I need a amp that has an line output and my budget is between 200 to 300. I saw a Fender Acustasonic 40 watt amp, at a local shop and it was 199 plus I will get a military discount… I had seen it before and read it was a pretty good amp. Wondering if it would work okay with harmonica?
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Depends on the size mate, but if you want to go small? I’ve used a Roland practice amp and plugged that into the PA via a connection at the back of the amp.
Yes I want to go small and have the ability to plug into pa as well. I’m also looking at a Fishman Loudbox micro.
You can’t go wrong with Fishman they make great pick ups for guitars, in fact my Martin acoustic has one. It really depends on what sound you are going for, I can say that the Roland, ain’t bad acoustically but when you use the crunch button on the top and balance the treble and gain you can get some great Bluesy sounds. Just noticed your former Military so am I. Good look mate.
Thanks @Andy2 I will tryout both amps hopefully soon and see which one I like. I’ve seen Roland amps but a little out of my price range. I like the blues but currently play in a rock band. Thanks for your service and reply.
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Yes, the same too, well, I was in a Country Rock band where I played Guitar, Slide Guitar, Dulcimer, and harp backing vocals. We did a mixture of original material and covers, a bit of Pure Prairie League, Fleetwood Mac, Allman Brothers, Poco, Flying Burrito Bros and so on I wrote all our original material, we did do a couple of Blues tracks. But it got very frustrating, tbh, My first love is the Blues, always has been. Where are you based? I’m in the UK unfortunately where I live is Heavy Metal central so finding anyone that wants to play blues with putting a guitar through a distortion pedal I’d really difficult but I keep persisting and Jamming with friends. You don’t have to thank me for my Service mate we’ve both been there.
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I live in San Diego California in the US. Our band plays almost all original songs and I play harmonica and percussion. fortunately there’s lots off music played in the area.
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There’s a lot of great West Coast Bluesmen around your area, Rick Estrin and The Night Cats come from Sacramento, they are my favorite modern blues band, Sacramento I think is near to you? I’ll see if I can find a Link or something. But most of the West Coast style players I idolize, people Like William Clarke, Kim Wilson, Rod Piazza there’s a ton around there because in the 50’s artists like T-bone Walker, Little George Smith and Cleanhead Vinson moved to the West Coast and kicked off a different sounding blues style. It’s mostly Harp driven and mixes T-bone and Cleanhead smooth Jazz Blues, with Little George’s tough Chicago blues, but George could Jazz thing up too when he played the Chromonica
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I have heard of some of the artists and will look up the ones I don’t know thanks. Sacramento is about 8 hours north of where I live. I started out singing country music Karaoke and then singing with small local bands on occasion. But I like all kinds of music. Just kind of fell into this band(Rogue’s of Chaos) originally as a roadie, then the band leader/lead guitarist and song writer told me he wanted to have harmonica in a song and I had been messing with playing the harmonica a little bit. He told me to bring it to the next practice and the rest is history. been playing now with thew band for about a year and a half.
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That’s a cool story, I jam with bands a lot, so far one nibble but he wanted to play rock. I’m not interested in that. I want to play Blues West Coast style
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I get it our band has a blues song not really slow but I like it. Hopefully you find some like minded people and can put together a band to play blues.
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You’re dropping hints Andy: UK, heavy metal country? I’m going to guess you are somewhere near Wolverhampton?
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oops almost double posted lol
I was from Wolverhampton but now I live with my Wife in Old Hill Cradley Heath. We go into Birmingham a lot, but most of the Blues bands around here are closer to heavy Rock than blues. It’s very frustrating.
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Lol, my bending might be rubbish but my deduction skills are still good!
I live in Edgbaston so im pretty familiar with the local music scene. Do you get to the saturday lunchtime blues sessions at the Hare and Hounds in King’s Heath?
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No, we like to go out on Sundays, We go to the Brass house, Snobs, or the O bar, and sometimes the Actress and Bishop ( depending on whose on and where, We used to go to the Gun makers but we missed our bus and it gets really dodgy at night around the bus stops, so we don’t go there anymore ( plus the beer was crap) We know a guy goes to the Hare and hounds, old guy, bald, called Reg from Redditch. But we haven’t been for a bit and we won’t be going until 22nd of this month as my mates band is playing there ( C C Rider) my wife and I have known the band for years, I have played in two bands with the various members, and sometimes they’ll get me up to Jam. They have some good bands in Brum some that are more rock and Metal ( not that I dislike it if I’m drunk enough I’ll get up and jump up and down to anything) but my first love is the Blues. Although I love all sorts of music I do have a reputation for speaking my mind and I don’t usually like the bands every one seems to like because they have to. I’ve never been about fitting in.
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More power to you Andy! I live close to the Jewellery Quarter and a particular favourite of mine in my drinking days was the Red Lion. There’s a good chance you know it and attended yourself because they had regular open mic blues nights organised by one of our local blues heroes, Chickenbone John, the cigar box slide maestro. How they squeezed thirty odd people into that tiny back room with a double bass and other assorted instruments i will never know. I was strictly a guitar player back then (although i never played there) but was always fascinated by the handful of harmonica players who would turn up with their bags stuffed full of harps. I think this is where my curiosity about harmonica started. Sadly its changed business owners a couple of times since then and ceased hosting open mic nights long ago.
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Hmmm I have a history with Chicken Bone John, he ripped me off, not a favourite person of mine. I was also into cigar box guitars the same time as he was. Mine were built by Shane Spiel in the USA, not entirely sure but he built guitars for some top level blues and rock players Seasick Steve was one (He was the guy who started the whole cigar box movement off when he found an old boy scout manual with the instructions to build one.) I play a number of instruments such as Dulcimer Mandolin, and a brass bodied slide plus harp and guitar. But yeah kind of rankles me a bit, we had a deal he welched not much else to say. I haven’t spoken to him since. Some people are more concerned with fame and money and others just care about the music. I’m am firmly in the latter
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Oh dear, never had any dealings with him personally. His wife runs the Bearwood neighbourhood forum of Facebook and she kicked me off it for objecting to other members racist comments. Guess we both have a bit of an issue with that family for various reasons 
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How can she object to that! She’s defending racists? Good grief! My dealing with him at first where OK we had a mutual friend Catfish Keith whenever I’ve bumped into Keith and his wife they’ve been lovely so when I was introduced to John, I thought he was OK. But no, He just wants to be the premier of cigar box guitars etc so at the end of the day I let the baby have his bottle.
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