RE: [Harp-L] playing but not hearing

[Mike Best <mike.d.best@xxxxxx>]

Just out of interest, how did your wife hear you through the PA if you were
playing through a tiny little amp at your feet?

I'm a great believer in playing through the PA.  You can do this either by
mic'ing your amp, or using a line out from your amp, or connecting your mic
directly to the PA.  Or you can use a Harp Commander which is what I do,
which has a line-out to the PA and an instrument-out to your amp

But playing through the PA won't help you hear yourself on stage, unless you
can get yourself in the foldback monitors.  But this can often lead to
feedback, as well as annoying the vocalists who usually don't want to hear
anything other than themselves in the foldbacks.  Maybe you can get your own
separate mix in your own foldback monitor but a lot of PAs might not have
the capacity to do that

So you are still left with the challenge of being able to hear yourself on
stage through your own amp.  And you won't be able to do this through a
little practice amp.  Greg Heumann has a good discussion about this in his
publication "All About Harmonica Microphones...And Then Some" on his website
www.blowsmeaway.com.  Greg says that a 5W amp might be great in your living
room, but you will need more like 50W to hear yourself on stage

Hope that hasn't just added to the confusion

Cheers
Mike

-----Original Message-----
From: harp-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:harp-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of Mike Price
Sent: Tuesday, 1 April 2014 12:47 AM
To: Harp- L
Subject: [Harp-L] playing but not hearing


Last night I had the privilege to sit in with the famous "Smoking Joe
Kubeck" band. I had fun but, no lie, the guitars were so loud on stage that
I could not hear a single note I was blowing. My wife said she could hear my
harmonica just fine out of the main PA and that I sounded good but I don't
know. Is this a somewhat common occurrence? My guess is the only thing worst
would be not to hear your singing. Anyone else have any related stories? In
hindsight I should have just played out of one of the available vocal PA
mic's instead of the tiny little amp which was at my feet.
Mike