Tag: paul butterfield
I did a search on “Digitech RP” in the Used section of guitarcenter.com. What I saw was a lot of Digitech RP1000s going for about $189 to $240, and a lot of RP360XPs going for $114 and up. Those are great prices for very capable devices.
Because of its size and weight, the RP1000 isn’t my favorite device for performance. However, it’s a pretty remarkable device, and incorporates an external amp loop as well as an external FX loop. If you’ve got it, you can use it with this thing as Control Central. It sounds every bit as good as an RP500, which is the smaller, simpler, lighter version of the RP1000 (and my favorite). At under $200 it’s a pretty remarkable deal.
The RP360XP has a stripped down operator interface, with only 3 footswitches for FX on/off, but it also has an expression pedal, and its sound engine is the best Digitech has.
Naturally, I offer patch sets for both devices, and my patch set will add $50 to the price of whichever device you buy. My patch set will also give you an immediate, big set of basic blues and rock sounds, clean sounds with delay and reverb, and hard-hitting electronic tones for when you want the audience to drop their drinks and stare.
Read more about my patch sets for Digitech RP here.
If you want to hear my patch sets in action, listen up here:
the 21st century blues harmonica manifesto in sound
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the rock harmonica masterpiece
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A few thoughts on my low-pitched harps
A pic of my case for low diatonic harps: 5 Lucky 13s (A, Bb, D, D Country, and Eb), 4 Special 20s (2 Low D, Low Eb, Low E, one with Turbolids, which do indeed sound more focused and louder), and 1 Seydel 1847 Low C. I keep my Low F harps in the same case as my other go-to harps, because I’m as likely to use a Low F on a tune as the higher F.
They all play well, but after playing through all of them this morning, my faves are the Lucky 13s. First, you can’t beat a 4-octave range, at least not with a 3-octave range. Second, they have a nice screech to them because their second octave is the same as a normal first octave, which is where a lot of screech and holler lives, and the low octave has its own screech. Finally, the extended range lets you get an awful lot of lead and rhythm going–you can even invert the normal ranges of lead and rhythm lines. Way cool.
I tuned up the Lucky 13 D country myself–Brendan Power does not offer this tuning OOTB, but it’s only one reed. Still waiting hopefully for Lucky 13s in Dorian Minor tuning. How ’bout it Brendan?
the 21st century blues harmonica manifesto in sound
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the rock harmonica masterpiece
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The blues is traditional music. Traditional music is about roots and blooms, and this record is one of the blooms.
This is not a traditional blues harmonica record, though I have certainly drunk from the deep well of blues harp history for some of the sounds here. I’ve also used modern, stage-ready technologies in these performances to put the harmonica in a wide range of new roles within the sonic territory occupied by a blues band. On these tracks you will hear deep layers of harmonica tones that growl, squawk, howl, and pulse with the sound of breath electrified. It’s the sound of a blue future, with 21st century tones and lyrics, blooming from the roots of the blue past and present.
Like it or hate it, probably for the same reasons, but I know for sure that you have never heard anything like it.
Richard Hunter, November 2019
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
Lots of harmonica players use effects nowadays. My intent on this record was not just to make new sounds with harmonicas, but to put the harmonica into a range of new roles in the band (as well as a couple of more traditional ones, like lead). My intention was literally to create a modern blues harmonica band. Blues is traditional music, and there are plenty of traditional harmonica stylings on display too, surrounded by heavy electric breathing in a variety of colors.
Like it or hate it, I guarantee that you’ve never heard the likes of it before. So check it out.
the 21st century blues harmonica manifesto in sound
Get it on Amazon
Get it on iTunes
the rock harmonica masterpiece
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Get it on iTunes
Working with our friends Nancy and Jim Van der Pyle to put on a community dance party, in February of 1978 I performed at the Woods Hole Community Hall with a band consisting of myself on keys and harmonica, Phil Gentile on guitar and vocals, Bobby Dunlap on electric guitar and vocals, and Harry French on drums and vocals. It was a pretty potent band. Phil Gentile, as you’ll hear on these live recordings of the performance, is such an amazing singer that you really don’t mind much when he starts making up lyrics. He also plays very strong rhythm guitar. Bobby Dunlap rocks like mad on the electric guitar, Harry French does a lot of big drum grooves, and I play keys and harp, both of which I performed on frequently in those days. (Now I mostly just perform on harp, though I’m playing more keys in the studio lately.)
