Question: Rad Effects, Processing

[haandruss@xxxxxxx (Harvey A. Andruss, III)]

I've been out of commission for a cupla weeks (new daddy) and came back to
a couple hundred messages (and I digest everything except this list! :),
but I was intrigued by how much knowledge/experience there is about
amplified harp by what must be mostly blues blowers.  

My question:  Has anyone ever used some of the more exotic 'processors' out
there for harp playing -- either toying around with the racks at a
six-string store, at home with a rental unit, or in a performance situation
-- not the 'MIDI' controllers since I want to work with the original miked
harp timbre, but maybe tweka it a bit -- eg. a Lexicon JamMan (real-time
digital sampler/delay/ looper), a Lexicon Vortex (audio morphing of one
effect into another, like grunge tremeloed and chorused into fuzzed and
echoed), a Digitech Whammy II (digital pitch shifter and harmonizer -- not
just octaves, but 9 different interval combos -- with wah-like control
pedal to change pitch).  

The list goes on and on, -- I assume many of you get the same catalogs I do
and may have some experience with these either personally or via guitar
slinging friends/bandmates. I'd like to hear about them, opinions pro and
con, in the context of harmonica playing situations, usefulness, etc., esp.
for diatonic.  

Gimics or not, it seems to me IMHO that there's a lot more 'potential' use
for these effects, if used with proper restraint, to 'expand' the harp
voice beyond the current just 'toying around'.  'Peg of My Heart' used echo
in the late forties and went #1, Jacobs had tube overdrive in the early
50's and we all know his influence, and there's been lots of horn-like
refinements in the 60's-80's, but where's the 90's revolutionary 'heart
horn' sound gonna come from? I bet someone on this list knows....Please
traditionalists, be kind.  I love it unplugged too. Peace.





_________________________________________________________________
Harvey A. Andruss, III                  email: haandruss@xxxxxxx
                                          BUS: (612) 736-4625
                                          FAX: (612) 736-3839