[Harp-L] Re: Gear

[AV1901@xxxxxxx]

Concerning gear.......

Of course accoustic tone and chops and musicality are essential and of 
*primary* importance. 

HOWEVER

I know of very few musicians who do not pursue that final 5% that top notch 
equipment can provide to reach the sound each individual musician hears in 
their head as what they aspire to. 

Some on this list swear by modified harps, even going so far as to insist on 
harps modified by particular individuals or guilds. Others emphasize 
particular microphones. Or signal processors. Or amplifiers. 

I know of few professional harp players that I've seen who don't favor 
particular equipment. Guys like William Clarke, Kim Wilson, Rod Piazza, Mark Hummel. 

Most musicians I've seen or played with care a lot about equipment. Sure, 
they could sound good with/through anything. But they seem to want to hear the 
sound they aspire to and do what they can to get it - including careful 
selection of the equipment they use. Drummers wax poetic about a particular snare drum 
or cymbal. Bass guys have complicated rigs that only they can understand. 
Guitar folks want certain models of pre-CBS Fender axes and particular amps (and 
tubes, and transformers, and speakers...). 

If gear is not important, how many posters here use stock harps through a 
Shure Sm58 mic into a ho-hum PA with no effects?

In my opinion, liking good gear is OK. 

On the other hand, one of my lifetime musical highlights was playing a stock 
Special 20 accoustically on a warm summer evening on the sidewalk with David 
Bromberg and Mike Davis on accoustic guitars, a drummer playing brushes on a 
cardboard box and a bass player using a washtub bass.

But I still have some pretty nice amps and mics.

Andy Vincent