XB-40 Extreme Bending Harmonica

The Hohner XB-40 Extreme Bending Harmonica was designed by Hohner USA's own Rick Epping and with a 40 reed system that gives harp players complete bending freedom with overdraws and overblows in all 10 holes. Precision engineered and manufactured under the highest quality standards, the Hohner XB-40's revolutionary design permits a level of expression and note bending capability never before possible on any harmonica.

On a regular 10-hole diatonic, or Marine Band type harmonica, the standard blues note bending technique involves an interaction between 2 reeds, one blow and one draw. On this style harmonica, only the higher pitched of the 2 notes from any given reed cell can be bent and then only to a point somewhat above that of the lower-pitched reed.

The Hohner XB-40 overcomes this limitation by incorporating an additional set of reeds, tuned so that all twenty of the harmonica's notes can be bent using the standard blues harp bending technique. Using a system of patented valve chambers, the auxiliary reeds come into play only during note bending. The Hohner XB-40 is tuned so that every note can be bent a whole tone, with an additional semitone bend on the 3-draw to complete the chromatic scale in the first octave.