Much respect to Buddha in this solem time - Peace.
Im on the lookout for some advice.
Im looking at putting together a pedal setup which will be portable enough to take to gigs and run through a PA in leiu of taking an amp
Currently i have An MXR Carbon Copy Analog delay Pedal and a Boss Ge-7 equaliser pedal.
Im considering purchasing A pre amp - Possibly either a Lone Wolf Harp Attack or Harp Break
Ive also been looking at the Holmes Harp commander products for pre amp options
Any of you guys have any experiences with these products or recommendations? Once again, the intention is to run straiht through a PA in lieu of an Amp
I know some harp players (here in Japan) have been using the EP Booster pedal, exactly for the purpose you describe. They plug the mic to the PA through the pedal. You get that warm and round sound.
Keep the side chops dude - they're back, right alongside Pea Coats!
And the tongue? I hear people are waiting in line for those. And pre-paying... ---------- Go ahead and play the blues if it'll make you happy. -Dan Castellaneta
The problem is there are few people who tried harp attack, harp break and Harp Commander. I have two harp attacks (many thanks to Randy Landry, he make a mistake, sending me the wrong one and then he send me modified as a gift). I like them very much, but I didn't try others unfortunately... ---------- Excuse my bad English. Click on my photo or my username for my music.
Hi Ray, I live up in Brisvegas and have become a fan of your stuff on youtube (have to support fellow aussies that can play harp as well as you).
Anyway about 6 mths ago I won a Harp Break pedal out of the blue from a membership draw on David Barrett's BluesHarmonica.com.
Unfortunately I am not at the playing level where I should realy be amplfying my sound :> If you are interested however, I would be willing to sell the pedal and the Roland AC transformer I bought, for the price of a Marine Band Deluxe plus postage (my next aquision).
I have used it briefly twice, and it's in perfect condition. If you are interested you can contact me off list at phorro @ gmail.com.
If not interested all good, I have cut and pasted fellow member htownfess's reply to my original thread when I first won the pedal. (I thought that may be helpful for you anyway).
Cheers
Blocker
htownfess states:
Blocker, you are in luck, congrats.
@Tuckster: Harp Break is the SS counterpart to the Harp Attack so he's good to go straight in the PA.
Amp drill below. For PA use I suggest this: Set pedal volume halfway up and modest amount of drive, maybe 10 o'clock? Need for dirt from the Drive knob varies by player/mic but the main idea is not to overdo it so that it doesn't sound like harsh SS overdrive. Bring the volume up in the house at the PA, not too much gain on the channel if the PA has a knob for that.
The Bass Boost is something else you do not want to overdo--it's most useful in helping out mics that inherently lack bottom end by filling that out a bit, but too much makes bass feedback a problem. A given mic will tend to need consistent amounts of Drive and Bass Boost and you can mark those with a Sharpie for reference, but until I know what a mic tends to need (if any boost) I leave the pedal's Bass off to set the PA.
PA EQ drill: First make friends with whoever runs sound or owns the PA :-). Start with PA bass boosted a little, treble backed off a little, mids backed off a little also if there's a mid knob, and bring the house volume up so you can hear your cupped harp clearly. Do not use any monitor volume yet, listen to the house sound.
Cup up a G or A harp and play a sustained 2Dbb bend and bring the bass up till it doesn't increase anymore, then back it off below that point where it turned muddy. Check mids by turning them down and playing 3D bends on the same harp and working your hand wahs. Bring the mids up till your wahs pop out the way you want as you work them. Then turn PA treble down and play a sustained 4D note, bring treble up till you get the definition you want on the note.
Then bring house volume full up and see what you've got. You can run through the EQ test again to confirm but once usually gets it. Check Drive level, are you too dirty or clean? Changing Drive will affect your volume and it's best to compensate for that at the PA if sound checking, then the player can compensate on the fly with the pedal volume knob if needed. You can check Bass boosting once the PA EQ is set, but watch for bass feedback; like I said, bass boosting is more aimed at specific mics that could use more meat, rather than something used all the time. Bring monitor volume up last & don't overdo it; work on listening to the sound out front as much as possible. Add reverb last if desired.
Bet that sounded a lot more complex than it is; you'll master the drill quickly and it gets still quicker when you get familiar with PAs in given venues. *Write down EQ/volume settings that work.* You are at the mercy of what the overall EQ settings for the PA, their graphic EQ field for example, but if they've done a good job with that, it's easy to get a good Harp Break sound. I can see that I ought to try to make a demo video of this PA process, though, might be able to enlist Sonny Boy Terry to do it with me this week.
You can run the Harp Break into your amp--set the amp EQ as you like for harp, use modest Drive on the Harp Break to feed the amp an overdriven tone. Run the amp clean, get the overdrive from the pedal. You should be able to work that one out for yourself at home--the EQ drill's easier without people watching :-). Superlux is a mic that can use a little bass boosting.
The Harp Break doesn't eat batteries but won't sound good on a weak battery. If you use a wall wart for AC, using a music-specific one can be better because the hum filtering will be better.
Last Edited by on Dec 20, 2010 5:07 AM
Good deal on that HarpBreak from Blocker, Ray...It's a very cool pedal. I personally prefer it over the HA, which I have. I played them side by side, and even though the HB is totally digital, it just sounded better to me as far as the 'breakup' goes. BUT, the HA is still pretty badass. If you can get the HB from Blocker for a deal like he states, I say go for it. ----------
Todd L. Greene, Codger-in-training
Last Edited by on Dec 20, 2010 7:49 AM
By the way you might want to take note that the Boss GE-7 has a massive design flaw when working with tube amps. This isn't the standard Tube amp noise that tube amp lovers know about. I mean, the EQ will actually mess up the tone quite a bit with a tube amp. That's why I replaced it with an MXR 10 Band EQ.
Harp Attack has a tube in it. http://www.lonewolfblues.com/attack.html
Zack sounds good through that HA>pa. got me interested. I use a Yamah Magicstomp II. Usually through a tube amp - but sometimes right into a PA. It's a digital multi fx pedal with nice delay and reverb -as well as amp simulators. The line 6 pod I had briefly sucked compared to it. You have to program it with an obsolete PC to get a set of usable patches though. Worth picking up if you see one used. ----------
BTW I also have Digitech RP200 (RP 255/355 is recommended) with Richard Hunter patches and it's OK standalone for playing to PA ---------- Excuse my bad English. Click on my photo or my username for my music.
