I've never been an effects guy. Rarely use even a delay since I've gotten my tone together. Now I'm playing with a band that's doing more rockin' blues and I'm thinking that some of these might benefit with a tone that's not as traditional as my norm. I'm not interested in outerspace sound effects but I'd love to hear what's working for others. Thanks, jay
The only pedals I use are reverb and delay pedals and I'm more of a traditional player. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
Shop around for the right amp and you can get on board effects, mostly reverb, chrous, delay and gain(overdrive) all built in. That way you won't need all the pedals. ---------- Hohner Big River in Low F,G,A,Bb and D Hohner Special 20 in Bb Suzuki HarpMaster in C Suzuki FolkMaster in D,E and F
I sparingly use at least half a dozen effects on there. The rub being that the octaver doesn't track as well as a POG and some of the other modulation effects aren't crazy about chords either.
That being said, I only use those effects 1-3 times an entire evening and the reverbs and delays alone make it worth the money.
I have it set up for: Rotary Amp Bass Octaver Delays Octo Reverb Particle Verb Ring Modulator Synth Octosynth Sweep Echo Tron Up Chorus
Some of those only get used once a night, others like the rotary a few times. The delays get a lot of work. ---------- Mike VHT Special 6 Amp for Harp Blog
Last Edited by on Oct 06, 2010 12:32 PM
Look for Jason Ricci's youtube vids where he gives a tour/demo of all the pedals on his pedal board.
I use a Harp Commander I into a Line 6 Echo Park on slap back tape echo into a BBE sonic maximizer. Could probably skip the HC but I like the impedance sorting out stuff it does. (May do an experiment without it when I get my new mic in a couple days, fingers crossed)
I think an octave pedal like the Micro Pog and some sort of Rotary sim like the DLS Rotosim would be perfect for you. Carey Bell used both effects quite a bit. Having a long and short delay is awesome too. ---------- Mike VHT Special 6 Amp for Harp Blog
9000 Listen to the stuff of John Popper, Jason Ricci, Richard Hunter and try to figure out what effects do you want to try. Delay is necessary for any harmonica player, try Boss DM-2 (it's out of production), BBE Two Timer, MXR Carbon Copy, Lonewolf HarpDelay (i'd prefer v2). I love octavers (MicroPOG is the best one), phasers/rotary simulators (EHX Small Stone, H&K Rotovibe), auto-Q (Jason and Buddha use Maxon, Richard Hunter uses his Digitech RP series). ---------- Excuse my bad English. Click on my photo or my username for my music.
Last Edited by on Oct 06, 2010 7:47 PM
Speaking of phasers, the Retro-Sonic Phaser pedal is very harmonica friendly and versatile (3 adjustable controls: speed, depth and level). Nice unit.
Btw, Retro-Sonic also makes a Chorus/Vibrato pedal that looks pretty interesting, but I've never tried it. The EH MicroPOG and the DLS RotoSim are both very harmonica friendly.
In choosing effects pedals one must pay attention to what the pedal does to your signal/tone when the effect is not on. True bypass pedals can be harp friendly in this regard, but not all pedals that claim to be TB actually are. If it's an effect you leave on all the time anyway, it probably won't make much difference. But if you don't have the effect engaged all the time, it can make a significant difference.
Last Edited by on Oct 07, 2010 3:58 AM
I wonder what a harp would sound like if you ran it thru a Cry Baby Wahwha pedal? I had one a few years ago for my electric guitar so I could do some Joe Satriani stuff, sounded pretty cool. ---------- Hohner Big River in Low F,G,A,Bb and D Hohner Special 20 in Bb Suzuki HarpMaster in C Suzuki FolkMaster in D,E and F
Frank, I use a Vox Wah Wah and it sounds pretty cool if you know what you're doing. It took me a long time to get it working right. I think an auto-wah for most would be better, but I had the Vox one lying around.
