[Harp-L] Horses for courses and the Shaker Madcat microphone

[Richard Hunter <turtlehill@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Back in April I saw a couple of posts by Brendan Power and Madcat Ruth in which they both extolled the virtues of the Shaker Madcat harmonica mic.  When two guys I respect as gearheads and players as much as Brendan and Peter talk about how much they love a piece of gear, I get interested.  So I asked my brother for a Shaker Madcat for my birthday back in April.  He got around to it a couple of months later.

I tried the mic with my RP350 a month or so after that, and I was thoroughly unimpressed.  The mic distorted in a way that didn't play nicely with the RP350, and to my ears it made a sound that was a lot less interesting than the sound of my Fireball.  So I put the mic back in the box and forgot about it.

Tonight I was cleaning up my home studio and putting unused gear in a box for advertising on eBay, and I came across the Madcat.  I almost put it in the box with my Calrad DM-9, but then I remembered that different mics work very differently with different amps.  So I took out the Madcat and plugged it into my Ron Holmes-modified Crate VC508 5 watt tube amp, and holy s---, did that amp come alive. 

I see now what Greg Heumann means when he talks about mic distortion with tube amps.  The Madcat into the VC508 produces a huge, screaming blues sound with lots of edge and body.  As per Peter Ruth's recent comments about the Madcat on this list, it's also practically impossible to force it into feedback, even when I crank the gain on the VC508 up to 8, which is a lot louder than I can get any other mic in my collection before feedback.

I'm glad to have gotten this reminder that you shouldn't give up on a mic until you've run it through every amp you own.  The Madcat still sounds pretty lame through my RP350, but that's what the Fireball is for.  From now on, the Madcat is going with me to every blues gig I play with the VC508.

Regards, Richard Hunter  



author, "Jazz Harp"
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