I got a Suzuki Overdrive recently, on the basis that you can overblow or overdraw just by blocking the undesired reed. However, blowing while blocking the blow reed (and drawing while blocking the draw reed) doesn't produce any sound whatsoever. I've tried opening it up and messing with the gaps, but I'm really not sure how to adjust it for overblows/overdraws and I don't want to snap any reeds with my experimenting.

Has anyone used one of these things? Am I not using it right? Or does it really need to be gapped?

Hi TigerhawkT3,

I bought my Suzuki Overdrive in C about two years ago, at a time when I even did not know that overblows and overbends exist. Only some month ago I heard about them and tried to get them out of the Overdrive. No chance. But I did not give up and tried for several weeks every day a few minutes. And suddenly it worked on 5 and 6, later on 1 and since a few days on 8. It needs a very assorted posture of the lips, the tonge and the throat. I made several hundreds of attempts and it still will need another few hundreds to get them perfect sounding and lasting. I do not think that gapping helps. I admire people like Howard Levy, Jason Ricci and especially Brendan Power who achieve them as would it be so simple like finger snapping. Anyhow, none of my other harps - and believe me I have dozens of brands and keys - allow me to overblow or overbend. However as said, I have not and will not experiment with their out of the box gapping. My advice: do not give up. Alter your lip-tonge-throat posture by tens of millimeters and suddenly it will work. Try first with 5 and 6, which are anyway the most useful. I wish you patience and success.
Have a nice Xmas, Greetings from Austria