The new Hohner 1101 XB-40 Extreme Bending Harmonica was designed by Hohner USA's own Rick Epping and offers the harp player complete bending freedom with 10 holes and 40 reeds. 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 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.