Well I've broken down and joined the Twitter band wagon. If you haven't heard about Twitter yet it is kind of like a bare bones version of Facebook. They tell you what other people are doing as they update their status (tweet) as well as on their profile there is a short bio, link of their choice, and picture. In the short time I have been using it I have run across some really cool people and sites. A big plus about Twitter over Facebook is that there aren't just people to follow. You can follow an array of channels such as CNN, Pitchfork media, the Onion, and so forth that update you regarding their pertinent information. My user name is Texharp and you are more than welcome to become a follower.
Speaking of followers, a side note, if you like what you've read here on this blog please feel free to become a follower. You get updated when there is a new post so you don't have to waste all that free time checking the site over and over again. Also, it's always an ego boost to know there are X amount of people who have an interest in what I'm typing. Just look over to the side bar and click on "follow". Now back to twitter talk.
I have found the bands I like through Twitter and now get updates about what they're up to and where they're playing. I've found other cool channels regarding Texas Music as well. Galleywinter is a Texas Music news website and forum spot that now has a Twitter page you can follow along with. Lone Star Music is a similar site that reviews and sells Texas Music and they have also followed suit on Twitter. Radio Free Texas the site that provides free streaming Texas Music as well as a strong forum for anything Texas is tweeting away too. Another great channel is the Twitter feed for Music Fog. This site covers Americana music and other good sounding independent acts throughout Texas and other regions. Recently in my SXSW post, I used their videos of Ray Wylie Hubbard and Jimmy Lafave playing in Austin. The site is well maintained and a good one to follow.
Among the random and cool people I've found on Twitter is the blogger for AMP. He is a professional photographer for Joe's Bar in Chicago, which hosts great country acts as well as the bigger Texas bands every now and then. (Most recently Cross Canadian Ragweed and Stephanie Briggs had a show there) His pictures are great and really worth taking a look at. You can find his blog on my blog roll in the sidebar as well as through his Twitter profile.
Long post short, Twitter isn't too bad if you're already addicted to checking updates, e-mails, blogs, and friend suggestions. They have brought me to some interesting sites I wouldn't have known of before. It is certainly a worthy addition to those sites that give you that impulsive need to turn on the computer.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Harp Mics
(This post is all about old microphones and harmonica playing so if this isn't your niche sorry for the bore, but read along and fill up on some random fact potpourri.)
Since the band has been on our two week break from shows I have had a lot of time to focus on my electric tone. The problem with people who play blues harp is that finding that perfect electric tone is a terrible cyclical process. You find a new amp, mic, pedal, or other electronic and pore over it for days, weeks, and months. You might even find a friend or a music shop where you can try out this tasty new gadget and see how it fits in with your sound. The day comes where you feel you know enough to spend enough and a new member of the chain comes home. After a handful of gigs or jam sessions the new thing breaks in and slowly slips into your now more robust tone. A few days later a tickle forms in the back of your head and the cycle begins anew. It feels at times like you will never find that perfect fit and that's probably the truth. There will always be a cool new gadget around the corner advertised to really fatten up that bottom end or bring out that old nasty Chicago crunch. At least we will never get bored with our hobby.
Through the years of playing I have amassed a collection of harp mics. These are some of the quickest ways to switch around your tone and thanks to ebay won't kill your budget. Also as you amass your microphone army it becomes a fun hobby. (Or an obsession to some) Each one of my mics lying around is a reminder of a certain point or memory in the time line of my playing. Also it's good to hold on to your old mics because as you progress you'll notice that some old mics sound a lot better with that new amp, pre amp, pedal or playing style you just picked up. Things change and it is always fun to have something around the house to remind you of how much that is true.
A random collection
Here's a brief overview of some of the mics I went through and have.
