Since the reed is quite important 
to the sound of a squeezebox, it's probably worth a mention that some Atlantics are equipped with Hohner Artiste reeds. Others have lowly T-scale.
Artistes (afaik) are the best reeds Hohner have ever produced (if you exclude one-off hand-made Italian reeds fitted to some highest end Hohners. On one occasion, I saw hand-made reeds riveted onto Artiste plates
). The reed has a very sweet (to my ear) tone - there's still quite a bit "pre-war hohner" character in the timbre, with a civilised touch of a harsher, bayan-like squeal in the middle. That's what Hohner used in the original (German & Swiss-made) Morino boxes before they sold their soul to the Italians.
It looks like the "Deluxe" version has Artistes, while regular version can have either T or Artiste.
But that's not the end of it. Reading the German forums, one of the differences highlighted between Atlantics and Morinos was a suggestion that Morino reeds were tuned by the best Hohner workers (and typically, filed instead of ground or excessively scratched). Atlantic and Club Morino reeds are often hastily butchered during factory tuning by really poor electric-wheel grinding or brutal scratching, ruining a set of very good reeds.
Geek alert: Artiste reeds appear to be made in an interesting way: Typically, for a rivet of, say, 2.0mm, you'd have a 2.1-2.2mm hole punched in the reed tongue base and then rivet it onto the plate. The rivet expands to the hole's diameter and holds the tongue in place.
With Artistes, the tongue hole is a lot bigger than the rivet(!). The rivets are installed by a machine rather than by hand, but they don't grip the tongue well enough to prevent the base from moving (like they do in a traditional rivet). Every reed has a drop of glue (epoxy most likely) on its base, and it's the glue , not the rivet (!!!) that holds the reed in place. Break the glue bond, and you'll never be able to fix the reed without filing off the rivet and installing a much, much thicker one.
Reverse-engineering the reedmaking process, I suspect that Hohner were trying out some innovations. The reeds and plates are machine-made and machine-riveted, but that's not the whole process: then (I infer) the reed would go to a reedmaker who would fit it (with a small fitting gap - not quite Italian a-manos, but probably a good TAM level) and glue
it down. The fitting part is made a lot easier because the machine rivet holds the reed down with enough force that it's not loose, but not enough force to allow easily adjusting the reed position with light sideways taps on the tongue base. In contrast, while traditional rivets can still be adjusted with sideways taps, that requires a lot more force (essentially, de-forming the rivet) and the scale of adjustment is miniscule - less than half a mm.
TLDR version: Hohner Artiste reeds are glued, not riveted in place.
I was after a set of Artistes recently, so got to peek into a few Atlantics and I failed to spot any logic to the reed or reedblock quality.
E.g. One de-luxe was equipped with gold-anodised Artiste reeds that have never seen a dremel grinder. Very accurate filing job by the factory tuner. Perhaps, all trainees were on holiday and the job had to be done by one of the "Morino guys". Good quality wood in the reedblocks. Another de-luxe had very poorly made reedblocks with cardboard gasket (yuck!) and the reeds were brutalised with a dremel at the factory (and yes, that's definitely a factory thing).
Artistes don't do particularly well at the lowest notes on the treble side, because the plates are too short, requiring a big braze-on. Well, one Atlantic had the lowest notes on (longer) H plates, but they were still hand-fitted to a very small gap and glued, just like the Artistes.
Anyway, enough reed erotica. Enjoy your box!
to the sound of a squeezebox, it's probably worth a mention that some Atlantics are equipped with Hohner Artiste reeds. Others have lowly T-scale.Artistes (afaik) are the best reeds Hohner have ever produced (if you exclude one-off hand-made Italian reeds fitted to some highest end Hohners. On one occasion, I saw hand-made reeds riveted onto Artiste plates
). The reed has a very sweet (to my ear) tone - there's still quite a bit "pre-war hohner" character in the timbre, with a civilised touch of a harsher, bayan-like squeal in the middle. That's what Hohner used in the original (German & Swiss-made) Morino boxes before they sold their soul to the Italians.It looks like the "Deluxe" version has Artistes, while regular version can have either T or Artiste.
But that's not the end of it. Reading the German forums, one of the differences highlighted between Atlantics and Morinos was a suggestion that Morino reeds were tuned by the best Hohner workers (and typically, filed instead of ground or excessively scratched). Atlantic and Club Morino reeds are often hastily butchered during factory tuning by really poor electric-wheel grinding or brutal scratching, ruining a set of very good reeds.
Geek alert: Artiste reeds appear to be made in an interesting way: Typically, for a rivet of, say, 2.0mm, you'd have a 2.1-2.2mm hole punched in the reed tongue base and then rivet it onto the plate. The rivet expands to the hole's diameter and holds the tongue in place.
With Artistes, the tongue hole is a lot bigger than the rivet(!). The rivets are installed by a machine rather than by hand, but they don't grip the tongue well enough to prevent the base from moving (like they do in a traditional rivet). Every reed has a drop of glue (epoxy most likely) on its base, and it's the glue , not the rivet (!!!) that holds the reed in place. Break the glue bond, and you'll never be able to fix the reed without filing off the rivet and installing a much, much thicker one.
Reverse-engineering the reedmaking process, I suspect that Hohner were trying out some innovations. The reeds and plates are machine-made and machine-riveted, but that's not the whole process: then (I infer) the reed would go to a reedmaker who would fit it (with a small fitting gap - not quite Italian a-manos, but probably a good TAM level) and glue
it down. The fitting part is made a lot easier because the machine rivet holds the reed down with enough force that it's not loose, but not enough force to allow easily adjusting the reed position with light sideways taps on the tongue base. In contrast, while traditional rivets can still be adjusted with sideways taps, that requires a lot more force (essentially, de-forming the rivet) and the scale of adjustment is miniscule - less than half a mm.TLDR version: Hohner Artiste reeds are glued, not riveted in place.
I was after a set of Artistes recently, so got to peek into a few Atlantics and I failed to spot any logic to the reed or reedblock quality.
E.g. One de-luxe was equipped with gold-anodised Artiste reeds that have never seen a dremel grinder. Very accurate filing job by the factory tuner. Perhaps, all trainees were on holiday and the job had to be done by one of the "Morino guys". Good quality wood in the reedblocks. Another de-luxe had very poorly made reedblocks with cardboard gasket (yuck!) and the reeds were brutalised with a dremel at the factory (and yes, that's definitely a factory thing).
Artistes don't do particularly well at the lowest notes on the treble side, because the plates are too short, requiring a big braze-on. Well, one Atlantic had the lowest notes on (longer) H plates, but they were still hand-fitted to a very small gap and glued, just like the Artistes.
Anyway, enough reed erotica. Enjoy your box!
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It might have changed hands but it is still there.
