Any guesses for settings on Musselwhites setup here
I am completely in love with the amout of break-up Musselwhite gets in this video: https://loudfunk.dk/watch?v=ALU5g6Qqi08
Does anyone have an idea (or maybe secure knowledge) of the amp (size etc) he was playing through for this gig?
I do know that tone is in the hands and mouth of the player, so that's not what I am asking here. My questing is relating to the light distortion he gets.
Thanks for the thorough answer! Completely agree that most of it is going on before the amp.
I am always interested in amplified harmonica for acoustic-ish duo stuff, and this performances just hits the spot for me. Wondered abou the size of the amp for the same reason. Like: "would a bassman be overkill, or a Cub 10 be too small for this setting".
Other than his superb playing, the breakup of the amp adds just enough saturation to the notes without coming off as too much for this context.
Fritjof:
As they say in the car ads, "Your mileage may differ."
A larger amp like the Bassman, Harp King, larger Sonny Jr.s, etc., is favored by a lot of performers when the band is loud and the venue's big. Even though the amp is still being mic'd into the PA, it works as a nice monitor for the harp player. And even if you're just a duo, you might still want that big amp if it's a 1,500-seat venue, or outdoor festival stage.
But for just about anything else, a smaller amp works just fine. And is a lot easier to haul around. E.g., I use a Lone Wolf HarpTrain 10 for a local weekly blues jam at a club that seats 100-150 people. I set it up on stage on a milk crate to get it off the floor, and turn it 90 degrees, so that it's my monitor into one ear or the other, while the sound tech either mics it, or runs it into the PA out of my line out jack via my own DI box. The nice thing about being able to use the amp as my monitor is that I never have to say over the PA, "Hey ... can I get more harp in the monitors?"
And if the venue is a coffeehouse or someone's home, say small room, maybe 30-40 in the audience, max, the small amp can work great on its own. With vocals through a small on-stage PA amp and speakers.
And if you're playing with an acoustic guitarist who's simply having the guitar mic'd into the PA, plus maybe a small percussionist (the percussion's small, not the musician), e.g., just with a cajon or maybe snall drum, the small amp will work just fine.
Great info via David's small amp reviews here, at https://www.bluesharmonica.com/amp_reviews And if you want to get some really cool vintage tone, check out the restored/rebuilt vintage amps that Dennis Gruenling sells via his website. Some are as small as 5-10 watts, 8" or 10" speaker, and can sound fabulous. (I heard Dennis a few months ago at the same club where we have the jam, dueting with boogie-woogie pianist Carl Sonny Leland. I recall that Dennis used a small vintage Premier amp set up on a chair and mic'd into the PA, and got great sound out of it.)
And if you're just having fun with a guitarist friend, either or both of you singing and playing in a room in your house, no PA, you may want to go really, really small, and look at some current solid-state amps in the 3-watt, 6" speaker range. Some have modeling effects that can produce a little bit of crunch. Or you can run the harp mic through a harp-friendly booster pedal (e.g., Lone Wolf's Harp Attack) into a small solid-state amp.
One way to test the waters could be to frequent local jams and open mics, and ask other harp players if you can use their amp when your turn on stage comes around. If asked nicely, making sure you let the amp owner work the settings, most harp players are happy to show off their amps by letting you "test drive" them. Over the years I've enjoyed playing though a lot of high-wattage and smaller vintage amps that would cause my credit card to explode if I ever tried to buy one for myself.
Hard to tell about the amp. Only part shows in the video Maybe a Fender Blues Junior from back then (2007). With a little reverb added to Musselwhite's signal?
But the main sources of Musselwhite's tone are probably:
1. His technique within his own body;
2. His cupping (as you can see, we're talking about great closure around the mic);
3. Classic Marine Band 1896 in A (this is well before he started playing Seydels); and,
4. Very likely an Astatic JT30 with crystal element (shape and color look about right).
As I said, totally non-secure guess. No secure knowledge. (!) But along with that guess, while reasonable minds may differ, probably 95% or more of that tone is happending before the cable gets to the amp.
Great clip, by the way. Thanks for posting!