I own a Lone Wolf Harp Delay, a Lone Wolf Harp Tone+ and a Boss OC-2. The delay pedal is really good. The Harp Tone+ is awesome and very useful. The OC-2 is great for playing Carey Bell style stuff.
@Zack, I can imagine in my minds ear the sound you'd get and if it's anything like guitar then it would sound pretty cool. I got to where I could play about 90% of "Surffin' with the Alien" by Satriani after I got my Cry Baby. It's all on how you work your foot, once you get that down you can really get the Satriani sound. Anyway, I knew someone had to have done it at least once,LOL. Thanks for sharing the info. ---------- Hohner Big River in Low F,G,A,Bb and D Hohner Special 20 in Bb Suzuki HarpMaster in C Suzuki FolkMaster in D,E and F
Wampler Pedals is a boutique manufacturer of guitar pedals available through the web and the their Analog Echo (which is neither analog nor an echo--it's a analog sounding digital delay) is harp friendly.
Wampler also makes a "Faux Tape Echo" pedal and a "Faux Spring Reverb"pedal that look interesting, but I haven't tried them. The Wampler pedals have a 5 year warranty. And they ARE true bypass--totally and absolutely transparent when they are dis-engaged.
It's not as easy as guitar as a guitar has a more percussive sound to the single notes which accentuates the wah, it's more difficult to get a good sound on harmonica.
Guess I should have said that I have Danecho modded for harp and a Lone Wolf octave pedal which really doesn't operate like a traditional octaver. I seems to double up the harmonics creating a thicker tone and more headroom prior to feedback. I rarely use either pedal anymore because I'm pretty happy with my tone straight into the amp.
I've been a pretty traditional player. Now I'm in a band that is more rockin', edgier so I'm looking for ideas to go along with that genre. Sounds like a micro pog and a rotosim-like effect may be the place to start. Thanks for all of the ideas. Feel free to pass along any other experience you may have.
Effects behave differently with different types of amps. I use a phaser set on relatively low speed and depth to give me a tube compression sound from a bass amp that has a solid state power stage. Used into a tube amp, the resulting effect would certainly not be the same.
If I wanted to use a rotary speaker type of effect into a dirty tube amp, (which I don't do), I'd be tempted to try something like the Retro-Sonic Chorus-Vibrato pedal instead of a RotoSim (which, btw, is what I do use). I think the RotoSim sounds better into an amp that reproduces the effect with more clarity than one gets from a tube amp. I suspect a tube amp would probably interact better with a vibrato pedal on a fast setting to emulate a rotary speaker. Not sure about this, though--just an educated speculation.
Btw, the RotoSim has 2 outputs which sound different from one another. (Output B is more overdriven--sort of a Jon Lord-ish tone, but with rotary). I got a mini custom A/B pedal from LOOOPER ($50) so i can select between output A and output B. Very cool. BUT, the standard custom A/B pedals sold by LOOOPER (and Hopper) won't work because they ground out the signal. I had an old DOD A/B pedal (which was large and didn't have an LED) that did work w/ the RotoSim, so I emailed a picture of the innards to LOOOPER and they re-wired their pedal so it would work w/the RotoSim and only charged me shipping to do the mod. Btw, customer service at DLS (manufacturer of the RotoSim) was very helpful in figuring out why the LOOOPER pedal originally didn't work. Both DLS and LOOOPER are wonderful to do business with.
Now, if I put the RotoSim on low speed and select Output B, I get a nicely textured overdriven tone with a subtle slow pulse. BUT, if I did this into a tube amp, the effect would not be the same because the natural tube compression and texture of even a relatively clean tube amp would tend to "swallow' the texture created by output B of the RotoSim at low speed. Might sound okay at high speed though. But YMMV.
Last Edited by on Oct 10, 2010 4:18 PM
Another thought: I don't use a compressor with the pedalboard effects I use into my bass amp. BUT, if one wants to use elaborate effects into a tube amp, putting a compressor first in chain may be a good idea. The compressor will "tighten" the signal going into the effects and into the tube amp, and will make everything sound smoother. You can always turn off the effects and the compressor if you want a more dirty (less smooth) tone for certain tunes. But compression can also make distortion ("crunch") more controllable and musical. Frankly, I am surprised that more harp players don't use compression.
