Many of us have heard this statement before, but this is an abstract statement, because the good player do not play cheap amps or mics, so we assume that they would sound good on any situation.
so, I want to make an experiment.
The good players out there (Not necessary Pro players, intermediate player are welcome), can you post a sound file, or video of you playing one of those entry level SS guitar amps, whit a 520DX, Superlux, cheap vocal mic, or SM57, or another cheap mic/amp combination??
I don't expect that the player can make a 15W Fender Frontman sound like a Harp Amp, but a good sound is not the opposite of a great sound.
Edit: You can post YT examples as well
Last Edited by on Jan 08, 2013 6:56 AM
Can a good player sound good thru anything?? Absolutely 100% yes, and the basic fundamental is that you absolutely HAVE to have good acoustic tone FIRST or you're no better than someone who is totally folically challenged wearing an obvious cheapo toupee trying to claim that's all his own real hair and everyone can see how crappy the toupee is. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
Sorry to be so vague, but somebody here or over on BRB posted last year that a harper won a national competition playing thru a Fender Frontman 15. Ring a bell with anybody?
An awesome player will sound awesome playing through a harp king and good mic.
And they would also sound awesome playing through a piss poor mic and amp combo simply because he/she is an awesome "ACOUSTIC player" TOO!
WHAT WILL CHANGE for the AWESOME player is the SOUND between GEAR...
The Awesome players SOUND/TONE is going to sound EXCEPTIONALLY GREAT when playing through SWEET "harp friendly" gear.
The Awesome players overall TONE will sound (not near as good) when playing through equipment that is NOT "harp friendly" gear.
BOTTOMLINE....IF your ACOUSTIC playing is POOR, then the GEAR will REFLECT that, regardless if the gear is harp friendly or not!
REMEMBER...The awesome players "mic technique" will also Embellish their awesome "acoustic chops" in ways that contribute to the overall presentation of the tone waves you hear.
Last Edited by on Jan 08, 2013 8:43 AM
I dunno...I bet I can find some shitty mics and amps to make people play through. A simple test is to put a song on your stereo and just mess with the eq of the track.
Assuming the same crappy rig, a good player will sound better than a crumby one, but you can make anyone sound like shit. Everyone has stories of the sound man wrecking the vocal sound or instruments. I think it is naive to believe that gear can't make you sound bad.
Hell, you can take a nice bullet and a Sonny Jr amp and mess with the settings enough to make it sound dreadful. ---------- Custom Harmonicas
If you sound good & have the wherewithall to dial in the gear you are presented with, then "yes", all (well most) amps whether tube, solid state, digital can produce a relatively representative sound, especially on the clean side.
@ Rogonzab "The good players out there (Not necessary Pro players, intermediate player are welcome), can you post a sound file, or video of you playing one of those entry level SS guitar amps, whit a 520DX, Superlux, cheap vocal mic, or SM57, or another cheap mic/amp combination??" I wouldn't call a SM57 a "cheap mic", it's an industry standard, if a little dated. If all my mics were stolen/lost tomorrow, I'd be quite happy to just buy a SM57.
The complications largely come with live performance, getting enough stage volume with a pleasing (or specific) tone, enough flexibility to optimise tone to your liking and avoiding feedback. Using gear that has a lot of credible user feedback & information on getting the most usefulness out of it simply makes sense.
Any busy pro will have to play through pick up gear at some time or another, they have to make it work, they have a job to do. They might use their desired gear for domestic work & rightly enjoy doing so, but on the road & abroad they often have to use what they get.
Good sound is relative to what you need to achieve in a given environment (less outright volume, the wider your options) and your personal taste.
---------- www.myspace.com/markburness
http://www.facebook.com/markburness
Last Edited by on Jan 08, 2013 9:15 AM
Miles, I was going to say something to that effect, although I do have an old 1/8th inch computer mic that I use sometimes that can give me a crazy overdrive sound which is essentially a toy, so I might say, a good player can probably get sound out of any amp/mic combo, and by having a good ear, figure out something useful to do with that sound, even if it won't sound anything like a 'traditional' harmonica sound.
There is my Yeti, and my, um, what would you call that other one? (I use a Shure on stage, but these are what I use on the computer.) I mostly use the Yeti, but I do occasionally break out the other one. It's sound is interesting.
Here's me a few years ago playing through a Marine Band harp into Astatic T3 (MC 101 crystal element) into a Pignose 7-100 amp (solid state amp with 5" speaker, powered by 6 x AA batteries). I'm also using a cheap Belcat delay pedal.
