RP Tip #5: How to connect the RP to everything
Connecting the RP to other gear, like your amp and your mic, is really pretty simple. You don’t need a preamp between the mic and the RP; the RP is a preamp. You don’t need a direct box between your RP and the amp or…
Gear Review: Bottle o’ Blues mic
The Bottle o’ Blues (also known as BoB) mic has a very distinctive sonic character–in particular, lots of low frequency response, with a reduced high end. The mic’s element breaks up strongly when the built in volume control is maxed out, which makes it a…
RP Tip #4: Dealing with hardware failures
There are basically only two kinds of moving parts on an RP: the expression pedal, and the up/down footswitches. There are a couple of ways these break down that have easy fixes. The expression pedal can break down when the nuts that hold it in…
Getting a great organ sound on harp
Here are a few of the things I’ve discovered about getting a great organ sound on harp. 1) A rotating speaker effect is necessary to get an organ sound, but in itself it’s not completely convincing. If it’s all you’ve got, better than nothing. 2)…
RP Tip #3: Sounding like an organ with 1, 2, or 3 RPs
You can get different kinds of organ sounds with one, two, or three RPs. If you have one RP: use one of my patches with a rotating speaker effect, a phase shifter effect, or a univibe effect. Work the pedal to make the rotating speaker…
Kudos for my RP patch set
In the last few days, people have been writing to the Harp-L list to talk about how much they like the patch set I put together for the Digitech RP 250/255/350/355. Glenn Woodhouse of the ColdRail Blues Band said some very nice things, which we…
Gear Review: About the Bulletizer
The Bulletizer is made by Greg Heumann of Blowsmeaway Productions. In a nutshell, it’s an easy-to-install add-on to a Shure SM57 or 545 mic that creates a Bullet-mic-style face for the mic, which in turn makes the mic behave more like a Bullet mic in…
A couple of new sounds with dual amp modelers
I was jamming yesterday, using a 2-amp modeler setup: RP355 for the main tones, and RP255 for global effects on top of that. I liked what I heard, so I recorded a couple of riffs. Here they are. RP355 with Matchless amp model and autowah,…
Gear Report: Peavey KB2 keyboard amp/PA
I just bought a Peavey KB2 amp as a one-stop solution for amping my harps and vocals in small rooms. I’m very impressed with this piece, which is a nearly ideal amp in many ways, especially for harmonica players using amp modelers, or those who…
Practicing with the looper
I started working with my Boss RC-2 looper today, prepping for the gig at Alpine Wines. I find that it’s very effective to set up a simple 1 to 2 bar chord vamp for accompaniments. I’ve had as many as 4 layers going at once. I thought maybe it so…
