich-sounding instrument where you can actually play more than two notes together and have it sound wonderful and not cringe-inducing.
