Goodbye to the Maw Band

Brian Maw and I decided to part ways this weekend. It’s too bad. I loved playing with the Maw/Preston/Hunter trio. But Brian wanted to put a different band together–a more conventional rock band, as opposed to the decidedly unconventional trio–and the fact that I had to travel 2250 miles every time the band had a gig made the whole thing very difficult for everyone. So it’s over. The EP project I announced last week is going forward, but there won’t be harmonica on it. Brian wants a record that represents the new sound of the band, and the band’s new sound lacks harmonica.

Like I said: too bad. But as Donald O’Connor said just after being fired in “Singin’ in the Rain,” “Thanks! Now I can start starving and write my symphony.” I have other projects in the works, and I’m looking forward to working on them.

Good luck to Brian, and goodbye to the Maw Band.

Why I Spend Time Making Sounds for Harmonica Players

I want to be part of something that lives and grows in my own time, not something that stopped changing and growing 50 years ago.

That’s why I make sounds for the 21st century: so harmonica players can live there.

Finding the Killer FX on the Zoom G3

As I continue with development of my patch set for the Zoom G3, I’m starting to find the killer FX on this box. For a start, I’m falling in love with the “M-Filter”, which is a filter based on Moog’s synth filters. It’s a neat and very adjustable filter that responds well to breath control. It’s very different from the filters in the Digitech RPs, and it works nicely with lots of amp models.

I’m also starting to explore the high-gain amp models in the box, like the Bogner (BG in Zoom-speak). With the gain cranked way up, it’s a heavy-metal amp for guitarists; turn the gain way down, and it produces a deep, rumble-y tone that’s well outside the ordinary for harp, in a very good way.

I’m still looking forward to playing with the Z-Clean amp model, which was one of the few things I really liked on the Zoom G2. On the G2, this model produced a sweet, clear tone with plenty of depth–a perfect platform for shimmering FX and straight-up country sounds.

The hardest part of developing sounds for this box is continually reminding myself that it is NOT a Digitech RP. I need to focus on what the G3 does brilliantly, as opposed to trying to make it sound just like the stuff I do on the Digitech. That means changing my mind, and as anyone who has ever tried to change a habit knows, your mind is the hardest thing to change there is. But I’m working on it.

Samples of these new sounds will be coming soon, so stay tuned.

Video of the Day 26 March 2013: Eugene Ryan and Liz Davis Maxwell, “The Kerfunken Jig”

The Kerfunken Jig is a traditional Irish piece, performed here by my Dublin harmonica buddy Eugene Ryan and Liz Davis Maxwell on cello. The instrumentation of chromatic harmonica (very nicely rendered by Eugene) and cello is fresh, and the performance is smooth and flowing. I’m looking forward to more from this duo.

Have You Tried My Un-Traditional Patches Yet? Neil Warren Did…

Neil Warren is the 2011 National Harmonica League (UK) Rock and Blues winner. He bought a license for our RP355 patch set last year, and he’s taken a big step recently. We’ll let Neil speak for himself:

Hi Richard,
there I was saying I couldn’t see myself using some of the more out-there effects on the RP355, then someone asked me to do a short little piece to go onto their website. A little playing with your latest patch set, and using the looping and overdub features of the RP355, I mixed the attached.

My first attempt at such harmonica technical wizardy, and I enjoyed myself, a lot! Will have to do more…

Here’s Neil’s piece. It’s short and to the point, and it illustrates something very cool about our patch sets: because the tones are so full of character, and the characters are so varied, you can layer them up in lots of different ways without obscuring the individual tones. In other words, you can make an ensemble that’s full of color and depth–all with your harmonica and an RP with our tones in it.

“Insurgent” by Neil Warren (copyright 2013 by Neil Warren, all rights reserved; used by permission)

We’re delighted that Neil shared this with us, and we’re especially pleased that he had so much fun putting this piece together. So for those of you out there who are using our Digitech RP patches to make traditional sounds: that’s great! Now try something different. You’ll be glad.

Writing is Work, Music is Play

The title says it all.

Writing is work to me. It’s permanent by its very nature: you record your remarks and they remain, subject only to the viability of whatever medium they were recorded in. Because it’s permanent, it has to be done well–who wants to make something that sucks and lasts forever? Trying to make sure that something is done well is the very essence of work. Further, words are supposed to make a certain kind of sense–they are supposed to add up to a coherent statement. That takes forethought.

Music is play to me. I approach music on the spur of the moment. I turn my gear on (or not), put the harp to my lips (or my hands to the keyboard) and make sounds. If I like the sounds, I keep making them. If I don’t, I try something else. I don’t feel committed to the product while the process is underway; I just enjoy the process and see what happens.

