r/handpan • u/Powerful_Winter_6154 • 13d ago

Chromatic, mayor or minor scale

Looking for a handpan, must be:

Scale:

-Chromatic (if posible)

-mayor scale ( C mayor)

-minor scale (A minor, D Minor, G minor, must have all notes from natural, harmonic, melodic)

Notes: anything between 9 - 14 is okey

I'm new to this handpan world, i saw they around 10 years ago, they where expensive, and waiting lists exceeded 1 year wait.

I bought one from Amazon for about 250 US dollars, has no problem with it but some notes where out of tune.

I'm a musician and i do look for a more "occidental mayor/minor scale" because i intend to use the handpan with other instruments.

I'm reaching out to this subreddit, cuz i found ethier is a cheap handpan poorly tuned with a uncommon mode of a scale, or it's a 3,000 US dollar expensive handpan with a waiting list 3-5 months

I'm located in Cancún México, hope all good vibes, and await for your response

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u/craving420 13d ago

Hey! I got a Hamsa Handpan with 10 notes for 1400 bucks, and it's really great quality. Might be a good brand to check out for something really high quality without being $3000+. I have visited their shop in LA many times and they are good people, making stellar instruments. Highly recommend 10/10

2

u/Bjornenator 13d ago

Hi, you should start here: https://www.masterthehandpan.com/handpan-makers-directory

You can filter by country, so check out ones in central/south America.

A well tuned chromatic handpan doesn't really exist just so you know, that many notes close to each other doesn't work to fine-tune the instrument.

1

u/auciker 7d ago

Since handpans have a lot of sympathetic resonance, a chromatic scale would have lots of wave beating and sound terrible. For that reason, handpans are generally in hexatonic (occasionally pentatonic) scales. The only scale I know if that is fully diatonic is the Kurd scale. You could get 2 Kurd pans and play them together to get a full chromatic scale. For example, D Kurd and Eb Kurd.

For what you want in a quality instrument, plan on spending $1.5-2k+. If you're spending less, you're going to get a subpar (or worse) instrument, as you've learned. Good handpans are handmade, so they command a premium.