[Harp-L] Re: videos-- heavy metal rock harmonicas - YouTube

[Richard Hunter <turtlehill@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Randy Singer wrote:
<Smoke On The Water - Deep Purple - heavy metal rock harmonica http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxnxqkVWDW0
<Paranoid - Black Sabbath Rock Harmonica http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwLHlL8M2EA

Interesting stuff.  This guy does a lot of videos in this vein, and he's got hundreds of thousands of hits on his vids.  The sound and approach are certainly original.  

The gear list for both songs includes a Digitech Vocal 300 and  a Boss BR-1200CD recorder, which supplies the pitch shift FX.  Nice sound--I like the fast runs with delay and pitch shift especially, very spacey and cool. He's using an unusual tuning; instead of tuning the draw 3 and draw 7 reeds down a half step each, he tunes the draw 3 reed down a half step, and the draw 6 UP a half step--so you still get a draw octave on the minor third of the scale in second position, but you've also got the major third in the second octave when you want it.   A very similar sound could be produced with a single Digitech RP device, of course--the difference would be that with his setup, the delays are pitch-shifted down along with the original tone. (The Digitech RP's delay always follows the pitch shifter in the chain, so instead of adding delay, then pitch-shifting the delay down as Ehn does here, a single Digitech RP would shift the original tone down, then add delay.  The latter approach puts less high-frequency material into the mix.)  

I still think delay is the most important effect for harmonica, but a decent pitch shifter comes right behind it.  It's amazing how much weight a single octave down adds to a harp tone.

Thanks and regards, Richard Hunter 


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