u/tojzl

What do you think is the greateat blues harp solo recorded? Will love to see what people like and get some good song recomendations.

I dont know what i think is the best, but its probably something from junior wells, as i rrally like his style. For exanple the hoodoo man blues solo is very basic, but the energy is perfect and it just works. It reeks of swagger.

On my low f harp if i play too hard on the lowest note i can sometimes get this horrible high pitched metal sound as if the reed hits the metal next to it or something. Like the sound almost sounds like a screw thats lose inside hitting the wall, but its not.

It makes sense since the reeds are longer, so maybe this happens more with the lower ones. Ive only gotten this on my low f.

Are there any models that are better for low tuning thab other models? If so what do you recommend? I want to get low c and low d harps. My low f is a 1847.

I really like the lower harps, but that sound is horrble.

Which do you prefer and why in a studio context? I feel like both has it uses ofc, but if you only could pick one, which one?

So i basically only play 2nd position. A little 3rd, and sometimes 1st. I often use my wilde tuned harps which can play both major and mixo easily. Therefore i use draw notes 90% of the time im playing.

One thing thats kind of bothered me for some time is that blow notes seem less snappy and responsive than draw, but this has got me wondering: could it just be my technique?

Since i basically only play draw notes, i could have never properly learnt the right technique for blow notes. Like the responsiveness isnt that bad, its usually not noticable in recordings etc. But i notice it myself when playing, that there is a slight delay compared to draw.

So are blow notes just a little less resposive? Or is it my technique?

Tips on amp sims that fit the chicago blues sound? I have like 10 different ones and all of them feel way to heavy. Even the one i downloaded which is supposed to be clean (morgan amp suite) is too heavy. On the ones i can get a clean tone, the tone is usually boring and doesnt really sound like blues.

This is both true for my guitar and my harmonica. The harmonica especially gets way to distorted compared to what i hear in blues songs.

I have a half valved diminished seydel deluxe steel, the valves are annoying me, so want to remove them, so then the nonslider mouthpiece is probably good to ensure minimal air leakage.

But the metal is also really annoying. Ive gotten sore lips, blisters etc from it, something that has never happened to me while playing diatonic.

So if anyone has a 3d model of it, or know any other way to get one, lmk. Plastic would be so much better for me.

I know harmonica can be annoying to a lot of people. Is it mostly the wheezing blaring full chord dylan style harmonica that is annoying? Or do you also find more blues style harmonica annoying too? I also find the dylan style pretty annoying, but love blues harp.

Blues harp is often in a lower register, doesnt spam full chords, uses a lot of bends and vibrato etc. But is it still the same for you?

I have a classical guitar, and an electric. Now i want a steel acoustic. What body shape do you recommend? I mostly play blues and rock, i basically never play with pick and play fingerstyle. From what i understand the bigger bodies have more bass (duh), but theyre apparently worse for fingerstyle. Also what are some good brands for an intermediate guitar? Say 300-700 dollars.

Any know or have a good guess on how the harmonica was recorded for the hard again album? Its played by the goat himself James Cotton.

At the start it sounds like its cupped(tho not fully) and is heavily distorted. Then towards the end you can hear clear hand wahs and other hand effects, while still keeping the same highly distorted sound, but with a little thinner tone, which makes sense since he isnt cupping anymore.

So my question is, wouldnt recording this hot with the mic on a stand create a lot of feedback? Could this have been recorded with DI? Then how did they acheive this distorted sound?

I mostly play with DI and amp sims, so havent played that much with real amps. But im guessing it would bleed a lot if you had such a loud distorted tone with a mic stand. They could have used headphones maybe?

I've never tried any of these, so i dont know how they play. But on paper i think they fix the biggest problem harmonica has. Consistancy accross the range. A saxophone can do expressive scoops and vibrato on every single note. Harmonica can do it on like 60% of its range. And if your in a different position than 2nd you lose a lot of expressiveness. I usually try to play everything in second position (i often use wilde tuning which makes 2nd position more versatile in terms of single note melodies).

