[Harp-L] re: What electronic effects do you use?

["Jonathan R. Ross" <jross38@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

If you look in the harp-l archives available at
http://harp-l.org/pipermail/harp-l/ you will find a wealth of
information on various effects people use with harps.

I tend to like the following effects, in relative order: analog delay,
tape echo, phasing, ring-modulation, chorus, digital delay, envelope
filters, real spring reverb and then other more esoteric stuff like
octavers, dividers and the like.

If I were to choose just one effect it would be delay, particularly
either analog delay or tape echo--I prefer the former, but the later is
quite nice as well.  With a good analog delay you can get effects from a
hard chorus to slap-back to infinite spirals (especially if the delay
can be controlled via LFOs, envelope followers and the like).  Phasers
are probably next on my list, as they can be very subtle adding just a
bit of warmth (I call my MoogerFooger MF-103 Phaser the embiggener,
because at the smallest setting it just adds depth to anything that goes
in), they can be very broad mimicking Leslie-type tones and special
movement or they can be harsh if you have a truly flexible LFO built in
(phasers almost always come with a built in LFO to add the movement
which is typical of the effect)--up to the point of ring modulation and
thus very metallic clangorous tones.  Chorus is similar, though it tends
to be a lot less flexible, IMO (I find that a good analog delay and a
good phaser can do much of what a chorus does, personally).  Envelope
filters such as wah-wahs or auto-wahs are nice, but not always the
easiest to use with harmonicas--you really have to experiment and see
what works best.  I've found that harsher, more "squelchy" filters with
a lower pole value (such as 2-pole rather than 4-pole filters) tend to
do best with harmonica.  The envelope can be either a triggered one, an
envelope follower (which follows the contour of your playing
volume-wise) or a directly controlled one such as the foot-pedal of a
wah-wah.  Reverb, especially that from an actual spring, is quite nice
and a traditional harmonica effect, as they often came with amplifiers.
Again, I tend to find I can get good reverb from short-delay settings,
but spring-reverbs are not hard to make for those with soldering skills
(do a google search and I'm sure you'll find plans).  Octavers, well,
they give you an octave above or below what you're playing.
Traditionally these have been problematic because they were monophonic
in nature, not tracking chords very well if at all, but the recently
introduced Electro-Harmonix Polyphonic Octave Generator (POG) tracks
chords and is something I want to check out.  Dividers do just what the
name implies--they divide the sound source thus producing sub-harmonic
frequencies at predetermined intervals.  Again, most have the problem of
not tracking chords.

I tend to not use guitar-type distortions, simply because I haven't
found them to work well with the harmonica signal and spectrum--also,
distortion can be easily gotten by overdriving tubes and such.

Hope this helps.  




 oo    JR "Bulldogge" Ross
()()   & Snuffy, too:)
`--'