CAUTION: Not all compressors are harmonica friendly. Some will really suck tone or otherwise dramatically degrade tone.
None, they all get in the way. My chord is heavy gauge gold wire and 3 1/2 feet long so I stay close to the electron flow. I set a mirror behind the amp so I can focus on the glow. When it's right, on those special nights, I can be one with the path across the grid. Ok, not really. Sometimes I use an early brown reverb unit, but not often because I do think it all gets in the way.
@Littoral: "I do think it all gets in the way." I agree 100%. Personally, that's why I generally don't use effects pedals with a tube amp. IMHO, the effects pedals degrade the tone of the tube amp and the tube amp messes with the sounds produced by the effects.
BUT, I was responding to a request to pass along ideas...
hvyj, yes, 9000 was asking for ideas. He initiated his post saying essentially what we've said -which BTW relates directly to Buddha's recent post "Original Voice". All that said, I have played Slayer and Megadeath and a few pedals helped pull that off and/or disguise the effects of lots of whiskey.
Last Edited by on Oct 10, 2010 5:51 PM
hvyj I have no idea where to put extra pedals to my pedalboard. I actually poor now and didn't buy anything new last year, but I find the way to sound fatter adding 3 extra pedals I removed earlier and patch them to the second amp onstage. And I really have no place for them in my pedalboard...
TNFrank I used morley wah, but I gets tired borrowing it with my, as it's extra heavy and not actally so useful (once or twice a gig). ---------- Excuse my bad English. Click on my photo or my username for my music.
This is a cross post from the John Popper Project thread. I have pics of his pedal boards (that are offstage and controlled by midi). I will post later when I have access to a different computer.
Regarding pedal boards, I need a bigger one! I would like to add an A/B switch, an expression pedal, and maybe an "overdrive" pedal.
_____ This is dated and I think his live rig has been simplified. Recent videos show him using Heartbreaker combos, for example, over the stacks.
"His harp rig is quite the setup. He had an accident a few years ago and we did a tour when he was in a wheelchair, so I had to figure out how to get all those [foot]switches for his rig. I ended up attaching them all to a SM58. I was sitting in the hotel room, duct-taping crap to this microphone trying to make it work. We had this company build a molded metal one and he didn't like it. So he uses this old beat-up, duct-taped mic. I've got a panel on the back of his effects rack that splits all the inputs for his microphone, but for a while, I used to stand on the side of the stage and have an ulcer hoping it all would work! So it's a little more reliable than it used to be.
I send the SM58 into a Behringer Dual preamp which I split and goes to an amplifier - like a regular guitar setup - a Mesa Boogie Tri-Rectifyer that goes into four 4x12's. One of the switches on the mic changes the channels in the head - there's a clean channel, a dirty channel... He's got a split from the preamp that goes to his effects rack that we send to the monitor console and it comes back into his monitors, which are controlled thru a MIDI controller. There's also a slave out of the head that goes to a Mini Goth Leslie cabinet that I run offstage. And he's got a volume pot which sends to the Leslie, is miked and returns to the monitor so he can control how much Leslie there is. I have another switch on the mic which is the speed switch for the Leslie, too!
As far as harmonicas, John uses Hohner Special 20 Blues Harps - it's the only harp he feels comfortable with."
