Re: Bassman's

["Bob Maglinte" <bbqbob917@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

- ----- Original Message ----- 
From: <party_man1@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, June 08, 2004 12:12 AM
Subject: Bassman's


>
>
>
>
>
> 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 ?
>
> ======================================================================
>
>
> 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

Hi,
For the best reading about this amp, get Gerald Weber's book,  "A Desktop
Reference of Hip Vintage Guitar Amps," either thru
http://www.kendrick-amps.com or http://www.amazon.com, but the thing you
should remember that with a few exceptions like Masco and Bogen, there
really were NO PA's as we know them today at the time this amp first came
out in 1955, with the '59 being the gold standard of amps to the point more
boutique amps are made from this platform and a Vox AC-30 more than anything
else. Much of the time until the more powerful PA systems that were portable
came out like the legendary Shure Vocal Master, the amp, be it a guitar,
and/or later bass amp was often used as a PA, and so harp use for this amp
is really an outgrowth of this, so back then it was not uncommon to see the
vocalist and harp player use this amp for both purposes. The simplicity of
its Western Electric circuit design alone made it popular. The book I
mentioned contains the best chapter on the subject ever written plus all the
differences between the real deal and the reissues (tho the new Bassman RI
LTD is MUCH closer to the real deal, it still falls short).

OK, will this amp give you a fat tone?? Come on, let's be real here, because
if you ain't got the fat tone and chops ACOUSTICALLY, there ain't ANY amp in
this world that's gonna give the nice "artificially fat"  tone if you don't
take the time and do all the work required to get it called shedding!!!! If
the acoustic tone and chops ain't there to begin with, all ANY amp will do
is make it louder and more painful for people to hear.

I know more than a few of you are so over the top in being gear freaks, but
in an interview in the long defunct British blues fan magazine called "Blues
Unlimited," in an interview of James Cotton back in 1977, he was asked about
the amplification deal and I quote from Cotton, "All it do for you is make
it louder so the people can hear it." What's his point? Basically, he is FAR
from gear obsessed and his main thing is getting his sound across regardless
of what he's playing thru. That is sound advice!!!!!!

Sincerely,
Barbeque Bob Maglinte
Boston, MA
http://www.barbequebob.com
MP3's: http://music.mp3lizard.com/barbequebob/