[Harp-L] Harp Commander Review from Tokyo

[scott gold <scottgold@xxxxxxxxxx>]

harp-l-ers,

konnichi-wa from the land of the rising humidity.

this past Friday night, i got to sit in for the night with Mississippi
bluesman Steve Gardner:

http://thebluessite.com/reviews/stevegardner1.php
http://www.tokyo-blues.com/Steve_Gardner_interview.html

he asked me to join his gig last night at What The Dickens Pub in the Ebisu
section of Tokyo:

http://www.whatthedickens.jp/

his players in this band (the Steve Gardner Blues Band) are all Japanese,
and SUPER topnotch!
the drummer ­ he knows second line and he knows brushes.
the bassist ­ well, just look at his bass!  it¹s a special job made by two
guys that make basses ­
they call themselves R & Bell (which means ­ get this:  ³R² is for rice ­
one¹s guy¹s name is Kome, which means ³rice² - and the other guy¹s is
Suzuki, which means ³bell²).

try some of these links....

http://www.commusic.co.jp/product0_ub_s.htm
http://www.commusic.co.jp/
http://www.gollihur.com/kkbass/basslink.html

the venue is fine ­ large, loft area good acoustics, real stage, full PA
system, monitor speakers, etc.
people were dancing like mad!  great crowd.

i broke out for the first time my newly acquired Harp Commander (HC1) ­ from
Big Rock Oiwa.
i plugged right into the PA ­ it was beautiful ­ worked like a charm!
since my main mics are on the fritz, i employed a Frank Ruskin mic and then
went thru a Guyatone reverb unit,
and, in turn, went into the HC.

i found that the HC was fairly easy to control ­ it will obviously get
easier with more acquaintance.
as an example of effortless of use ­ as the night progresses, the volume
increased. naturally, i had to keep up,
and so increased my volume.  as a certain point, i experienced feedback in
the form of howling.
buy simply turning the high-cut knob, the problem was immediately eliminated
and i was back on track.

i noted immediately that the HC works quite well in the realm of
compression.  it is quite responsive in this regard.  the more you compress
the air,
the more you get proper distortion that approximates what one looks for in a
nice tube amp.  releasing the compression ­ leaking
air in your hand/mic seal, allows you to vary your sound effects w/o trouble
or much loss of volume.

Ron Holmes ­ great product!

in addition to being a superb performer, guitarist, singer, songwriter,
etc., Steve is also an accomplished harp player ­
he really didn¹t need me there.  but, we played dual harps for many of the
numbers.  Steve was so impressed with the HC,
that he has just ordered the HC2 from Ron.

oh and ps--- most of the evening i played harps provided by my favorite
customizer, Tim Moyer ­ Honeybees and T-Bones.
they really make a big difference for me.

yours in amplitude,

sg
tokyo