"As for the nine tracks of harmonica - distortion harp, clean harp, Leslie harp, effect harp and phase harp are among the Popper choices - Shoemaker had her hands full. "He would step on pedals, but he would send them through different processing units and ultimately different outputs," she recalls. "So that's why we had to have a whole section of the console dedicated to it. And John would say, 'It doesn't matter, because this harp track will be just a scratch track.' I thought, 'Baloney, you're going to play really great, and then Matt Wallace is going to be looking at me like, 'You got that, right?' So I just made sure even though he said we'd never use any live harp tracks, we used all live harp tracks, almost exclusively." ---------- Mike VHT Special 6 Amp for Harp Blog
"Though Popper's harmonicas are probably the least-expensive instruments to start with, the setup that Popper uses to get his amazing tonal coloration is anything but. “I split John's signal to five different places,” explains Mahoney. “He plays into a modified Shure SM58 microphone. The mic goes into a Behringer stereo mic preamp, just to split the signal and change the level from mic to line. John considers himself to be like a guitarist, so the Behringer lets me switch the impedance. One side from the Behringer I take a direct out into the Midas at FOH via an XLR. Then the ¼-inch output of that side of the pre goes into a Mesa Boogie amp switcher. From there, I send the first input to John's main two Mesa Boogie Heartbreaker 100-watt heads, the second input to the effects pedals Heartbreaker head, and I have a third send that goes to the little amp onstage he uses for feedback effects. John can play one and flip to the other. Out of the first main head, I go slave and that drives John's offstage Leslie cabinet, which I mike with a Shure SM57. That signal is brought back into his monitors. He has a volume knob on his mic so he can turn the send to that Leslie up or down, and he controls the speed of the Leslie from the mic as well. The other side of the Behringer goes into a rack of effects that we run offstage; he controls it with MIDI pedals and that goes back into his monitors. That way, I'm not stuck with one sound. He can have whatever he wants onstage, since everything is separate. The units he uses offstage are Mesa Boogie Tri/Axis models, which are MIDI-programmable preamps. I use that to control levels of each of his effect's sounds. He uses an Alesis Quadraverb, a DigiTech IP33 harmonizer and an Eventide H3000 harmonizer. I use the pre to control the effects there. From there, I take a stereo left-right to FOH, and I send those to John's monitors.”"
I recommend the Korg Pandora multi-effects units. I use the PX5-D: http://www.korg.com/Product.aspx?pd=290
What you get in something the size of a cigarette pack is astonishing! It takes some time to set up patches that suit the harp, but once you have them the 4 Favourites buttons allow you to switch between your main categories instantly. I have one for clean sounds with different length reverbs and variations (eg. with pitch shift), another for Green Bullet/amp simulations & variations, another for more far-out harp effects, and a 4th for effects that suit beat-boxing.
I think the Pandora is best operated by hand, though you can use optional footswitches if you prefer. I have mine on a tray that attaches to the mic-stand. You can hear it in use in these videos (it's hidden behind the two Boss pedals):
@Brandon: Great stuff. Very innovative. I've always been intrigued by the Pandora units because it just looks like you're getting so much for your money. How would you rate the octave effect of the Pandora? Can it handle more than one note at a time?
Holy Grail Reverb pedal into a HG2 amp - pretty basic. Every time I try and add additional pedals it equals feedback issues onstage. Having said that, I'd still like to try a LW Delay. ---------- ~Banned in Boston!
I've tried different pedals including the Boss AD-3 ('verb, chorus), Maxon AF9 autowah, Boss OC-2 octaver, but the only ones I use consistently are the Lone Wolf Harp Octave (usually with just a touch of effect), LF Harp Delay V1 (again without too much effect, more of a slap back effect), and BBE Sonic Stomp. If I have room and feel like dealing with 2 amps, I like the sound of playing through 2 amps, one with effects and one dry.
You have to listen for a while before it kicks in, but check out the organ sound this cat gets! Awesome!
I am always falling in and out of love with effects and I really miss the faux-organ sound. The M9 rotary models is awful and not even as good as their standalone pedal. I am going to mess with it some more, though, as I think it is my favorite effect sound. ---------- Mike VHT Special 6 Amp for Harp Blog
Pedals used: EHX HOG Line 6 Modulation Modeler (Vibrato Setting and Ring Modulator) Maxon AF-9 Boss DM2 (Always on) Line 6 Echo Park on tape delay setting
---------- "I am a great believer in understanding, not copying."