Last Edited by on Jan 08, 2013 9:41 AM
@Frank - Oh Gosh Gee, you wouldn't believe how I've been sitting here twenty minutes waiting for my internet to load so that I can grab my Mercy Mercy Mercy video while I was reading these posts. My youtube account finally loads and I get to the bottom of the page and see me. It scared me. I didn't even think of that video. FRANK!! ---------- Hunger is the best spice.
For any who by chance believe that a great player requires great gear to be great I have four words, Little Walter - Big Walter (insert others here). ---------- LSC
On occasion, I've used a unidirectional Emerson M189 karaoke mic that I picked up at Sears for about 8 bucks. Most of the time I use it to mic up an amp if I have no other mic available. Playing harp on it, even though it can get a little hard to cup correctly, it's very lightweight, it has some surprisingly warm harp tone, and its on/off switch is remarkably quiet compared to some other vocal mics I've used in the past. Virtually no pop whatsoever. ----------
I just attended Mark Hummel's Harmonica Blues Blowout at Yoshi's Oakland. Google it for more info - there are photos.
Mark Hummel, Rick Estrin and Kim Wilson are among the best harp players in the world. Amps: Harp King (Estrin), Sonny Jr (Hummel), and a real beat up original '59 Bassman I THINK - it had no emblem on the front - for Wilson. Mics: Kim used an old JT30 with a 1 out of 100 element in it (how do I know? I asked him) - and both Rick Estrin and Mark Hummel played through their BlowsMeAway wood mics. (Kim has one too - didn't bring it.)
Just because a great player can make any gear sound better than an amateur can, that does NOT mean he will sound HIS BEST. Gear matters. Why else would these guys go to the trouble of maintaining, hauling, setting up and tearing down their own EXPENSIVE gear?
P.S. - to the OP - it is really hard to hear subtleties over the internet. For one thing, a 5W amp with a single 8" speaker sounds just as loud as a 100W amp with 6 speakers. Live comparison is the only way to get a true assessment of differences between gear.
rogonzab raising a question that I've constantly asked myself. I am poor with a family that doesn't really support my music habits. So this is all I can come up with. The best harmonica I ever bought was a Marine Band and the most expensive diatonic harmonica I ever bought was a Golden Melody.
Here I use a stock Shure 545SD Unidyne III Dual Impedance with a stock Fender Vibro Champ XD 5Watt, 8 inch speaker (this is the one with the modulating features, half tube half or whatever)
I think the sound is decent.
Here, I use the same amp and a stock V-Tech 1030 microphone I bought for $30 brand new and I am taken by it. It is a lot more controllable than the 545SD and therefore I am wondering does it sound better than the Shure mic. (same amp)
This is what I came up with in terms of amps and mics. I have a stock Green Bullet 520XD that I think gets a decent tone out of this amp. These are basically my current sounds. I've heard many times that Little Walter played out of anything and most of the kids at my university have no idea what the amp is for. ---------- Hunger is the best spice.
I am not claiming to be a good player who gets good sound one way or the other, but here is a video of me playing through an Electro Harmonix 44 Magnum pedal/amp, a tiny solid state amp.
The 44 Mag sells for about $150, so it may not qualify as "cheap."
I am going to clarify my above post...I misread the question and apologize for confusion.
"Can a good player sound good on any amp/mic?"
Yes. That doesn't mean they will, though. My point, which is not really an answer to the question is that you can make a good player sound bad through gear.
Yes. A player who knows the fundementals and is able to get good sound and access to his licks at will should pretty much achieve a good professional sound whatever he happens to be playing through. What matters, I think, is how much f'ing around the harp player needs to do with the rig. "Sounding good" is a personal issue among players, and while a player sounds good to an audience and others in the band, the sound he gets might not be near the standard he or she sets for themselves. ---------- Ted Burke http://youtube.com/watch?v=-VPUDjK-ibQ&feature=relmfu
"Live comparison is the only way to get a true assessment of differences between gear."
I agree with that as far as it goes. A better comparison would be to play the amps. If you plan to gig the amps an even better comparison would be to play them in a live club setting.
But those situations usually aren't possible, so we have to rely a lot on YouTube videos. They are compressed and you lose the dynamics of the amp, but you can still tell a lot about its tonal character. Is it more clean or more crunchy? Is it a warmer tone or a brighter tone? Does the general sound of the amp appeal to you?
