Re: [Harp-L] Harmonica Band Reboot

[Richard Hunter <turtlehill@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Emile D'Amico wrote:
<This was listed in the Seminars but it was a theme that
<was in the performances to.
<It was great to see chord and bass now
<included in acts that had never had them before.

I'm more interested in chord harmonicas than in bass, mainly because 1) some interesting chord harps have come to market lately, and 2) modern popular music styles, especially electric styles, don't have much room for a bass harmonica in the mix.  Electric styles in particular, even the roots-based ones, use massive bass tones that are probably beyond the reach of a bass harmonica.  (Although I suppose that multiFX could be employed to add more power to a bass harmonica tone.)  I have no doubt that a chord harp coming through a multiFX unit could play a lot of roles that have been owned by keyboard players to this point.  

It's possible that bass harmonica would work well in some modern acoustic styles; I'm thinking now of Mumford & Sons, and thinking bass harp might do the job there.  Perhaps Michael Rubin, who I think plays bass harp in an Austin-based band, could weigh in here.

In my opinion, a two-octave-down pitch shift applied to a diatonic or chromatic harp with a decent pitch shifter, with the mix set to fully wet (i.e. all processed signal and no unprocessed signal in the mix), produces a pretty convincing bass harmonica sound, close enough so that most people wouldn't hear the difference in the context of a full band.  On the other hand, pitch-shifting a bass harmonica up an octave or two doesn't make it sound like a diatonic or chromatic.  All that said, I still have a bass harmonica in my kit, though I doubt I'll ever drag it to anything besides a recording session.   

Regards, Richard Hunter