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Topic: Tube preamp for harmonica |
David Doggett
From:
Bawl'mer, MD (formerly of MS, Nawluns, Gnashville, Knocksville, Lost Angeles, Bahsten. and Philly)
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Posted 26 Apr 2007 9:42 am |
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| The harmonica player in my blues band likes to play through a tube amp with a little distortion. But there is usually trouble with feedback, because the mike is in front of the amp. Even if we put his amp over to the side, he is not careful with the mike and causes feedback. I'm thinking the ideal solution would be a tube preamp run direct into the PA. The mains and monitors are all in front of him, so there should be no feedback problem (and if there is, we'll just pick him up and throw him off the stage). So the question is: is there a tube preamp with good blues harp tone? |
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Brad Sarno
From:
St. Louis, MO USA
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Posted 26 Apr 2007 10:22 am
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David, a cool experiment may be to take one of those cheap Epiphone $99 little 5 watt tube amp heads, and load it down with about 20 watts of power resistors creating a 4 or 8 ohm load, whatever that amp wants to see. Then pad it down to tap it for a line signal. A class A 5 watt amp is killer for harp tone. It may be a bit bright compared to the paper speaker, but a bit of EQ may fix it. A tube preamp won't sound nearly as cool as a power tube overdriving. Any little class A tube amp would probably work well. I'd be curious to find what sounds better, an EL84 or a 6V6.
It's still probably gonna be hard to beat the sound of a mic'd speaker in a tiny tube amp.
Brad |
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Jonathan Shacklock
From:
London, UK
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Posted 26 Apr 2007 12:00 pm
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Hi David,
I use a Harp Commander (FET version, no tubes) mainly as a sound shaping pre amp before a tube amp, but it works nicely straight into a PA (you can run an amp and PA simultaneously. There are two feedback cutting features; a high cut knob and a phase inversion switch. Ron Holmes used to do a tube version, I'm sure he would build to order but I remember it being pretty expensive.
Brad's right about low wattage tube amps of course. Quite a few harp players swap 12AT7's and AX7s for 12AY7s or 12AU7s. I would hate to come across like a real expert - never tried it myself although I've been meaning to. (Are EL84's direct swaps for these too? I've heard EL84's can be too harsh for harmonica and will feedback more). I think the idea is those tubes are lower gain tubes so they compress more readily. Does that sound correct Brad? I'm under the impression that you sometimes need to re-bias the amp if you do tube swaps which I have no idea about other than it's dangerous if you don't know what you're doing!
A lot of good info here
and here |
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Brad Sarno
From:
St. Louis, MO USA
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Posted 26 Apr 2007 12:42 pm
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Actually in little class A amps, biasing is not an issue. The tube is biased fully on the whole time. That's why they get hot and tend to be smaller amps that run in Class-A. The EL84 and the 6V6 are two different flavors of power tubes, and not preamp tubes like the ones just mentioned. Both have their own flavor. Some call the EL84 the British sounding tube and the 6V6 the American sounding tube. I wonder how different harp would sound thru the two. I know from experience that harp sounds wonderful thru a 6V6 amp. Not sure on the EL84.
I guess the use of lower gain preamp tubes for harp would be so that the preamp section would run cleaner and the power tubes would become the primary source of compression/overdrive. Many people tend to prefer the sound of overdriving power tubes over preamp tubes.
Brad |
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Dean Parks
From:
Sherman Oaks, California, USA
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Posted 26 Apr 2007 1:16 pm
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| Try a Pod XT. It also has a noise gate, which may help. Program to sound clean or crunchy, even with fast slapback delay. |
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Olli Haavisto
From:
Jarvenpaa,Finland
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Posted 27 Apr 2007 12:14 am
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The new Boss Bassman pedal might work, the tweed Bassman is the classic harp amp, right ?
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Olli Haavisto
Finland |
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Michael Douchette
From:
Gallatin, TN (deceased)
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Keith Cordell
From:
San Diego
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Posted 27 Apr 2007 4:41 am
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| You won't get anywhere close using a preamp without a speaker. You might try using an EQ pedal in line between the harp and amp to kill the frequency that is feeding back. |
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Jim Sliff
From:
Lawndale California, USA
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Posted 27 Apr 2007 5:26 am
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David - I also play harp and have used my ART Tube MP (a little recording preamp) through an amp for some "dirt", and it works great. Also VERY inexpensive, and you can "massage" the tone with different tubes...plus phantom power is built in.
