(plus a few words about MICS, DELAY PEDALS, MIKING YOUR AMP and AMP REPAIR)
THE AMPS I OWN:
I've been blowing harp through a mic and amplifier for almost as long as I've been playing harmonica--more than thirty years at this point. I currently own a handful of terrific amps, including the following. (Note: These amps are NOT for sale!):
1956 Fender Bassman (4 x 10")
1954 Fender Deluxe (1 x 12")
1962 Premier Twin-8 (2 x 8")
early 1960s Kay 701 (1 x 8")
late 1980s Mouse (1 x 8")
2008 HarpGear HG2 (1 x 8")
Since the late 1980s, I've played all my gigs and recording sessions through the same mic: a Shure PE5-H, which is a hi-impedance vocal mic that I picked up at Matt Umanov Guitars, a store in Greenwich Village. Personally, I like the sound of a clean, powerful vocal mic (rather than a "harp mic") through a small, overdriven tube amp.
For the last twenty years, I have also used one specific footpedal: a Boss DD-3 digital delay. (I used a DD-2 before that.) I set it for a fairly long delay time, about 500 milliseconds (half a second), and I use just enough to give the sound a little fullness. It's easy to overuse effects pedals; it takes time and experimentation to come up with a sound that really works for you. The pedal below is set at the 12 o'clock position on all four knobs. I turn knobs 1 and 2 ("E. LEVEL" and "F. BACK") down to the 8:30 position and leave knobs 3 and 4 at top dead center. I've learned to tweak the settings slightly in different contexts. Here's the pedal, if you're interested in buying one. Click on the icon and it'll take you to the relevant page at Musician's Friend:
Before I go any further, I should let you know that I do offer a video called "Amping the Harp" in which I show off my amps, talk about each of them in detail, and explain the principles that will help you get the best possible sound out of whatever amp you use. Here's a link: www.tradebit.com/filedetail.php/3837014-amping-the-blues-harp-zip
Many beginners ask me to recommend a good harp amp and mic. I've resisted doing so, in part because my own experience is somewhat limited and idiosyncratic--I've been using one specific, hard-to-find mic for two decades, through a range of amps--and in part because I think the amp/mic thing is a very personal decision. My decades of experience have taught me one thing: if you're willing to keep looking, keep spending money, keep making mistakes and learning from your mistakes, and keep on looking for the magic combination that will give you YOUR sound in various performance situations, you WILL eventually find an amp/mic combo that works beautifully.
However, I will offer a couple of recommendations.
GOOD STARTER AMPS FOR DEVELOPING PLAYERS:
If you're a beginner and you're looking for a small, inexpensive amp that will enable you to get good amped tone while playing along with jam tracks, I recommend the Gretsch G5222. I plugged my mic into this little thing while offering a harp clinic at a music store in Huntington, WV, and I was astonished by how good it sounded. Click on the photo below and you can check it out at Musician's Friend:
Recently I purchased a brand-new Epiphone Valve Junior from a guy who owns a music store in Clarksdale, Mississippi. I was coaching at one of Jon Gindick's blues harmonica jam camps and this guy brought the Epiphone down, along with three other vintage amps. This amp knocked my socks off. It doesn't even have a tone control--just an on/off switch and a volume knob. Great piece of hardware. It's surprisingly heavy for its size, and remarkably loud. It distorted just the right way when I plugged in my Shure mic and cranked it up. I happily shelled out my hard-earned money for the thing, right on the spot. And remember: I own all the vintage gear I've listed above. I had to have this amp! Click on the photo below:
Both of the amps above retail for around $200. If you've got a bit more money to play with and you want the cream of the crop in a smaller amp, then I recommend the HarpGear HG2. It costs around $700 and $800 if shipped overseas. It's worth every penny. Brian Purdy hand-makes these things in Florida. He's a self-taught master of harp-amp design. He's constantly figuring out little tweaks that make a perfect amp even more perfect. The HarpGear HG2 is far and away the loudest and best-sounding amp of this size I've heard--loud enough for many gigs, in fact. Here's a link to the website. Just below the link, check out the video of me playing through one. If that sound doesn't make you go "S--t!!," amplified harp isn't your thing. (And please note: Brian hasn't paid me a penny to make this pitch. I can't be bought. I just like to rave about stuff that I like):
If you go with a smaller amp, like one of those I've just described, you will probably want to mic it through the house P.A. system on all but the smallest coffee-shop gigs. It turns out that somebody HAS built the better harp-amp mic. It's an Electro Voice N/D468. I own two. If you hit this link, you'll find a thread about this mic on my forum, complete with a video in which I'm playing through a small amp that I've miked through the PA using an N/D468 and, just below it, a small photo/icon of the mic itself. Click on that photo/icon and it'll take you to a page on the Musician's Friend website where you can inspect and purchase the mic:
Despite the availability of a wide range of great new harp amps, many professional players use old tube (valve) amps. This is simply a fact. They do this because they're seeking a "traditional" amplified sound, and they know that one way of getting such a sound is to use the sort of amps that were actually used on the recordings--amps manufactured, for the most part, from the late 1940s through the early 1960s. Even those like me, who aren't trying for a traditional sound, know that old amps have a kind of character that new amps often lack. They are responsive. They have tone.
Old tube amps require TLC, and it takes a certain kind of deep, long-accumulated, hands-on knowledge on the part of an amp tech in order to do them justice. In particular, it requires somebody who, when repairing an amp, knows how to NOT to swap out all the old components simply because they're old.
One of the best old-amp repairmen in the world is a guy named Skip Simmons. He may be THE best. He's certainly a member of the few and fabulous who can take any old amp you've got and bring it back into flawless working condition. Recently I sent him my treasured early-60s Premier Twin-8. The amp had a great sound when I sent it to him, but it was rickety as hell and had a very loud and obtrusive static sound when you bumped it. Skip took incredible pains to reconstruct the cabinet in a way that was invisible from the outside--we're talking wood strips, glue, and the sort of patience that most people these days aren't willing to invest. He laughed at the poor condition of the wiring, then took the same patient care to test all the working components, swap out only what needed swapping out, and bring everything back in line.
The amp is solid, noise-free, perfect. It sounds better than ever. "I want to make sure you're good for another thirty years," he said more than once. I most certainly am.
Here's a link to his website. Take a look at the list of old amps he's worked on. This is THE guy. I will use him again. Oh: and when he returned the amp to me, he packed it with incredible care. It must have taken him half an hour to put all those bits of padding and wrapping into place. A true craftsman.
I've also had some terrific work done on my Kay 703 by Brian Amundson, who works out of the Minneapolis area. Please feel free to contact him (beamundson@comcast.net), and tell him I sent you.
