|
Dirty-South Blues Harp forum: wail on! >
modifying an amp for harp
modifying an amp for harp
Page:
1
chromaticblues
168 posts
Sep 04, 2010
7:14 AM
|
I've been reading alot about tone and amps lately on the forum! One thread was(or ended up being about little Walters tone). He would use what ever was availible! Thats why his sound was different from one session to the next! OK that should have been an easy one. Another thread some one that sounds like he knows what he is talking about stated that LW didn't use small amps to get that sound. He is correct! Back in the late fortys and early fifties companys were using many different preamp tubes. These tubes have considerable differences. I owned a fortys RCA PA amp that had 4 6v6's. The amp hasn't really powerful, but man did it sound sweet!!! It had 6j6 preamp tubes. Many of you have probably not even heard of this tube. The 6sj6 was the modern version of that tube. OK my point being what ever any one got their hands on in the early fifties it was going to sound good for amped up harp! The super duper 12ax7 that is in everything is not the best preamp tube for harp playing! The 6sl7 is a great tube for harp. Any old octal preamp tube is worth a try. Now nothing is 100% perfect. The down side to these older octal tubes is that they were very inconsistant. You really need to buy 6 to get one your amp likes. It's not that big a deal though. You do it once and your set!
For the harpers that don't care about this stuff. Buy an amp with a rectifier tube, make sure it is cathode baised, and I personally like 6v6's, but the amp I play the most has a 6dg6 power tube! So nothing is writen in stone. Tube amp are easy to work on! Buy something old(real old) and bring it to an amp tech. If you can figure out what mic your going use first and then have someone set up an amp for that mic. That will make things easier you and him.
I've have also heard alot about it doesn't matter what gear you use it all comes from you. AH well yeah sorta.
In the another thread someone said that using different amps changes the way you play! When I hear stuff like that I know he's for real!! You don't know that by tring stuff out at guitar center. Thats one of those things that happens from playing live and you don't even realize it at the time. It's one of those things you learn from trial and error and reflecting on last nights gig.
Great harp players can sound great with many different set ups, but I'm a firm believer their is an ideal mic/amp combo for everone's personal style. The trick is to figure it all out. The big problem is most amp techs are not harp players. And amp techs that are harp players might have a diiferent idea of what good tone is!
Holly shit this is long!
figure what you want to sound like. have someone build an amp that will sound like that. Then practice the techniques involved.
I use to play professionally from 87' to 2000 and did alot of experimening on amps. listened to alot of other pro harpers and settled on a 3 watt amp I built and designed. It's a low volltage amp. that is based on a champ f1.
the heart of it is a hammond 125-0-125 power T., S.S. rectifier, 6dg6, 6sl7, and a gibson GA5 output T.. The only difference with the rest of the amp as campared to a f1 is the second power resistor I use a 4.7K instead of 22k., the cthode resistor is 150 Ohms instead of 470 Ohms and the bypass cap is 100Mfd instead of 25Mfd. This voltage is perfect for the power tube, but is low for the preamp which makes it sound real smooth. I originally didn't use a SS retifier, but the amp was to slow and dark sounding. After the SS it works perfect!
So the moral of the story is the holly grail doesn't exist! There is no best amp!!
|
joeleebush
74 posts
Sep 04, 2010
7:43 AM
|
Here in Atlanta in 1953-1954, Little Walter was using a 2 microphone setup.
I forget who made them but I had 2 exactly like his and mine finally gave up the ghost back around 1995..I sent them to Dennis Gruenling to see if he could fix them and he said no hope.
They were wand type mikes..I actually think they were electrovoice, (dont remember) and he had them taped together side by side with adhesive tape. Both had on-off switches built into the body of the mike, they were about 6 inches long.
One was plugged into one channel of the amp and the other into the other channel. The amp was a National with a take apart speaker setup. Thats all I remember..I was only 15-16 years old. It had the nameplate "National" on the front of it. After 1955 I never saw him again.
He also had a little adaptor gadget where both 1/4" banana plugs went into it and one 1/4" plug came out and would plug into a single channel if needed..I did that for years also.
I used that 2 mike taped together setup for about 10 years and played into every kind of amp you can imagine..Harmony, Supro, Gibson, all kinds of Fenders... you name it and I always got that LW sound.
The big issue then was the placement of the amp, as it can be now, and the same old deal with feedback.
I really think the main thing nowadays is with those bullets...they require too much amp tinkering. I am using a shure beta 58 with one of the BlowsMeAway volume controls stuck on the end of it and a transformer (low to high)on the cord. I get just about all the Little Walter tone and sound you can want from it.
These blowers around here keep asking me..."man how do you get that sound" My response is.."you see what I got in my hand, if I pick up that thing of yours I am going to sound just like that bullet makes you sound".
Just some comments here from an old man...I believe its mainly the mikes, (of course you gotta have the tone without any mike at all, first..otherwise you're dead at the gate).
|
chromaticblues
169 posts
Sep 04, 2010
10:53 AM
|
I read something about LW playing in Atlanta. The person that wrote the article said the same thing about the two mikes and the national. It was an article about the club he played at. The buiding had been abandon for awhile. I don't remember if it was going to to torn down or if someone bought it and had plans to reopen. I didn't know he used the two mic setup for the whole gig. I thought that was something he did when playing the chromatic. I never understood why you would use two mics at once? I've never tried it either thou! I also agree with the bullet mics. Bullet mics are a pain in the ASS. They sound great, but the feed back issue that you have to constantly deal with isn't worth it. On another thread someone said they used a audio techniques stick mic. I had one from the seventies that had a high/low impedence switch on it. That was a great mic. I just hadn't been playing long enough at the time to know! It was a cheap version of the mic that adam uses. That was my first mic and never had any feed back problems with it. I didn't have any tone then and had to keep buying mics and amps untill I finaly just got better. I used a blues baster for years that I put a hot ceramic element in. Great sounding mic but couldn't put harp through monitors and I had to stand two feet in front and six feet to the right of my amp. I had a pregig routine that I had to go thru to find my little sweet spot of the stage were the amp wouldn't feed back! My god that was a pain! I don't know why I didn't just get another mic.
I know what you mean about the bullet makes you sound a certain way and thats it. I saw Mark Hummel, Curtis Delgado, Jerry Portnoy and Rick Estrin. They all played together at the end and passed a mic around. They all sounded the same. It didnt' matter what they did with their hands or anything. You couldn't hear any subtlties. I've heard Rick Estrin before and he is great, but with Mark Hummels gear it was dynamicless! I don't know if thats the best way to descibe it, but it wasn't as good by a mile!!
Last Edited by on Sep 04, 2010 1:58 PM
|
tmf714
230 posts
Sep 04, 2010
11:09 AM
|
Thanks Joe Lee-it's great to have a reference here who saw and heard the greats in their day. If your ever down Florida way,we'll have to hook-up.
Have a great Labor Day weekend!!
Tom Fiacco.
|
Post a Message
|
