[Harp-L] DM-48 midi harmonica - plays Little Walter tune

[Shirley, John]

Hey all.

I just posted a YouTube video of the DM48 in action covering Little Walter’s “Last Night” with a live drummer... in a busking/looping style. I use the DM48 to loop the bass, and then the keyboard harmonies, with sounds from an old E-mu MoPhatt synth. For the solo, I use the DM48 with a Yamaha VL70-m patch that sounds a bit like a bari sax. So, all of the DM48-triggered sounds here are from hardware synthesizers (just what I was having fun playing with).

As my drummer, Andy Fordyce, and I have recently been working up looping/layering arrangements to play out busking at Faneuil Hall in Boston this summer, I was super curious to combine all of these things and try them out with the DM48. Prior to this song I have been using a bunch of acoustic harmonicas for layering our live arrangements (including chord, chromatic and various diatonics). 

I’m not sure if the DM48 will end up as part of our busking rig yet, but it is tempting…. Stay tuned!

Anyway, I’ve spent a bit of time adjusting all of the DM48 parameters (including physical back pressure, Mod sensitivity and pitch bend responsiveness) as well as playing through, and tweaking, various synths and samplers. The custom "Tuning” preset I came up with here is for this specific arrangement of this song, to facilitate the playing of all three of the parts and the use of both “slider” buttons for note triggering/transpositions. For me, I envision using this type of custom tuning (a preset for each song) a lot: even more than setting up tunings from the acoustic harmonica playbook.

There’s so much you can do with these!

https://youtu.be/l7Qu_sTLBT8?list=PLD-VQNdNliVQLCF5edj72u9XKT-y1LqSr

All the best,

- John

John Shirley, Professor of Music and Sound Recording Technology
University of Massachusetts Lowell



> On May 11, 2017, at 7:37 AM, Jordan Feldman via Harp-L <harp-l at xxxxx> wrote:
> 
> Has anyone reached out to Matt Traum at Patchman Music? Matt is the Guru of synth hardware, etc programming.
> He may be able to program a sound bank that is tailored to DM 48.
> I own many of his soundbanks that are programmed for EWI/EVI.
> Basically, you dump the user bank of most any hardware synth module(I currently use a Fantom XR Roland)and replace with a Patchman user bank programmed to be expressive with wind controllers.
> 
> Jordan
> 
> 
>> On May 11, 2017, at 6:16 AM, Richard Hunter <rhunter377 at xxxxx> wrote:
>> 
>> Michael Rubin wrote:
>> <If you have an Iphone the DM-48 plugs right in ( with a $30 adaptor) and
>> <uses Garage Band, which is a free ap with around 100 sounds.
>> 
>> If you're going to spend $600 for a MIDI controller, you might as well hook
>> it up to something that makes sounds a little more interesting than the
>> ones you find in Garageband.
>> 
>> IK Multimedia and others make for-real synthesizers that run on iOS.  The
>> prices are scaled down, just like the device.
>> 
>> Computermusic (computermusic.co.uk) also runs a regular columns on synths
>> and FX for iOS.  One more reason to pick up a copy.  Go to the website; the
>> odds that your local newsstand carries a specialist publication from the UK
>> are pretty low.
>> 
>> Regards, Richard Hunter
>> 
>> -- 
>> Check out our 21st Century rock harmonica record "The Lucky One" at
>> https://www.cdbaby.com/cd/richardhunter
>> 
>> Author, "Jazz Harp" (Oak Publications, NYC)
>> Latest mp3s and harmonica blog at http://hunterharp.com
>> Vids at http://www.youtube.com/user/lightninrick
>> Twitter: @lightninrick­­­‪­‪­­­‪‪­­‪­‪­‪­­­­‪­­‪‪‪­‪‪­­­‪­‪­­­­‪‪­­‪­‪­­­­
>