ReedSqueal
275 posts
Apr 21, 2012
8:52 PM
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Not being familiar with effects boxes per-se (i.e. the intricacies) what is the difference of a LW Harp Attack vs. a similar effects box from the guitar world? Is the LW *that* specific to the harp world that it would be a must-have over a similar guitar effects box?
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Go ahead and play the blues if it'll make you happy.
-Dan Castellaneta
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Willspear
154 posts
Apr 21, 2012
11:06 PM
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Guitar boxes have much more gain on tap generally aka feedback city. There are however tons of useful guitar effects.
I don't own a harp attack but I have a harp break , harp octave , tone + and I had the v1 delay.
Harp break is the most useful for me and my bassman using self. It is easy to get a nice breakup at a low volume. For when you cant drive the amp enough.
The octave is great for kind of champifying an amp and fattening up sound without just throwing bass at it. It's feedback rejection is very apparent.
The tone plus for me is just useful for amps I don't play through often. It is great for a jam and using an inferior amp.
I am probably in the minority but I much prefer other delays. The carbon copy is my go to delay.
My experience with the harp attack is that it sounds great for puting in front of a solid state amp. A friend has one and it is great with a di box for going straight to the pa.
I wouldn't sell the octave or break for any amount of money they are that good in my opinion.
The attack is my short list mostly to have a straight up back up solution for the chance an amp goes down. Though I don't think I'd use it for a distortion stomp.
I think the delays are great but I just like other delays more. If both versions of them were in one stomp it would be on my board. Problem is all in the amount of stomps I carry and my access to power being what it is.
If I am not mistaken the attack is an 18v pedal which doesn't work as conveniently as I'd like. I run a daisy chain off a pedal juice so I am limited. If I ran a real power supply it would be no big deal. But I use the same board for busking.
Last Edited by on Apr 23, 2012 9:39 PM
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Moon Cat
62 posts
Apr 23, 2012
8:26 PM
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I love what Will Spear said here about these pedals I couldnt agree more and I am also a lover of Bassmans and such...The thing about the harp tone and strange amps was right out of my mouth as was almost everything else...Will I would be very interested to see you play! You are obviously a player after my own ear. Great post, fantastic review and brilliant reductions! Also Randy from Lone wolf is prompt, available, easy to deal with, thick skinned and has a 60 day no question return policy. Thanks Will Spear for saving me typing time and your excellent ear. email me some time at jasonricci1@gmail.com
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Willspear
159 posts
Apr 23, 2012
10:02 PM
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A certain Moon Cat has some great stuff online about BBE pedals and some delays that are worth digging for. Also the great HG50.
I was a heavy effect user for guitar, think my record guitar board had 29 stomps on it that I used Live but it was his playing that made it click in my brain to mess with effects for harp beyond delay. though My harp effect choices are much more passive than my guitar rig. for guitar i interact more with effects for harp the effects work best for me to achieve a certain sound at any volume and delay for the room/mix. then having a couple fun pedals to hit for a solo or song.
I really try to get the cranked naturally compressed bassman tone generally at a lower level. The harp break is all about the way the note cuts up. the octave is about the honk and thicker tone. same thing i use a tube screamer for when playing guitar.
Randy makes some great stuff. The kinder Antifeedback is the other big one. It is expensive but it does what it promisses. it also colors an amp a fairly decent amount.
lot of fun effects for harp going to a guitar shop and trying some is always a blast. i might try to make my moonphaser work in the spirit of the moon cat. red witch is my favorite guitar effect company at the moment.
Last Edited by on Apr 23, 2012 10:04 PM
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Moon Cat
64 posts
Apr 24, 2012
12:38 AM
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Dude were brothers some how....Red Witch is the best! Have you tried their Delay>> The Kinder is the deal....Did you know Randy's working on one?
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HarpNinja
2356 posts
Apr 24, 2012
6:09 AM
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I am very anxious to check out Randy's feedback device. It appears to be a noise gate plus filtering. It might be fairly transparent.
I had a Harp Break and sold it as I ended up not using it. I got it originally as a stompbox sorta effect and realized I just liked playing clean.
I very much plan on getting a Harp Attack at some point for just regular sit-ins and such. In fact, I am down to just a VHT Special 6 and HarpGear HG2...both in a close collecting dust. I've been playing through a monitor for the last two years.
The Tech 21 Sansamp pedals work great for harp...I've used the Blonde and Bass Driver DI with great results.
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Mike
VHT Special 6 Mods
Quicksilver Custom Harmonicas - When it needs to come from the soul...
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KingBiscuit
179 posts
Apr 24, 2012
6:39 AM
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I have the LW Harp Attack and Harp Delay. I was using them in conjunction with a Kinder AFB+ going straight to a DI and then to the PA. The pedals worked very well for me.
I got a Sony Jr. Avenger and tried the Harp Delay with it. I couldn't get any volume at all. I talked to Sony Jr. about it and he said he had the same problem with the pedal when he tried it. The delay works fine with my other amps, it just doesn't play well with the Avenger.