Well, at the risk of overfeeding an already healthy and well developed ego, I must admit that "Crimson Rider" has been a personal favorite of mine for quite a while. Also quite inspirational in that it provides a wonderful example of what you can do to the sound of a harmonica with the right electronic effects.
Of course, it also helps that the guy can play at a world class level....
Hi, guys... sorry for revive this thread, but I think that's usefull, and I would lide to read new impressions from the pedal experiences from you after five years.
Well, I've been trying pedals a considerable time ago. Today, I got two different rigs for different proposals:
Rig 1) Just a ceramic JT-30 into a Fender 63' Reverb Reissue unit, into a HarpGear Double Trouble. This gimme a pretty mellow sound, very 50's like: warm, round... for traditional blues, of course.
Rig 2) For modern blues proposals and Blues Rock games: a very agressive Black CR Green Bullet, into a pedal chain, into a huge Fender Bassman. Well... let's talk about that pedal chain:
a) EHX WIGGLER: a less knowing pedal from Electro Harmonix, very huge, non-pedalboard friendly, with a monster power supply that don't can be substitued for other, and I don't use it for the function that was really made for, actually, but... the sound... what sound!!! I use it as my only and one overdrive. It's two tubes interact right in for the Bassman dynamics, increasing a lot of harmonics, a lot of tube tones. WONDERFULL!!! I just release off the signal of the tremolo effect, and realese in the output of the pedal's signal. The result is awesome!!! If I had to sold all pedals of mine except one, I would take just the Wiggler. It's my favorite box, no doubt! Totally harp friendly, but I imagine it with little upgrades, such the tubes sweeping, for example. Oh... one day... maybe...
b) LONE WOLF HARP REVERB: well... it's not an essential pedal, but sets me into a more "harp like" tone, directing the frequencies of the sound just right for the harp direction. I don't use it as a reverber actually, but more as a "toner" pedal. It's necessary to regulate the pedal ever before the shows, cause different stages and ambients would interfer in the pedal action (it's a reverb, of course);
c) EVENTIDE SPACE REVERB: that's was my mainly invest on pedal effects. Reverb is my mainly effect, actually. And... what machine! Take time to learn to use it, but, when you learn... there's no reverb in market for compare it. Neither the Strymon BigSky can be compared. This is the best reverb pedal ever. No doubt! Amazing sounds! Various combinations possibles: halls, rooms, plates, springs, echoes, shimmers... lots of possibilities here... but takes time to learn. Wonderfull!
4) DLS ECHOTAP: the best delay for harp that I've used in all my life! Darker sound... round, warm, hot! I programm it just for a slap echo, but the tap tempo switch gives me the versatility to use it as a long time delay, if I need it. Very... VERY harp-friendly;
5) BBE SONIC STOMP: other that's it's not so necessary. I had one before the current that I got, but I sold it times ago. Just recently I felt that I was in need for it again, just for Bassman experiences. The Sonic Stomp is in test for that configuration, and I don't know if it will survive.
That's my current set.
I have tested a lot of pedal effects, some of then very expensive: Strymon TimeLine (very complex for my use, very expensive for my pedalboard... sold!), TC Electronics G-System (the most expensive and famous "pedaleiras"... it kills my tone like no one other effect!!! Maybe if we could sweep the impedance of the IN... but... onboard... harp thrash!!!), POG (just a toy... not real function for serious harp playing), Boss Delays (all too higher for harp frequencies - and buffered, without exceptions)... etc... etc...
I'm trying to find new sounds now: discovered some, waiting for discovering others.
A good pedal for a totally different kind of sound that I liked too much was the ZVEX JUNKY LO-FI CHORUS. If the proposal is to drop down into new areas of possibilities, I have to say that's a much better choice than all the octavers that I know. It produces a Lo-fi Chorus, full of warm, that is very different from any chorus on market. A very good tone. A very good sound. I recommend!