So sympathetic reeds should give more consistancy in terms of bends, and should make different positions more expressive. But im guessing theres a reason it isnt as popular? If anyone has tried for example the suzuki sub30 ultrabend, how does it play? I wish there were harmonicas like these with different tunings. But again richter is way better for different positions than for example wilde, so richter is probably the way to go. Cause with the sympathetic reeds you shouldnt have to rely on 2nd position as much.

Ive been playing for 6 months, and i feel like my bends and vibrato etc are really solid (other than the b3 bend in higher keys). So know i feel like i have to do what ive postponed for so long.. To learn tongue blocking. So now i want som inspiration on what to strive against.

Are there any crazy one man bands that take tonge blocking to the next level? Like many different chords/double stops, maybe melodies on top of drones or chords. Basically someone that accompany themself kindof.

Ideally without other instruments. Im kind of trying to find the limit of what you can do in terms of harmony with melody. And how much you can accompany youself.

Me and my friend make blues and blues inspired rock. We have some habits that we notice show up in a lot of songs. For example phrase 1 landing on for example the 5th or 3rd, then phrase 2 going down to the tonic. So like very question and answer. I also have some of these problems on the harmonica and keys, but there you can easily just play a different note, thats not as easy on vocals, there you kind of get forced to sing whats in your head.

So i was wondering if anyone had any good methods/techniques to fall out of habits. Its kind of hard since we dont want to make very melodic singy-songy songs. So to get that laid back, not overly singing vibe is hard. Appreciate any tips.

My favorite has easily become seydel because of their configurator and them selling all of the spare parts you would need.

Im guessing most people will say hohner, but im still curious to see if there are any outliers.

I've only tried seydel, hohner, lee oskar and suzuki. So theres still a lot of stuff i havent tried. But im guessing there isnt anything as easily condigured or replaceable as seydel harps.

I have 13 harps in total, where two of them are chromatics (one is a custom seydel deluxe thats half valved and diminished), the others are blues harps, and 5 of those are wilde tuned seydel session steels and 1847s. From hohner ive tried ms pro, s20 and crossover. From the other brands ive tried Suzuki manji sky and lee oskar major.

Also a follow up question, whats your favorite model and key? I dont think i can pick a single model, but for key i like the sound of low f the most, and the playability of g/a the most. I find lower keys much easier to play than higher ones, but have gotten better at higher ones after i started playing wilde tuning, since this repeats holes 2-5 in the higher octave.

Has anyone tried both of these mics? Would you say the extra features on the dyna-mic is worth it? Also the dyn-mic is a condenser mic, has anyone noticed any drawbacks with this?

I dont see this technique talked about enough, or ever. I notice that a lot of the amplified blues legends often let a little air into an adjecent note of a hole to create a thicker screaming tone. For me this doesnt read as a chord at all, the amp kind of compresses and blends it into one note. And for full chords just let equal air into both holes. Im at least guessing its intentional that it reads as one note and not a chord.

I think this is a really cool and smart technique that doesnt get talked about enough. Its a great way to make notes sound fuller, and make the harmonica scream. I feel like most people just call these chords, which isnt wrong. But i feel like it should have its own name.

A good example of this is "early in the morning" by junior wells. He does this a lot in the solos. I could be wrong and the intentions behind it could be to make it sound like chords, but it sounds like its on purpose.

Whenever i connect to an amp or use an amp sim i basically only hear the clean tone "inside my head", i dont hear the external distorted tone, or it blends in with the clean tone. How to combat this? This is also a problem with hand wahs etc. I can barely hear it irl, but if i record it the hand wah effects are very pronounced. Do you really have to record and play it back to check your tone?

Any producers or studio players that know of any good amp simulations? I mostly record with DI and need some good sims.

Is it guitar, harmonica, piano, sax etc? Would love to hear what and why. I play harmonica so im biased. Sax and guitar is probably in second, cant place one over the other tho. You hear guitar way more, but you got people like Louis Jordan killing it on sax.