Re: [Harp-L] Playing clean live

[Richard Hunter <turtlehill@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Mike Fugazzi wrote:
I am looking for a sweet live rig for playing clean, but cupped.  I get
asked to play in a bluesy fashion a few songs a night and have been using a
LoneWolf HarpBreak as a distortion pedal.
***

My first comment is that "clean" and "cupped" are not so easy to combine, depending on what you mean by "clean."  When you cup the mic, your hands inevitably absorb some of the high-frequency content in the harp signal, so you lose a lot of the acoustic tone that goes with playing in front of a mic on a stand.  If you're using an SM58 and cupping it, you're also getting a big proximity effect bass boost on the mic, which is not a natural harp sound even if it's not so distorted. Putting the SM58 on a stand and playing in front of it might be all you need.  

If you really must cup the mic, I'd suggest an Audix Fireball V.  It has very little proximity effect, and its very low feedback will allow you to add some treble back into the signal via EQ on the amp or PA.  Lee Oskar does use a Beyerdynamic double ribbon mic, and his tone is relatively undistorted, but a Fireball V will do that for you at a much lower price point.  It won't sound exactly like Lee, but who does?

I happen to know that you've got a Zoom 100BT pedal in your kit, and the Zoom Clean amp model is pretty nice for clean sounds (hence its name).  Use the lowest gain setting you can get away with, adjust EQ to taste (making sure to use the mic you're going to use onstage), add a little reverb, and voila.  I'm a big fan of using the gear I already have to get the sounds I want, so that approach would be plenty appealing to me.

Regards, Richard Hunter



  

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