Bassman's

["" <party_man1@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Ray Beltran asked :

>So here's what I want to know...
>Why is the '59 Fender Bassman and it's reissue considered by many to >be the " holy grail " for amplified harmonica ?

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Salúdos Compa :

I bet Barbecue Bob will  nail a few more reasons they are sought out by Harp men  , but till the Dean of Scream (I most respectfully wrote that too because Big Time Bob has earned it and I personally love his style and would never take/make an intentional negative swing at this power player ever ) lays down the law on this subject , here's my for what its worth comment .  

Bassman's sound great because of two factors , the 4 10's that they have , make a wonderful midrange power house sound with a soft bright mellow high end sweet feel for a electric guitars , my guitar teacher used one on his Gibson ES-355 . He loved the clean sound that brought the voice out of his guitar nice and fat and smooth with out excessive  high end  " edge " . My guitar teacher worked with Duke Ellington and many other big band people and was a studio session man for CBS records in the 50's . His  last pro job in the mid to late 50's was with Frankie Lane ( ¡ Rawhide , head em up  move em out! ) , he also toured with the " Johnny And The Harmonicats " .

Now for the harp :

This amp isn't as " bright " as a guitar amp since the frequencies it's primarily designed for are low frequency bass tones. That is where it's superb " punch " is and that is just perfect for the harmonica since the harmonica by nature has such a super bright upper register treble and mid register and even the low tones enunciate them too . The lack of bright treble and mid tones on the Bassman and the  bright kick of a harmonica are a marriage made in heaven , and kick in an Astatic or a SM57 who's sound characteristics are kicken serious treble spikes ... and ... there it is .... the Bassman to mellow it down like a handed cupped harmonica in your hand tames the treble boost kick from  the harmonica's natural sound un amp'd . Add the power these amps have and no one walks on your sound ever to drown out your solo's and backing comp licks and I mean never . I used my cousins to practice on and fell in love with the  amps wonderful sound .

An analogy would be something like the boost that " Dolby " NR systems  do to a signal recorded on a typically " hissy tape " cassette recorder's tape . Before the sound hits the tape when you record it , the mid and high frequencies are given a super high end boost and when the Dolby processor reproduces the recorded signal from that cassette tape it drops the high frequency boost and automatically reduces the inherent hiss that is made as the tape passes physically over the the tape players playback head , simply put  . That's exactically what's going on with a Bassman & a SM57 or Astatic mic coupled with a harmonica .

HR

Aka :

Party_Man1@xxxxxxxxxx    

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