My rig at the time consisted of a Shure 545 pistol-style vocal mic and a Fender Super Reverb with an added transformer to increase power to 45 watts, plus two ElectroVoice SRO 12″ speakers instead of the standard Fender 4×10″ speaker configuration. Contrary to the amp’s name, it had no working reverb. In this particular venue there was more than enough sound bouncing around to make reverb beside the point, but in general I played a pretty bare sound and setup in those days. I used this modified Super Reverb for the Fender Rhodes electric piano as well as the harp. It was a heavy amp, but I never had a problem with the harp being heard with this setup. (It didn’t project quite so well with the electric piano, though.) I used a wooden-cabinet Leslie speaker–a 145 maybe?–for the organ, and the organ itself was a Farfisa Professional that I had owned since 1970, and which was already pretty beat up by that point. (Sounded great, though.)
The original recording medium was chromium dioxide (CRO2) stereo cassette with Dolby B noise reduction, which was about the best you could get in a portable recording device in 1978. I don’t remember how I got the sound into the cassette deck, but I seem to recall that I used a pair of TEAC mics. The sound isn’t ideal, but you can clearly hear what’s being played. Dig.
Hearing this forty years later, I’m struck by how responsive the players in the band were to each other. Lots of bold, spontaneous, wicked grooves in these performances, and it’s remarkable how the entire band locked onto those grooves as they emerged. I’m particularly impressed with the work by Harry French, who I hadn’t played with much before this date, on drums; there’s a lot of push and flow there, lots of arranging, lots of careful grooving with the other instruments, and big big drum hits that fill a lot of space. I’d played with Bobby Dunlap on a few occasions, but I’d never heard him extend his grooves and solos like this before. His guitar work is unlike anyone else’s, combining lead and rhythm playing in one smooth, powerful package.
It Takes a Lot to Laugh
This recording of Dylan’s “It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry” includes some of Phil’s mind-blowing vocals as well as a lot of hard blowing from the band, including a big harp solo to wrap it all up. In those days musicians stretched out, and a lot of fun it was. Enjoy.
“It Takes a Lot to Laugh…” Gentile, Hunter, Dunlap, and French, recorded live at Woods Hole Community Center, Woods Hole, Massachusetts, February 18 1978
Come Together
This performance of “Come Together” includes more amazing vocal jams from Phil plus a new, sinister, jazzy groove for the piece, with lotsa piano and VERY hard-rockin’ guitar from Bobby Dunlap.
“Come Together” Gentile, Hunter, Dunlap, and French, recorded live at Woods Hole Community Center, Woods Hole, Massachusetts, February 18 1978
You Ain’t Goin Nowhere
Another Dylan piece. Oddly, I didn’t play harp on this one, just keys. Wonder why?
“You ain’t Goin Nowhere” Gentile, Hunter, Dunlap, and French, recorded live at Woods Hole Community Center, Woods Hole, Massachusetts, February 18 1978
“Disconnected Blues” is one of the pieces I recorded for my upcoming record “Blue Future”. I’ve included two clips: the first 12 bars of the piece, and the first 12 bars or so of a 36-bar solo. These are sections from a very rough mix, but both do a good job of showing off the various sounds I’ve put into this arrangement.
The harmonica parts are all recorded on standard-tuned diatonic harps. In the first clip, all the parts are played in 2nd position with an Audix Fireball V mic into a Digitech RP500 running my patch set for Digitech RP. Those parts include:
The FX most important to taking new roles within traditional blues band instrumentation–the roles typically played by horns, organ, autowah and wah wah rhythmic filter sounds–are of course 1) pitch shifter, 2) rotating speaker, 3) autowah, and 4) wah wah, and all these FX are implemented brilliantly on the RP. The RP is indispensable for this approach, because it can produce so many radically different sounds in one package.
The result, coupled with Mike Brenner’s lap steel, Mark Schreiber’s drums, and John Cunningham’s bass, is a very convincing full band sound with harmonica taking over a range of traditional roles.
The second clip is the first of three harmonica solo choruses. All the harmonicas from the first clip are still in the picture. I originally recorded a solo using the autowah sound live in the studio with the band. After listening to it a few times and thinking about it, I replaced that solo with a harmonica in 3rd position playing an improvised lead through a Shure SM58 mic into my Fender Mustang 3 running my patch set for Fender Mustang amps (of course). I really like the Mustang for Chicago style harp sounds, which is what I ultimately felt was called for here–the power of a full-throated amp roaring at high volume. It’s a voice that commands attention. The Mustang lead doesn’t so much cut through as power through the big harmonica background. I finished the job by re-recording the autowah part for those 36 bars as a chunky rhythm part with a lot of squelchy filter quacks to juice it up.
The different harmonica tones and registers help keep the mix from getting all jammed up in the middle, which is exactly what would otherwise happen with 5 harmonicas vying for the same sonic space at once.
I’m very happy with the way this piece is shaping up, and it’s certainly something from a Blue Future. Enjoy.
“Disconnected Blues” copyright 2018 Richard Hunter/Turtle Hill Productions, all rights reserved
Clip 1: first 12 bars
Clip 2: first 12 bars of harmonica solo