The next step would be to listen to as many samples of the amp as possible and try to hear the commonalities that define the amp's character. That will get you moving in the right direction.
Speaking of the Fender Frontman 15, I saw Clay Kirkland win a round of the Colorado IBC playing though this amp. He got a standing ovation. He beat my band, and by the time his set was over I was rooting for HIM! The answer to the original question is a big fat YES. A good player can get good sound out of even a lowly cheap solid state amp. ---------- -Rick Davis The Blues Harp Amps Blog The Mile High Blues Society
Last Edited by on Jan 08, 2013 10:40 AM
I know I sound similar through every piece of gear for harmonica and guitar.
Insert a nice piece of gear and the change for me is noticed but realistically like anything great gear and expensive gear are not always tied. I wager the VHt special 6 sounds as good as a hg2. Obviously one is higher quality and made right here in the USA the other is Chinese and made by a company with questionable lineage due to VHt being a well respected trademark that was lost to another entity. The VHt use cheap stuff the hg2 uses top quality components the is an obvious physical quality difference in person.
The difference between Mics is noticeable but honestly if I wasn't a collector and in hindsight the first shure bullet with a cm I ever bought is still the mic that I consider to be the the benchmark for a great bullet. Honestly the 520dx I own sounds pretty great too.
I think gear is less important than we make it seem but there are slight gains to be had at heavy diminishing returns.
I was playing a $3300 Martin this afternoon it was quite possibly one of the nicest dreads I have ever picked up. The question to pose is how much of that cost actually nets gains fit and finish it blew several other martins out of the water. The thing that balances it is that for 2300 less someone could totally buy an eastman that plays nearly as well and is so very close tonally. The Martin had just a touch more bottom almost imperceptible. The eastman overall sounded a smide prettier the Martin sounded more "American voiced" undefinable terms but the difference honestly if I had no idea who made which I said it was pretty much a dead heat. The Martin was the better guitar but going only for tone the gain in tone is questionable for 2300 additional dollars.
Is it necessary to have boutique or expensive gear to make great tone? Absolutely not
Is it cool to have gear that nets a little increase in tonality that is coveted by many? Yes because we all know tone and dick measuring has everything to do with how much money you have.
Really though I collect gear. I play expensive guitars, I play pricey harps. I collect amps. Still I like the bassman reissue I bought for what a blues jr goes for now. I want to own a harp gear amp and a meteor for sure. Not because they sound better but because I liked em when I played through them. The meteor sounds cool and unique the hg50 has a slight ring to it that I dig. Do either of them sound significantly better than my retubed early 90s bassman? Shrug I bet no one listening would know or care.
Last Edited by on Jan 08, 2013 7:03 PM
Paul Delay played through what many would consider not great gear today.. for example I have tried the old zoom effects pedals and they are pretty crude
from the Delay appreciation thread Here's what Drori Hammer said about DeLay's "Space Case" briefcase on Harp-L in 2003:
I had the opportunity to meet and jam with Paul deLay a few years ago (it's worth coming out of lurk-mode just to brag about that ! :) ), so for whoever was wondering, here's what he uses (at least did in 1999). He was playing Hohner Big River diatonics and (I think) chromonica Chro's (in several keys), using a JT-30 mic. The "Space case" is a briefcase which he uses as a harp carrying case AND amp. In it he installed a direct box plugged into a "ZOOM" multi-effect amp simulator, which he uses to get the great variety of sounds he uses. This goes direct to the PA soundboard. Apropos the discussion of marking harps - Paul actually had a small desktop lamp installed in the case as well, to see the harps on a dark stage!
A good player might not sound as good playing through a crappy amp, but his abilities will still come through. You only have to listen to all the recordings out there to confirm this fact. All good gear does is make a good player sound even better. For a player who hasn't got good tone or ability though, the reality is that no gear in the world will make them sound good. You only have to go to YouTube and listen. The sheer amount of players with great amps and mics that sound like strangled cats is simply staggering.
Last Edited by on Jan 08, 2013 10:15 PM
Oh man some of the worst harmonica I have ever heard comes from people showing off their sonny jr on YouTube.
I was trying to scope out a couple amps and dear god some of the videos made me want to cry.
