Re: [Harp-L] Vocal Mics, and thanks.

[Bobbie Giordano <bogio@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 1/8/2007 6:26:07 PM, Jason Ricci (jason@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx) wrote:
>3.) Make the amp work for the distortion. Not having the break
>up/hot signal at the mic end helps to get your volume higher
>and by that time the vocal mic as far as distortion goes is
>just as broken up as a bullet if not more... speaker distortion
>is a different sound than mic distortion and when the mic is
>clear/clean like a MODERN vocal mic is, the sound is neat but
>distorted and usually legible, real good for fast licks not
>getting mushy.

Jason, I think you've made an excellent point here.  As I don't play out 
but listen more to other harpers, I can really relate to what you're 
explaining.  Your line, "Make the amp work for the distortion" is a gem 
and on the money!

A lot of players aiming for that big, robust mic sound don't seem to 
realize that the amps they're able to combine it with these days are 
tremendously more cranked by nature than what their harp idols of yore 
had to play through.  What results is, sure... more volume.  But, is it 
'good' volume?  What's better clean and clearer or louder and muddier?

As a person who appreciates the value of good lyrics, I'm constantly 
irritated by the inability to understand what the blazes singers are 
'yelling' so common nowadays.  I still come to enjoy certain numbers for 
their musical qualities, but remain frustrated by not knowing what the 
song is 'about'.  Instruments can suffer this same malady, and it is just 
as grating on my nerves as this other one.

How much better it is to me that the harmonica's voice is expressed 
artfully first and amplified second.  And the voice-like quality of the 
harmonica is one of its primary attributes that should be exploited with 
dynamics, but the all too common practice of burying the back of the 
instrument into a microphone, and this goes for chromatic as well as 
diatonic, is sonically boring to me in its output.  You among others give 
so much variety to the instrument's capabilities by not gluing yourself 
to the microphone.

To me, the expression of a song's hills and valleys are disabled by the 
omnipresent, oppressingly unchanged quality of a constantly hand held 
mic/harmonica combination.  And, it's also odd how so many seem to think 
the loud, distorted harp sound 'cuts through', when the muddiness of it 
actually only dissolves into the total wall of sound without ever really 
standing out in any defining manner.  Even solos lose their potential 
impact.

>4.) The sound is very "Up front". Some bullet mics have this sort
>of hollow sound as if you can here the harp resonating within that
>shell... I'm pretty sure that's not what's happening but it sounds
>like that if it were...

Yes, I think I know what you're trying to say, and it also seems that's 
the timbre many players are after, but as you say, I don't care for it 
all the time, and in fact, it begins to bother me with its muddy sameness 
after awhile.  And yes, I think you do explain it well... there is an 
immediacy about vocal mics in that they respond well to the dynamics of a 
harmonica that many bullet mics seem to cloud with a 'fog' of sound all 
around the notes.  The result to me sometimes is a feeling the harmonica 
is not in the mix, a bit out of synch with the music, buried by its own 
mic-created sound.  I feel I probably don't explain it well either! Ha!

>That's part of the good Hollow sound I referred to earlier, I dig
>that tone but it's not for me most the time. I'm not saying that's
>bad just that the vocal mic is not like that. The sound is very
>present ,immediate, true and direct. The note's seem to not be
>being shaped by anything or just happening more easily I can't
>really explain this and it's very likely also just me being use to
>one thing, but there is defiantly this sort of slight "far away"
>sound that happens with Bullets...

Yes.  And note, I said "many bullet mics", as I'm sure there is a wide 
range in output quality among them, just as there is among vocal mics, I 
would guess.

Bobbie