Music and writing fill very different roles in my life, starting with how I feel about the act itself. I wonder if I’ll ever feel the same freedom in writing that I feel when I play music. I wonder if writing can be play. Perhaps it will be if I reach the level of confidence in it that I have in my playing. But I can’t get away from the thought that a sentence is a literal commitment in a way that a melody can never be.

Video of the Day 12 March 2013: Steve Baker Talks Tone

Steve Baker’s got buckets full of tone. Want to know how he does it? Check this out. Dig the Fabulous Thunderbirds “Girls Go Wild” (my favorite T-birds record) poster in the background.

Tone matters. As Steve pointed out to me once, if you’ve got good tone, you’re going to sound good pretty much no matter what amp you play through; if you don’t, you’re going to sound weak and whiny (albeit louder) no matter what the amp does.

While you’re at it, check out this discussion of tone by classical harmonica virtuoso Robert Bonfiglio and our piece on breathing for a big sound.

And just to make it utterly clear that our man Steve ain’t just blowin’ smoke when he talks tone, here’s a vid he made in September 2012 live at Kulturbastion with Steve Goodman on guitar and vocals. Listen to the first 4 bars of “Who Do You Love” and tell me true: is that a modern blues master, or what?

Unforced Error of the Day; Or, How I (Almost) Fried My RP255

I’m going to be delayed delivering tracks to Brian Maw for the new EP. This afternoon I was setting up to record some tracks for the EP in my hotel room in London. I brought my Digitech RP255 to London with me for that very purpose. I plugged the wall socket converter for the UK into the wall, then plugged the RP into the converter.
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The new patches for RP250/255/350/355 are here!

The latest (version 16) Huntersounds patch sets for Digitech RP 250/255/350/355 are now up for sale at our store. These sets will be available from our retail partners in a few days. All current licensees will get the new set via email this weekend (March 2-3 2013). All expired licensees will be offered the chance to renew their subscription for a $10 fee. (Note: the current RP150/155 patch sets have not changed. RP150/155 users needn’t worry; the latest RP150/155 sets were the starting point for many of the patches that appear in the v16 sets.)

The new sets take a different approach than my previous sets. It was clear to me that the vast majority of patch set buyers just couldn’t use all the sounds I included in previous sets, which was wasteful for all concerned. So these sets include fewer sounds, designed to cover the vast majority of playing situations. The new RP350/355 sets include 35 patches, which are repeated in the same sequence twice to fill the RP350/355 user area. The RP250/255 sets include 30 patches, also repeated to fill the user area. These patches are the result of over ten years of work on these devices, and they are big, bold, and powerful.

You can download a complete current layout and description of each of our latest patch sets for Digitech RP250/255/350/355 by clicking on one or more of the links below.

RP355 Huntersounds v16 Patch List
RP350 Huntersounds v16 Patch List
RP255 Huntersounds v16 Patch List
RP250 Huntersounds v16 Patch List

This layout has a couple of advantages. It ensures that your favorite sound is never far away, no matter where you’re currently positioned in the RP’s patch list. It also makes it easier to experiment with new sounds without overwriting your favorite sounds. Finally, it makes pricing crystal clear: the licensee pays $1 per patch.

In the near future, we will offer licensees add-ons in the form of 5-patch packages aimed at specific applications and styles. We think this will make it easy for RP users to add exactly what they need to configure their RPs for exactly the music they want to play.

You can hear samples, check out the patch set lists, and more at http://hunterharp.com/store.

Enjoy!

Preparing to record my first EP with Brian Maw

Brian Maw is going into the studio in Idaho Falls this weekend to record some tunes for a new EP. I’m waiting for the mp3s so I can lay down the harmonica tracks in my home studio.

One of the first couple of songs will be “So Sweet,” the very rough live recording of which I posted to this site not long ago. I will almost certainly use the same approach I used on the live recording, i.e. the same yearning, bluesy motifs played through
my CHAMPB patch from the new v16 Huntersounds patch set for the Digitech RP 250/255/350/355.

I also have the luxury of being able to try other approaches, too, if I want to, and I suppose I do, even though I think that ultimately it’s most important to put down something that shows people what the band really sounds like. In other words, I guess I want to make sure that whatever I put on this track can be played live, which of course would not exclude changing the sounds I’m running on the RP355 at any given point in the song.

Recording is so much fun (when it’s not a giant problem)! I’m really looking forward to this stuff. We plan to have the EP available for sale in May 2013, so stay tuned to this blog!