I started with a generic Shure Green Bullet 520DX. These are great starter bullet mics. My cons with this mic were its weight, feedback issues with some amps, and a personal funny feeling playing with bullet mics in general once I tried some others. It has a great acoustic tone which is good for bluegrass and the likes, but it has a hard time crunching up with the blues. Kasey Klepfer of Texas Renegade plays with one and gets a good sound out of it, but it's just not my kind of mic. Next up to bat was a vintage Aiwa mic which I liked a bunch, but it was too brittle to really ever play with except for at home. It had great bottom end tone and low low feedback issues but it was made in the sixties and time hates solders and rubber gaskets. I played with random P.A. stick mics along the way and really liked the shape of the mics over bullets. Out of all the current production stick mics I used I always liked the Shure Sm-57 the most. Jason Ricci and I believe John Popper both play with modified ones and that is about all the endorsement you need. It had a great frequency response and good all around sound to it. Personally they were great through a D.I. box with some pedals to fatten it up. Using an amp would have probably brought some feedback issues without a feedback buster or other helper gadget. After that I played with a Hohner bluesblaster for about ten minutes and returned it. This was my only return, but a good decision. It had a thin sound and wasn't worth the bloated price. The next was a Shaker Madcat microphone and it was one of my favorites. (I'm playing with it in the picture at the top of the page) It has an ergonomic design somewhat like a lavaliere mic. The element sat in your cupped hand and on the other side a volume pot stuck out of your threaded fingers. I have a lot of fun playing this mic because you can do a lot to change the sound while playing by adjusting the acoustics of your hands. In the end though the element was too small to hold a good full tone and I got the itch to move on. That brings us to what I'm playing with these days. It's a vintage Shure 545s unidyne II with the pistol grip. This is my favorite so far with very few drawbacks. There is little feedback and a ton of volume. The tone is very full and it distorts well in a hard cup. Without cupping the mic you get a very clean acoustic sound to your playing which really helps me switch between the blues songs and the more acoustic country harp songs just by fiddling with stance and my hands. One piece of advice is to buy back-up everything if you own a vintage piece of equipment and expect to play with it. My 545 uses a four pin XLR cable which is no longer in production and of course when we were playing in Lubbock at The Blue Light it decided to self destruct.
My current favorite mic in my bag.
Another thing to remember when considering harp mic is what you're playing through. Some mics are finicky about what they get plugged into. There is a world of difference for my mic when played through my amp compared to a direct line to the P.A. system. Sometimes certain amps just don't want to play nice with certain mics. When I first got my Hohner Hoodoo Box amp I plugged in my Green Bullet. I thought the amp was broken at first. I had to almost full crank the knobs to get a sound and sadly that sound was all feedback. eventually I got it all tweaked to work, but soon after realized that the pair just weren't going to work out together.
The best advice that is always drilled into any discussion about improving harp tone is always the same. It doesn't matter what you're playing through if you suck. So keep playing and wood shedding and that tone will come with much more ease once you plug in.
Since the band has been on our two week break from shows I have had a lot of time to focus on my electric tone. The problem with people who play blues harp is that finding that perfect electric tone is a terrible cyclical process. You find a new amp, mic, pedal, or other electronic and pore over it for days, weeks, and months. You might even find a friend or a music shop where you can try out this tasty new gadget and see how it fits in with your sound. The day comes where you feel you know enough to spend enough and a new member of the chain comes home. After a handful of gigs or jam sessions the new thing breaks in and slowly slips into your now more robust tone. A few days later a tickle forms in the back of your head and the cycle begins anew. It feels at times like you will never find that perfect fit and that's probably the truth. There will always be a cool new gadget around the corner advertised to really fatten up that bottom end or bring out that old nasty Chicago crunch. At least we will never get bored with our hobby.
Through the years of playing I have amassed a collection of harp mics. These are some of the quickest ways to switch around your tone and thanks to ebay won't kill your budget. Also as you amass your microphone army it becomes a fun hobby. (Or an obsession to some) Each one of my mics lying around is a reminder of a certain point or memory in the time line of my playing. Also it's good to hold on to your old mics because as you progress you'll notice that some old mics sound a lot better with that new amp, pre amp, pedal or playing style you just picked up. Things change and it is always fun to have something around the house to remind you of how much that is true.
A random collection
Here's a brief overview of some of the mics I went through and have.