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Willspear
162 posts
Apr 24, 2012
6:48 AM
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Yeah I think I remember randy's antifeedback is going to be foot switchable too. Specifically though I do remember it wasn't going to have solid state distortion built in.
On red witch
I have all of them but the delay and synthotron. The delay is amazing I hadn't worked out how to use its cascade for harp but for guitar it's textural capabilities starting around 400 ms on tge first delay are to die for. It's one big flaw is not having each delay selectable independently. It's really 1 delay with 2 additional colors. It can be really wild to mess with it. It is so hard to make long delays work for harp but for guitar it's quite intuitive.
Red witch stuff is great but quirky too knobs are not labeled clearly so you really need to experiment. But you can get sounds from their stuff that nothing else even attempts. fuzz that randomly drops an octave. Chorustrem, tremophase, tremolo that only pulses parts of signals. Having heavy distortion and clean in the same pedal at the same time.
The big drawback is price and access to sounds other than the one the pedal is set to on the fly. But if you like the effects the negatives are off set by the tweaking as you are forced to really experiment with each pedal. They are all somewhere between 2 stomps to 5 stomps worth of tweaking each. So the range of sounds you can get are really tge same as a board with 20-30 stomps.
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hvyj
2353 posts
Apr 24, 2012
8:00 AM
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"The delay works fine with my other amps, it just doesn't play well with the Avenger."
Certain amps don't like certain pedals and some pedals don't get along well with certain amps. It has nothing to do with how "good" the pedal is or how "good" the amp is. That's one reason it's hard to generalize about particular pieces of equipment.
Btw, a guitar player I work with has some Red Witch effects and they sound great. Never tried any of them for harp, though.
Never tried any Lone wolf pedals either. The thing that makes me reluctant to try LW is that the promo literature talks about how they have "buffered" inputs but then says they are true bypass. Maybe I'm ignorant, but I can't figure out how a device can have buffers and still be true bypass. The literature for the delay says : "The input is FET buffered for high impedance to provide proper loading for your favorite crystal or cm mic." I don't use a bullet mic, so what do these FET buffers do to an XLR mic thru an IMT???? And how can it be true bypass if it has buffers????
Last Edited by on Apr 24, 2012 8:12 AM
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Greg Heumann
1589 posts
Apr 24, 2012
8:00 AM
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Another advantage of the LW pedals is that they uniformly have high input impedance. Randy knows this is super important for harp players because, especially for crystal elements, lower impedance inputs can begin to rob tone and output from an element.
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/Greg
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hvyj
2354 posts
Apr 24, 2012
8:15 AM
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@Greg: But what if you are not using a bullet mic? what do the "FET buffers" do to your signal? And how do they effect the bypass?
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HarpNinja
2358 posts
Apr 24, 2012
8:41 AM
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hvyj,
This always confuses me too. I *think* the general rule of thumb is dynamic mic plus transformer = not having to worry about using a guitar input.
The only time I've ever heard an issue is using a dynamic with an XLR to 1/4" cable without the transformer.
I had a Bassman with an input modded for crystal mics and never heard a difference between inputs with a dynamic/IMT.
I wish more pedals had XLR inputs, although the 1/4" sounds better from my wireless. I also don't understand why more harp pedals don't have XLR outs to go straight to PA.
If you get a LW, you need to get a DI unless you know you always have a PA with 1/4" line level inputs. Being that most harp players using this stuff play jams, I doubt the mixers are all very good. In fact, on the LW forum, most guys talk about having to use DI boxes to go straight to PA if only because of ground loops.
The Sansamp Bass Driver DI has a 1/4" in, BUT it has an XLR and 1/4" out. In addition, it also has an uneffected 1/4" out. It is foot switchable and has controls for line/inst level as well as the ability to control ground loops. Way more functionality than the LW stuff regarding routing and mixing...same price too...and you don't have to carry an extra DI.
The Tech 21 stuff is all analog and has more amp-like controls. The Character pedals do NOT have XLR outs, though. They do have speaker emulation you can turn on or off, which is cool. They would maybe work better going to an amp than a PA. There is a guy who mods them for going straight to the PA, but for harp, the Bass DI might be just as good an option.
You can get a lot of drive if you want from it. You can also blend the signal with your dry signal if you want. My point being it is a good template for playing straight to PA for harp players. Someone should take it and tweak the design for harp specifically.
I apologize for not having live clips of it from stage, but I used just the Bass DI for a lot of gigs. In fact, if I had to sit in tonight with someone, I'd bring a powered speaker and just that pedal. I can send the XLR out to the PA and use the 1/4" out to the speaker.
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Mike
VHT Special 6 Mods
Quicksilver Custom Harmonicas - When it needs to come from the soul...
Last Edited by on Apr 24, 2012 8:47 AM
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Willspear
163 posts
Apr 24, 2012
9:17 AM
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Randy's return policy sets him apart.
