Re: [Harp-L] amp or mic?

[Rusty Wilson <harpoon_man@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Assuming you have an amp that's capable of producing a wide range of tones, I agree with Rick that the amp has a much bigger impact on the tone b/c you can tweak the amp settings to a large degree to balance out the characteristics of a particular mic.  That being said, I think that the amp/mic combination is HUGELY important.  There are just some amp/mic combinations where the end result of the tone seems to be better than the sum of the parts.  For instance, just last week, our local group of blues harp players got together for an "amp night" get-together.  We had a plethora of nice harp amps present... Kalamazoo, Champ, Pro Jr., Blues Jr., Silvertone (I think), Masco, Sonny Jr. (#1 and Cruncher), and Meteor, plus some others I'm probably forgetting at the moment.  We had a wide variety of mics on-hand as well, and one thing that struck me was that certain mic/amp combinations just seemed to be "made for each other".  My CM Green Bullet that I don't like for my Champ produced an excellent sound when plugged into JC's Kalamazoo, and many of the other amps just seemed to come alive when played with certain mics (and not always the boutique or expensive mics that one would expect).  On the other hand, there was a home-customized mic in a JT30 style shell that sounded good with many of the amps, but just seemed incompatible with the Meteor for some reason.So while the amp is probably more important overall due to an amp's flexibility to make up for some of a mic's shortcomings, you might still be missing out on some tonal magic if you don't have the right amp/mic combination.-Rusty
<Message: 6
<Date: Tue, 13 Jul 2010 16:45:49 -0600
<From: Rick Davis <bluesharpamps@xxxxxxxxx>
<Subject: Re: [Harp-L] amp or mic?
<To: John Dekker <jdekker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Harp- L
<Harp-L@xxxxxxxxxx>
<Message-ID:
<AANLkTiluAxYEgVqIOGuEXtQLSHbPzRjhcfFOLP4gGPN9@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
<Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

<If all else remains the same (i.e. the player), then the amp will have
<a MUCH bigger impact on tone than the microphone will.

<-- 
<-Rick Davis
<The Blues Harp Amps Blog
<http://www.bluesharpamps.blogspot.com/

 		 	   		  
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