Categories
Audio/Video Blog Hunter's Effects Hunter's Music More Video Recommended Artists & Recordings Recommended Gear Recorded Performances (live and otherwise)

“Cruisin’ (Sunset Sam)” LIVE

Categories
Audio/Video Blog Hunter's Effects Hunter's Music More Video Recommended Artists & Recordings Recommended Gear Recorded Performances (live and otherwise) Uncategorized

“It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry” Live

Categories
Audio/Video Blog Hunter's Effects More Video Recommended Artists & Recordings Recommended Gear Recorded Performances (live and otherwise)

“Why Should I Make History” LIVE

Categories
Audio/Video Blog Hunter's Effects More Video Recommended Artists & Recordings Recommended Gear Recorded Performances (live and otherwise)

50 Grand live!

Categories
Audio/Video Blog More Video Recommended Artists & Recordings Recorded Performances (live and otherwise)

“Lightnin Bounce” live

Categories
Audio/Video Blog Blue Future Hunter's Effects Hunter's Music More Video Recommended Artists & Recordings Recommended Gear Recorded Performances (live and otherwise)

“Disconnected Blues” live

Categories
Audio/Video Blog Hunter's Effects Recommended Artists & Recordings Recommended Gear Recorded Performances (live and otherwise)

Electric Harp Looping and Improvising, May 2021

In the last few weeks I’ve done a bunch of looping, working on stuff with beatbox, synth bass, and two harp parts. More than two starts to lose its tough. Amyway, I like where this iss going. See if you do too.

“G Minor Ostinato jam” by Richard Hunter, copyright 2021 By R Hunter/Turtle Hill Productions, all rights reserved

“Electronica Americana” by Richard Hunter, copyright 2021 By R Hunter/Turtle Hill Productions, all rights reserved


Categories
Audio/Video Blog Hunter's Effects Huntersounds for Fender Mustang More Video Recommended Gear Recorded Performances (live and otherwise)

Richard Hunter with George Lesiw: All Your Love

Categories
Audio/Video Blog Hunter's Music Recommended Artists & Recordings Recorded Performances (live and otherwise)

When You’re On Vacation, Bring Harmonicas: Solo Pieces from Cancun

I spent last week on vacation in a hotel in Cancun-yes, it is very nice. As always when I go anywhere for any length of time, I brought a skeleton performance setup: a Joyo American Sound, an Audix Fireball mic, associated cables, a road case with 19 diatonic harps in it, and a Seydel Deluxe chromatic set up by Greg Jones, a very smoothly responsive instrument. You never know when you might want to perform, and it’s better to have a few reliable pieces of gear than not, especially when they don’t take up lots of space or weight in a suitcase and you have plenty of time to show airport security what’s in the cases.


As it happened, the only gear I used for anything but practice was the contents of the diatonic harp case. I signed up for a recording session offered through the hotel–why not?–and found that the session was in a small boxy room, untreated except for sound-deadening flooring–I could hear a long tail when I clapped my hands–equipped with a typical SM58-style vocal mic on a boom stand, a computer and M-Audio interface, and FL Studio software. I had only half an hour, so I walked in, got a level on the gear they had up, and started playing without headphones or monitor–why bother with either when you can hear yourself in the room just fine? The pieces linked below are the result.


There are no overdubs and no post-recording edits to the performances (except for the reverb apparently added by the engineer before mixing down). I think the recorded sound is much better than one might have expected, remarkably good given how limited the equipment and space were and how little time we had to do the job. I think the strong directionality of the dynamic vocal mic probably helped to minimize reflections in the recorded signal.


Lightnin Bounce–a solo harmonica version of an instrumental inspired by Little Walter and Charlie Christian. Played in 2nd position on a Country-tuned Delta Frost B harp (draw 5 reed sharped 1/2 step). Not my first choice for make and model, but it was the only country-tuned harp I had with me, and it did the job.

G Dorian Improv–I improvised this piece by pulling together a line I played for the solo on my cover of Canned Heat’s “On the Road Again” from my new release “Blue Future” with a chorded riff inspired by the same song on a G Dorian Hohner Pro Harp harmonica (standard C harp with draw 3 and 7 reeds flattened 1/2 step–the same harp I used on the record) in 2nd position. The contrary motion that begins with a double octave split in the main theme is played in real time, no overdubs or edits, as the same riff was played on “On The Road Again”.

Epic–this piece is played on a standard-tuned Manji harmonica with Hammond cover plates (in Db, I think) in 2nd position. The composition is still in flux, but the overall theme and vib–a big-sky Western movie theme–are clear. Open perfect 5ths and 12ths are two of my favorite textures on the harmonica, and this piece uses them liberally. One or two shaky notes in the second half of the first section, but otherwise the piece lives up to its name. Hey, first time all the way through, gimme a break. Chords and lines, parallel or contrary, are of course played in real time without overdubs or edits.

Lightnin Bounce alternate–another take on this tune, same harmonica, substantially different in the solo.


If you liked that stuff, you’re gonna like this stuff:

the 21st century blues harmonica manifesto in sound

Get it on Amazon

Get it on iTunes






the rock harmonica masterpiece

Get it on Amazon

Get it on iTunes

Categories
Audio/Video Blog Hunter's Effects Hunter's Music Recommended Artists & Recordings Recommended Gear Recorded Performances (live and otherwise)

First Jam with the Synth9 pedal

I saw a Facebook post from Jackson Kincheloe where he demo’d the Electro Harmonix Synth9 pedal. I liked that demo, and I bought the pedal.

The looper setup. Digitech RP500 for harp, RP360XP for vocals, Synth9 on vocal mic, 3 synced Digitech loopers on lower right

I tried it with my RP500 and Joyo American Sound FX chains, with the Fireball V and Bulletini mics, and it didn’t sound good with any of those setups. Eventually I tried it at the end of my current vocal chain: an SM58 mic into a Digitech RP30XP running a compressor, delay, and reverb, with a low octave double under expression pedal control.

That worked. You can hear that chain on this loop recording. The beatbox rhythm is through the SM58 into the RP360XP; the bass and rhythm harmonica parts are courtesy of the RP500; the lead is through the SM58 and RP360XP into the Sunth9.

Enjoy. The audio was recorded live into my Zoom H4. I normalized the level afterwards; otherwise there is no post-recording audio processing.

If you liked that, you’ll like these:

the 21st century blues harmonica manifesto in sound

Get it on Amazon

Get it on iTunes






the rock harmonica masterpiece

Get it on Amazon

Get it on iTunes