Harp Commander

[Grant Kester <gkester@xxxxxxxx>]

Dear List,

After a lot of equivocating I decided to get a Harp Commander from Ron 
Holmes in Bakersfield. For some time I've had difficulty controlling my 
volume when I play in small, quite settings. To get any kind of tone 
out of my amp I've needed to turn it up so far that it overwhelms the 
acoustic guitarist and steel guitartist I play with. I also wanted to 
be able to switch from a crunchy tone to a clean tone (some things we 
do are more bluesy and others are more folky). In the past I was 
playing through a vocal mic into the PA (SM57) for the cleaner tone and 
then struggling with the amp volume/tone ratio for the other numbers. 
Anyway, I was able to try the Harp Commander out at a gig this weekend 
and it really worked well. I could tweak the gain and the compression 
(as well as tone) on the HC (I had it sitting right next to me) for 
each number (combined with breath control, etc.) and could get a nice 
fat sound out of my amp without being TOO loud for the rest of the 
band. It doesn't "give" me tone; it just allows me to control the tone 
I do have so I'm spending half the gig making hand gestures to the 
sound guy or fiddling with my amp. I was very pleased, and Ron Holmes 
was extremely helpful on the phone, spending the better part of an hour 
explaining the unit to me.  I was playing through an old Electro Voice 
638 mic. into a '60s Premier reverb tank and a '59 Gibson Skylark amp.

Grant Kester