His stuff is all good
The delay helps with feedback something most delays don't do
Every effect he has is very easy to dial in
I have amps that sound horrid with certain Mics effects are no different. My guitar amp of choice when I was playing post rock shoe gaze stuff is always a twin. I used 2 ultra linear twins for almost 10 straight years because my British amps didn't get along with my effects rig at volume. And the ultra twins have the highest headroom of anything I have ever played. This is the reason they are so awesome and yet horrible at the same time.
Black and silver fenders are glassy. And super pedal amps
The more charactoristics an amp imparts generally the less good it sounds manipulated.the avenger from everything I have seen sounds amazing dry.
I would say try other delays with it. I remember the lonewolf being really warm. The two timer by bbe is much brighter
Way huge aqua puss is so easy to dial in and sounds fantastic with a bassman. Dw Gill uses one live and it sounds great. Only capable of 300 ms which makes it so easy to find nuance in slap back because the pots have a very long sweep to given time making fine adjustment really easy. Also just quick and dirty.
God I have or have owned maybe 20 delays including old stuff. I had a space echo just for the preamp it had. Now there is a company who makes that preamp available as a stomp.
I probably buy an effect a month and frequently trade them. I don't even really spend money on most gear at this point as I keep my collection to a certain standard that I can trade or sell anything and get what I paid back. Buying cheap junk gear costs more in the long run.
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HarpNinja
2360 posts
Apr 24, 2012
9:21 AM
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"Buying cheap junk gear costs more in the long run."
Exactly. Buy once, cry once, lol. That took a long time for me to learn, but other than shelling out cash for PA gear, I've been able to trade for anything I want for gear. This is because I buy nice stuff and that will hold its value.
It sucks having to experiment 1.) because it is harmonica and there is limited harp-specific gear and 2.) I can't demo anything I am into close to home.
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Mike
VHT Special 6 Mods
Quicksilver Custom Harmonicas - When it needs to come from the soul...
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hvyj
2355 posts
Apr 24, 2012
9:23 AM
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TC Helicon makes a reverb pedal with XLR in and out jacks. It's a vocal effects pedal, but is very decent for harp into a PA. They also make a delay and some others in this configuration. I think they are called "Voice Tone" pedals.
i like the Voice Tone reverb pedal. Perfect for a jam going into a board with no effects on it. Need AC power for the wall wart, though.
You know, on acoustic amps that do have XLR and 1/4" inputs, i find that harp ALWAYS sounds better into the 1/4" input through an IMT instead of into the XLR input. Dunno why this is, though.
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HarpNinja
2361 posts
Apr 24, 2012
9:29 AM
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I agree. I don't know why either. I know sometimes the gain of each is different. For example, on my K10 I can have the XLR input at line or mic level. I bet lots of times gear has it at one or the other.
The XLR outs on the POD HD500 are quieter than 1/4" whether you use the pad or not, which would also be consistent with the inputs/output being set at certain levels relative to the gear typically associated with such.
I am assuming this has to do with clipping and using various gain stages. For example, if you plug a mic into the board, so long as it is not clipping at the mic, you can use the controls of the PA to boost the signal and keep it clean. Most people using XLRs are wanting a totally clean signal to pass. Often times, the input into the XLR is hotter than line. Think of how a guitar with a 1/4" needs more juice to boost the signal than a mic/IMT.
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Mike
VHT Special 6 Mods
Quicksilver Custom Harmonicas - When it needs to come from the soul...
Last Edited by on Apr 24, 2012 9:30 AM
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hvyj
2356 posts
Apr 24, 2012
9:32 AM
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"Black and silver fenders are glassy. And super pedal amps."
It's hard to generalize. I think my Fender Super Reverb RI is a terrific harp amp, but it's VERY finicky about pedals. I wound up having to put together a little pedal board specifically for use with that amp. I use a Wampler Delay with that amp which i don't like as well into any of my other amps, but it's PERFECT for the Super.
"The two timer by bbe is much brighter."
TOO bright IMHO. But I felt that way about the Wampler, EXCEPT with the Super. The Wampler and the SRRI get along extremely well together.
Last Edited by on Apr 24, 2012 9:38 AM
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Willspear
165 posts
Apr 24, 2012
10:11 AM
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I think the super reverb Is one of tge greatest amps ever made
A good mon master early silver face costs around 800-900 for a player model.
The blackface original is remarkably reasonable. I was offered a 9/10 condition 65 for the price of a reissue. I am flipping gear to grab it. It is at my friends house he has 2 silvers too from the late 60s he is a tech and really knows his vintage gear.
They and the vibrolux kind of exist in a different time zone. The vibrolux reissue misses the mark which is quite sad considering how solid the other reissues are except the baffle on the Princeton.
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hvyj
2358 posts
Apr 24, 2012
11:05 AM
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I used to have an original '65 Princeton Reverb. In most respects, I like my PRRI better.
I've never been a big fan of SF Fenders. BF, yes! But maybe it's just that the particular SFs I've run into weren't that good.
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