The absolute worst harp player I know has a collection of high ticket gear. Has 3 boutique amps and a ton of vintage gear. He manages to get sounds out of a harmonica that you can't even believe exist. He manages to play more Wrong notes than right in any key playing cross harp even. He claims to have played for like 40 years and in those 40 years he hasn't gone past barely hitting a single note except that he is very confident now and hangs on the worst notes.
A question like this I think deserves to be flipped and looked at 180 degrees from the other direction. "Can a crappy player sound good on a Harp King 6x10?" Of course not, an amplifier is primarily just that, an AMPLIFIER, first and foremost! But the way the amp changes the SOUND (not gonna touch the word TONE!) of the playing may or may not make the music more appealing to the listener. It really all boils down to the taste of the listener and/or the personality of the song. Most unschooled audiences wouldn't be influenced either way by your gear, all they hear is the sound of your harmonica.
Greg, ""Can a good player sound good on any amp/mic?" Absolutely. Will they sound even better with good gear? Absolutely." 100% agree whit you.
The point of this post was more practical than theorical. Do you need an expensive amp/mic to sound awesome? Yes. Do you need an expensive amp/mic to sound good? No, you can soun good whit amp/mics that are more accesible.
So, is more an exercise of another statment "Is the player, not the gear"
This is a guy playing a Fender Frontman SS 25w
This is mi playing whit a stock JT30RH whit an old $40 SS Marshall bass amp. As you can se, I am not a great player, but I like the way it sounds:
It's NOT the gear. And that's good news for most of us, because it means you can't BUY your way to being a good musician. It's gonna strictly be a result of your own natural talent and hard work.
You see this same phenomena in the sporting world too. To wit, the Murray who shows up at the local golf couse with the $5,000 titanium this and that...only to promptly shank his first tee shot so far into the woods that he'd spend days looking for it, IF he was actually going to honestly keep score, which of course he's not.
It most certainly is NOT the gear.....and we should all be happy about that.
@AfroBlue: I like the sound of the rig you're using on Mercy, Mercy, Mercy. You've got a good, big natural sound on harp--acoustic sound, I mean--that I can hear THROUGH the rig. You're not quite optimizing it the way a player with more experience would, but even so, the sound of the rig is just what I like. It's a harp-friendly rig. So yes: stick with that.
I think that many of the folks that have posted in this thread, including the OP, are conflating "cheap/low-cost" with "bad". Although the two variables may trend together somewhat, they are in fact INDEPENDENT from each other. To whit: combining a Honeytone with a 520DX is NOT a "bad" rig. It actually sounds quite good. It IS a "cheap" rig, however. The price of the gear often, but not always reflects the "goodness" of the tone that comes out. I betcha a $3000 boutique amp built for shredding guitar is going to sound way way worse for harp than that $30 Honeytone.
I propose that the OP's experiment be reformulated so that instead of "cheap" gear, gear that is *known* to be "bad" for harmonica be used. For example: a little tinny Kobitone mic element, and a big shredder marshall stack or something... I'd really be curious if anyone can sound "good" through a combo like that! :) ----------
There are plenty of good-sounding, cheap rigs. I liked Kingley's demo of the 7-100 with delay and a good mic. Just what I plan to use this weekend. There's another player I have heard demo that amp though, who I think produces a very 1 dimensional, heavily distorted sound through it which quickly bores me. With that amp I think the key is to find just the right volume setting. The VHT Special 6 has got to be the most widely recommended amp I have yet seen on this forum, but I think the Op was especially thinking SS? Interesting to hear the Frontman 15 get a couple of mentions. Afro Blue, I know it's just my opinion, but your amp I believe is highly underrated and overlooked. Probably because of that ss preamp and also in favour of the SuperChamp XD, with its10" speaker. I've put the VibroChamp up against a few modern 5watt all-valve amps and frankly I'm in no hurry to be rid of it. It's annoyingly good.
SuperBee - Glad you liked it. Yes, the trick with the Pignose 7-100 is to keep the volume around 9 O'clock (about a quarter on) that gives it a cleaner sound. Then you boost it with the delay. It makes a good home practice amp.
Personally, I feel that it is what the performer plays that is as important -or maybe more so- than the gear.
Does he play interesting lines, musical ideas, fills, etc, or is he stuck in the "need to sound vintage bluesy" rut?
Paul DeLay plays great ideas and doesn't need gear to get it across.
Personally, I will adapt how and what I play to the situation - gear and musically - in real time. Of course, I've been seduced by creating musical lines over the years and this is my favorite approach when given a real choice on what to do. ---------- The Iceman
