Here's a video in which I thimk my playing in general is pretty sloppy and my intonation is inconsistent, BUT I am pretty happy with my solo starting at about 2:15 in which I use a Strymon Lex and a Micro POG with a Carbon Copy delay to pull off a reasonably credible organ sound. If I realized how good the organ effect was sounding at the time I would have used it in the closing chorus as well, but I didn't want to over do it. The tune was written by the guitar player and has what I think is a great line: "The soul leaves the body from the chest but the body stays around like an unwanted guest."
I also use a Strymon Lex, the first generation without the two stereo inputs. I got is used for $150, I think. Pretty good deal.
If you are looking at buying that rig used, you're still talking easily over $300. The Zoom line of pedals have a Zorgan effect which gives you the same octave effect of one octave up and one down. It also has rotary (although not as good, IMO, as the Strymon) and an analog delay model. That'd get you there for closer to $100.
Personally, I don't use an additional effect with the Strymon. I just play octaves in lieu of a pitch effect. It sounds less synthy and in your face. I totally ripped off the idea from John Popper and his use of rotary amps and effects.
Unfortunately, a lot of my gigging is pick up work at this point. The Lex gets tons of compliments from bands and audiences. It blend really well with anything electric. I tend to not like it as much when playing with just an acoustic guitar. I just play octaves without it. ---------- Mike My Website My Harmonica Effects Blog
Last Edited by HarpNinja on Aug 14, 2015 6:03 AM
Popper uses a rotary effect to comp throughout this entire show. https://archive.org/details/brotherskeeper2015-01-16
I know with Blues Traveler he for sure runs it in parallel and can mix in the amount of effect from off to totally wet. I *think* based off of pics of his rig with Brother's Keeper he uses it in series like most effects.
I actually have a very similar rig to what he is using here. Nothing identical, but very similar.
I use a SM58 and run that into a Lone Wolf HarpBreak, the Lex and a couple of Zoom pedals. I then either play a Joyo American Sound to the PA, or now a Princeton Reverb Reissue. ---------- Mike My Website My Harmonica Effects Blog
Strymon Lex (new) $299 / EH Nano POG (new) $202 / MXR Carbon Copy (new) $150. Actually, in the vid I'm using a Micro POG, but the less expensive Nano POG works just as well. Also, the Hammond Leslie G Pedal ($329 new) works just about as well as the Lex and is MUCH easier to dial in.
Dialing in the proper settings is VERY important. Also, all these pedals respond to technique. They are not just sound effects. So playing technique is extremely important. It's almost like playing a different instrument. Proper phrasing is also important if you want to sound like a real organ.
Finally, you've got to be very careful to play the proper chords. You can't just chug or do the choo-choo train thing and expect it to sound right. You must be very disciplined about this. It's easy to get carried away if you are not being careful.
I use a 545 Ultimate and either a Peavey Delta Blues or a Fender Super Reverb. I have no idea how a bullet mic or a very dirty amp would sound with these pedals. Btw, I use a TC Electronic Flashback Delay with the Super because the CC is too dark for that amp.
Last Edited by hvyj on Aug 14, 2015 7:59 AM
Thank you Harp Ninja and hvyj for the info. As I suspected it´s waay beyond my budget -- and those gadgets are also a little bit more expensive here in Sweden, which makes it even more terrifying.
@hvyj: The technique aspect of things is not particularly daunting to me. I tried the EHX Pitch fork pedal the other day and found the organ sound in a jiffy -- maybe there are more than one sound, I didn´t bother to find out in greater detail, ´cause it didn´t sound particularly good for that kind of price. The sound that you have is much closer to the goal.
And thank you Mike for the john Popper/Brother´s Keeper link. Having listened to a fair portion of it now I have to say that if one is attempting to sound like an organ, hvyj´s set-up does a better job. However, I believe that JP can buy pretty much all the gear he wants, so he´s probably content with this hybrid sound of chorus harp and organ.
Not a great JP/BT fan, but it was still interesting to hear him in this context, and nice that he shows skills in backing (although he´s a little busy at times ...).
I find this talk of how to make a harmonica sound like an organ, trumpet, trombone, guitar fascinating. Part of me just wants to say, "if you want to sound like a trumpet, play a trumpet". However, I think there is a lot to be learned in exploring all of the sounds you can make with an instrument and what gives the various instruments their unique sound.
I observed some rehearsals of my sons youth symphony and as part of the warm up, the conductor would ask everyone to sound like a flute, then a trumpet etc. It was amazing that these kids could tailor the sound of their instruments in the direction of the target instrument.
Ya know, so many harp players are obsessed with getting a traditional electric blues distorted sound which is ok as far as it goes. However, there are a lot of modern effects pedals out there that are harmonica friendly and can provide so many musically interesting sounds, especially when used in combination with one another.
For example the TC Electronics Vortex Flanger is an incredibly versatile and harmonica friendly unit. Turn the delay time knob completely off and the resulting timbre is really cool and not identifiable as a flange. Use it alone or to give dimension to other effects when used in combination for musically interesting textures or to get cut when needed. It all depends on what u use it in combination with. Distortion is cool for certain material but one of the reasons I don't have a distortion pedal on any of my pedal boards is that it's problematic when used in combination with other pedals because it messes with the gain. Yeah, I could use it by itself, but I don't have a huge board and I don't want to sacrifice space for a pedal that can't readily be used in combustion with the other pedals on the board. But YMMV.
Last Edited by hvyj on Aug 14, 2015 9:42 AM
@STME58. There are some bootleg recordings of the band Traffic playing live as a trio. Winwood's organ was heavily over driven and the sax player was playing electric through a Maestro box. Depending on the tune and the phrasing sometimes you couldn't tell what was the organ and what was the electric sax which I thought was pretty cool.
Last Edited by hvyj on Aug 14, 2015 9:49 AM
For me it is a matter of having a way to contribute to ensemble playing that makes it worth having a harmonica player. That is the biggest obstacle I face when trying to find people to play with.
They think all I am good for is a Tom Petty cover here or there. Unless they've heard me play, that is their schema. When you can cover other parts musically, all of a sudden you are a musician. ---------- Mike My Website My Harmonica Effects Blog
Electronic has opened up a lot of new possibilities. The input device can be somewhat divorced from the sound output. We have gotten used to keyboards producing a wide variety of sounds but now there are Midi input devices modeled after saxophones, drumkits that make no native sounds, mutes that almost completely eliminate the sound coming out of a brass instrument but give an electronic signal for further processing, really weird input like the Theramin (which I was surprised to see was available online from Guitar Center)
Check out this guitar doing a pretty good flute imitation at about 1:15 in the video. Sorry I can not credit the musicians, I copied this out of a post to my facebook and I could not find an attribution.
Last Edited by STME58 on Aug 14, 2015 11:40 AM
