Saw a guy at a jam once playing harp through a cheap plastic battery powered megaphone. He'd tape down the on button and blow. Sounded surprisingly good. Not sure how long the batteries would last. Could get expensive.
sometime during the summer of 1989 I was at the chicago blues fest and saw a bloke doing that. I recall him to be a very good player and the sound was quite good. I have always kept the megaphone idea in the back of my head.
I know you're talking about a battery powered one ---------- Andrew, gentleman of leisure, noodler extraordinaire.
Last Edited by on Jul 05, 2010 2:13 PM
apparently tom waits has a large collection of vintage megaphones (not for harp of course). a new megaphone just might not get the right tone, you need vintage, or of course a boutique new old stock custom megaphone that sounds like an old one. you are a harmonica player after all!
I thought you were refering to the non electric version. I have thought about those at times but haven't persued it. I am currently playing every saturday at the outdoor farmers market as an unamplified 1 man band. The bushman delta frosts put out more than enough volume to keep up with my national steel guitar (real loud) and drums/cymbal. i am not a fan of loud and those electric ones are ear piercing. They distort the sounds too. THere are cheap, decent sounding battery powered pa/guitar amps that are small and light. I guess if you want a warped sound the megaphone is the way to go. Walter ---------- walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year. " life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" - helen keller
Hey Captain....I was in B+Q with my 2 year old the other day and they were selling (at greatly reduced prices!) battery powered England megaphones. We both started messing about with them and I whipped out my A SP20 and played a few bars through it. It sounded surprisingly good. It reminded me a little of playing through a pignose.
Was told to put them down by the security guard eventually. I'd imagine they'd sound good through a mic. I was able to get a resaonable cup with it too.
I read somewhere that if you wrap a newspaper round a harp, it makes a good megaphone. I haven't tried it. ---------- Andrew, gentleman of leisure, noodler extraordinaire.
Bliss, we'll discuss this later today, but in short I've tried it and it works pretty nicely - except only if you can find a megaphone with adequate distortion. If the channel's too clean it sounds a bit naff, to be honest.
However, I'm pretty certain this is in contravention of the Captain Bliss Amplification Policy. What gives?
i dont know if one would work or not,but i would think aftr a couple hours of playing,your arms would be cramped.Im wanting to try a $20 honeytone 9v battery powered amp,I dont know how loud they are but ive heard some good things about em for a small busking amp for harp
I Busked with my Cone-A-phone .. i named it.... it is a Cheerleader megaphone duct taped to a 1962 GI Joe comunicator helmet ... This was a army helmet with a battery operated speaker built into the helmet then it had a Microphone on a stick that came down by yur mouth ..A friend of mine who owned a Art Bar that hosted blues jams .. gave it to me ...it got a killer crunchy sound and it projects pretty good ...i recorded about 4 tunes on my CD with it ...and i busked in the streets of Helena Ark ...with it in 96 .. still got it but havent used it in a couple of years ....if you have my CD check out Cone-A-Phone-A- Boogie ...
It also has a 10 foot cord added by my friend that owned the bar ... the mic is no bigger than a dime .. it fits inbetween yur fingers ....and you can get a great cup ..and wa wa efect with it ...
