Hello all. I’ve just joined today and i’m looking forward to getting involved with a great community. I’m essentially a blues guitarist who has had a Hohner Special 20 sitting unplayed in its box for about twenty years. I recently stumbled across Luke on Youtube and felt inspired to finally learn the instrument. Although i’m right at the beginning of my harp journey, and no where near ready to play live, i’ve been reading through the gear topics (we all love gear, right?) and i’m curious about some of the amp recommendations. So my question is this, what features specifically make a good harp amp? As a guitarist I have far too many valve and solid state amps including the likes of Fender Champ, Fender Blues Deluxe Reissue, Fender Princeton Tonemaster, Vox AC30, Ampeg bass amp etc as well as many guitar effects pedals. Obviously the sheer weight and volume of some of them make them imprractial but I would have thought the Fender Champ or Princeton Tonemaster would be ideal. Is There any reason why these wouldnt work as well as a dedicated harmonica amp, and for that matter is there any reason why standard guitar effects pedals would be unsuitable?
Hi welcome. I’m sure you’ll get a heap of help here.
Welcome Chris3 I think the amps you have should work. I have a simple Gamma G50 and it works great. I also use a couple pedals. One is Coolmusic Multi Effects Pedal Digital Guitar Pedal with 16 Effects and a booster pedal as well. I mostly use the hall setting on the multi-effects pedal, but will start to experiment with other setting soon. Hope you enjoy the journey. By the way I’ve been playing for about a little over a year now and learning all the time. I’m also in a rock band which I play harmonica. I don’t play any other instruments. Hopefully more knowledgeable here will chime in as well.
I use a super champ, 6V6 and an old fashioned hohner type mic. I put a treble bleed capacitor on it, 0.001 to take out the high highs. Pedals, not so sure, the super champ I have has a DSP, reverb, chorus, etc… no mid control. But I did the When the Levee Breaks to see if it can be done and sure enough. Roland micro cube seems good too, the issue was treble, once I put the capacitor on it, problem solved.
I forgot, the 6V6 tube as per Bill Lawrence pup maker and jazz guitarist, told me that this tube is the best all around because of the broad spectrum of sound.
Try a bullet mic.
@chirs3 welcome to the forum man! So happy to have you here. YEP, you hit the nail right on the head - those are the 2 amps I would have recommended as well.
You’ll note that the issue you have with harmonica that’s not there with guitar is feedback. This is why many harmonica players swap out the AX7 tubes for the lower-gained AY7 tubes. But you may find the amps work great just as they are.
@steve101704 welcome to the forum bro! Yes, bullet mics are great. The Bulletini from Blows Me Away Productions is a very dark sounding mic you might consider, But for me I love my Jason Ricci signature mic from Lone Wolf.
Many Guitar effect pedals work great - ESPECIALLY reverb, delay, octave, autowah, and chorus.