These days I often play without pedals, straight to a tube amp, solid state amp (Electro-Harmonix 44 Magnum), or the PA.
For quite a while I used analog delay with occasional use of chorus.
I have used an early amp modeler (Digitech Genesis 1)for some gigs using PA and powered monitors. I liked it because of the settings being all knobs you could adjust as you played. I used it in an improvisation challenge from Frank, 2nd position diatonic and later using 1st position key of E Chromatic:
3:23 for settings on 2nd cut.
At 1:52 solo through PA using Bad Monkey pedal. I had to keep adjusting to avoid feedback that night. I used it on 2 other songs with the band that night that are on youtube.
I sometimes use the tremolo on my Gibson GA-18T along with my own vibrato, playing octaves on a chromatic, to get an organ sound. ----------
Doug S.
Last Edited by dougharps on Feb 11, 2015 9:45 AM
I used to use a reverb pedal on very spare settings; I would turn it up for our bands spooky version of "Soul of a Man," but that's it. Lately, I play w/o pedals. The LW Harp Tone+ is great for making a guitar amp harp-friendly. I like the LW octave especially if I want a big amp to get some subtle breakup at low volume. Kinder AFB+ is great for feedback control(and if you keep the outer dials low, it has less effect on your sound. Re-reading your post, I guess I'm not helping at all with your interest in 'wild sounds."
Micro POG with true bypass mod by Analogman. The MP pushes pretty hard when it's not engaged which can cause feedback problems, especially with tube amps. Analogman mod is $40 and solves that problem.
TC Electronic Vortex Flanger. Incredibly versitile and harp friendly. Don't think jet plane. Think texture that responds to technique. Sits very nicely in the mix. The musicians I play with love it but are surprised when they find out it's a flanger.
EP Booster by Xotic. $116. Depending on how you set the internal switches and the single control knob it can be a dirt pedal or simply a sonic enhancing preamp. But unlike most overdrives it seems to work best if put at the end of the chain right before the delay. Very harp friendly--and much better for harp than the Australian made EP Pre and EP+.
TC Electronic Flashback Delay. NOT the best delay pedal, but perhaps the most serviceable. I find that delay pedals in general are amp sensitive (certain pedals work better with certain amps than others and can cause feedback if not well matched). The TCFBD doesn't feed back readily with any amp I've tried it with. And it has different types of delay (analog, tape, etc.) that are very useful and easy to dial in. In general their timbres are all a little light which is probably why there's so little feedback potential. Perfect for a second delay or for use on a pedal board that is going to be used with different amps.
Last Edited by hvyj on Feb 11, 2015 6:46 PM
Not for everyone, but the Digitech Luxe is pretty interesting. It's a detune pedal (supposedly a stand alone version of the detune effect from the Digitech Whammy). If dialed in correctly it fattens the signal. Seems to work best with amps that are a little dirty. Sounds great with certain amps, not so great with others.
The trick is to get effects pedals that are harmonica friendly and respond to your playing technique. Otherwise they are just sound effects.
I'm waiting for the Hammond Leslie G pedal to be released. It's supposed to be a more compact version of the rotary pedal Hammond released last year. Currently using the Strymon Lex for rotary which sounds excellent but is a PITA to dial in.
I tend to use pedals in combination with one another as well as separately. For this reason I 'm not big on distortion pedals since they raise the gain of the signal which some of the other pedals may not like all that well. I suppose I could use a true bypass loop for that but that's too much hardware to carry.
Last Edited by hvyj on Feb 11, 2015 7:37 PM
Lone Wolf Harp Delay for that nice analog warmth (duh)
Earthquaker Devices Organizer - tracks well and has huge Organ tone
Boss PH-2 Super Phaser (made in Japan) - gets a cool sort of rotary effect if you crank the depth and rate knobs and has two modes for different flavors of phasing. Don't use it often but has a cool effect.
Boss TE-2 Tera Echo - Very spacey, ambient kind of echo that responds really well to dynamics (nice for interludes/intros)
