Re: [Harp-L] Pre-Amp

[Richard Hunter <turtlehill@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Greg Heumann wrote:
<You have to be a little careful to manage the total gain of the system and keep it low. Excess gain is the root of feedback evil.

Yes, and there's another negative aspect to excess gain.  It damages tone.  Increasing gain produces increasing distortion.  A little distortion, sometimes more, is a nice thing--it makes the tone bigger by amplifying harmonics.  Too much distortion blurs the tone, reduces the dynamic range, obscures a lot of expressive moves (such as changes in attack), and actually makes it harder to distinguish the harp from everything else that's going on.

Tons of distortion often sounds great when you're listening to an instrument soloed, but when you hear it in the context of a full amped band, it pushes the harp into the background.  It doesn't take a whole lot of gain or distortion to get a big, tough sound that projects well on the harp, especially if you're using a bullet-type mic with a tight cup to help overdrive the mic.  

Not for nothing does John Popper play with a setup designed to produce a loud, clear sound.  He's fronting a heavily amped rock band, whose guitarist is filling up a big piece of the audio spectrum with his already distorted tone. A distorted harp sound would be very difficult to get out front, because it would put the harp in direct competition with the guitar for the midrange frequencies from 500 hZ to 3 kHz.  If the harp and guitar are battling for the same frequency range, the guitar will almost always win, because there's evidently no practical limit (save the human threshold of pain) for how loud you can make an electric guitar.  (I don't know whether that's really true, but I know I've heard some amazingly loud guitarists.)  Popper plays high, clear, and fast, all of which contrasts with what the guitarist is doing most of the time.  It works pretty good--whether you like what he plays or not, you never have any trouble hearing him.  

Anyway, the point is that regardless of style, increasing gain past a certain point doesn't help the instrument cut through, and puts the player in a smaller box.  The point to stop dialing it up, even back it off a little, is when you notice that your notes are beginning to sound all the same, no matter how you played them--that the amp doesn't care much anymore how hard or soft you're playing. That's what I'd do for blues, anyway.  For metal, maybe I'd just pile on more FX.

Regards, Richard Hunter 

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