_________________
No chops, but great tone
1930's/40's Rickenbacher/Rickenbacker 6&8 string lap steels
1921 Weissenborn Style 2; Hilo&Schireson hollownecks
Appalachian, Regal & Dobro squarenecks
1959 Fender 400 9+2 B6;1960's Fender 800 3+3+2; 1948 Fender Dual-8 Professional |
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Brad Sarno
From:
St. Louis, MO USA
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Posted 27 Apr 2007 5:33 am
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Hey, interesting thought on the new Boss "Bassman" pedal. Maybe the "Deluxe Reverb" pedal would be cool to. After all, the Deluxe is a good harp amp too. Plus that pedal has reverb and tremolo.
Brad |
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Keith Cordell
From:
San Diego
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Posted 27 Apr 2007 5:35 am
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| Those both make sense, as long as there is an amp in the equation. I just can't see how it would sound right out to a board. |
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David Doggett
From:
Bawl'mer, MD (formerly of MS, Nawluns, Gnashville, Knocksville, Lost Angeles, Bahsten. and Philly)
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Posted 27 Apr 2007 7:00 am
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| Thanks for the ideas, guys. He has a "harp mic" (I forget what kind, but the old bullet shaped kind) that sounds good. It has a 1/4" phone plug, so can that go into a guitar overdrive or distortion stomp box before going into the PA? If so, that opens up tons of possibilities. But I still hope a tube preamp that will overdrive might work, and it would be nice if he could control his own tone and reverb with it, rather than having to depend on the sound guy (we don't always have a sound guy). We're gonna go into Guitar Center and try preamps and stomp boxes. I am just fishing for suggestions on what to try. The ART preamps look interesting. |
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David Doggett
From:
Bawl'mer, MD (formerly of MS, Nawluns, Gnashville, Knocksville, Lost Angeles, Bahsten. and Philly)
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Posted 29 Apr 2007 7:12 pm
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Well, we went to Guitar Center and the harp player fell in love with a purple Hot Rod Deluxe with a Celestion Vintage 30 12" speaker. It does sound great for harp, and he used it on a gig Saturday and it worked well keeping its stage volume low, and miking it into the PA. It has all the distortion you could want on the drive channel. But he never gets the master volume past 2 or 3 with drive, and maybe 4 or 5 on the clean channel. So he is getting no power tube bloom or distortion. We tried a few smaller amps, including a class A 5 watt Crate. But they all had smaller speakers. And he and I both agreed his harp sounded better through a 12".
Amazingly they had almost no tube preamps for us to try. The only thing they had was a Blue Tube, and it just didn't have it for harp.
So, I'm thinking what he needs is a 5 watt amp with a 12" speaker. I don't know if anyone makes such a thing. But unless Guitar Center gets one in, I don't think he is adventurous enough to try one without hearing it first. The best sound I ever heard for his harp was an old Silvertone (Danelectro) 1433 I have. It has a really cheap low power 15" speaker, and the natural high compression and tube harmonics of that amp sounded incredible for harp. But the cheap old particle board cabinet was so beat up it literally fell apart and caught on fire at a gig. Supposedly the 1432, with a 12" speaker, is legendary for harp. They are on sale all the time on EBay. But after the experience with mine, and the good experience he is having with the new HR Deluxe, I don't know if I can persuade him to try one. Guess some people just aren't cut out for the vintage amp tone search.
Thanks for the suggestions, guys. |
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b0b
From:
Cloverdale, CA, USA
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Posted 29 Apr 2007 7:38 pm
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I've recorded my band leader going through a POD XT and he was thrilled with the results. On stage he uses a Fender Blues Junior, which works really well at dance volumes.
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-𝕓𝕆𝕓- (admin) - Robert P. Lee - Recordings - Breathe - D6th - Video |
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Jim Sliff
From:
Lawndale California, USA
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Posted 30 Apr 2007 4:51 pm
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David, I have another idea for you if he can mic the amp - a ZVex Nano with a 12" Greenback. That's about 1/2 watt of tube power, and reasonably loud - more practical when mic'd. I've used the ART tube preamp (also a Baggs Para Acoustic DI) with the Nano (just for impedance matching - I don't like the in-line plugin transformers much)and a bullet mic - works great. I'd forgotten about the amp part and was only thinking preamp before.
_________________
No chops, but great tone
1930's/40's Rickenbacher/Rickenbacker 6&8 string lap steels
1921 Weissenborn Style 2; Hilo&Schireson hollownecks
Appalachian, Regal & Dobro squarenecks
1959 Fender 400 9+2 B6;1960's Fender 800 3+3+2; 1948 Fender Dual-8 Professional |
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