I started with a generic Shure Green Bullet 520DX. These are great starter bullet mics. My cons with this mic were its weight, feedback issues with some amps, and a personal funny feeling playing with bullet mics in general once I tried some others. It has a great acoustic tone which is good for bluegrass and the likes, but it has a hard time crunching up with the blues. Kasey Klepfer of Texas Renegade plays with one and gets a good sound out of it, but it's just not my kind of mic. Next up to bat was a vintage Aiwa mic which I liked a bunch, but it was too brittle to really ever play with except for at home. It had great bottom end tone and low low feedback issues but it was made in the sixties and time hates solders and rubber gaskets. I played with random P.A. stick mics along the way and really liked the shape of the mics over bullets. Out of all the current production stick mics I used I always liked the Shure Sm-57 the most. Jason Ricci and I believe John Popper both play with modified ones and that is about all the endorsement you need. It had a great frequency response and good all around sound to it. Personally they were great through a D.I. box with some pedals to fatten it up. Using an amp would have probably brought some feedback issues without a feedback buster or other helper gadget. After that I played with a Hohner bluesblaster for about ten minutes and returned it. This was my only return, but a good decision. It had a thin sound and wasn't worth the bloated price. The next was a Shaker Madcat microphone and it was one of my favorites. (I'm playing with it in the picture at the top of the page) It has an ergonomic design somewhat like a lavaliere mic. The element sat in your cupped hand and on the other side a volume pot stuck out of your threaded fingers. I have a lot of fun playing this mic because you can do a lot to change the sound while playing by adjusting the acoustics of your hands. In the end though the element was too small to hold a good full tone and I got the itch to move on. That brings us to what I'm playing with these days. It's a vintage Shure 545s unidyne II with the pistol grip. This is my favorite so far with very few drawbacks. There is little feedback and a ton of volume. The tone is very full and it distorts well in a hard cup. Without cupping the mic you get a very clean acoustic sound to your playing which really helps me switch between the blues songs and the more acoustic country harp songs just by fiddling with stance and my hands. One piece of advice is to buy back-up everything if you own a vintage piece of equipment and expect to play with it. My 545 uses a four pin XLR cable which is no longer in production and of course when we were playing in Lubbock at The Blue Light it decided to self destruct.
My current favorite mic in my bag.
Another thing to remember when considering harp mic is what you're playing through. Some mics are finicky about what they get plugged into. There is a world of difference for my mic when played through my amp compared to a direct line to the P.A. system. Sometimes certain amps just don't want to play nice with certain mics. When I first got my Hohner Hoodoo Box amp I plugged in my Green Bullet. I thought the amp was broken at first. I had to almost full crank the knobs to get a sound and sadly that sound was all feedback. eventually I got it all tweaked to work, but soon after realized that the pair just weren't going to work out together.
The best advice that is always drilled into any discussion about improving harp tone is always the same. It doesn't matter what you're playing through if you suck. So keep playing and wood shedding and that tone will come with much more ease once you plug in.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Things Going On
Our band has been off for the last week and we won't be playing again until April 18'th because of scheduling conflicts. We will be opening up for The Band of Heathens at The Hog Pit. They are a band based in the Austin area with a ton of talent. If you haven't had the chance to listen to them I urge you to. This weekend they are playing at The Grit N Groovefest hosted by Ray Wylie Hubbard down in Luckenback. This is the first year of the event and surely not the last considering Hubbard's great music and his devoted fan base. Along with the Heathens other acts will include Patty Griffin, Charlie Sexton, Omar Dykes, Sam Baker, Ray Wylie Hubbard and many others. If you live in the hilly parts of Texas I would try to put it on the top of my to do list this weekend.
Stephanie Briggs and The Oso released their new album yesterday titled "The Birds Barely Know Us". This was a long time coming for people waiting on it, but it has turned out to be well worth it. The album has been in my truck's CD player since I pulled it out of the mail. This is a good album and it has an array of songs that could just as easily appeal to you or that person over there you think is your bizzaro nemesis. Invite him over, open a beer, never mind that growth on his neck you guys are listening to some good music. This album comes after Stephanie and Matt (The Oso) signed with 36D management who also represent Cross Canadian Ragweed, Randy Rogers, Seth James, and Micky and The Motorcars. She recently skipped around the western U.S. with Cross Canadian Ragweed opening up for them on their tour to California. when they finally reached the coast she polished the last bits of this album and set it to wax. Buy the CD and show greatly deserving musicians some love.
Stephanie Briggs and The Oso.
(photo by Stephanie Briggs)
After our break, the month of April appears to be a fairly fun one for the band. April 18'th we will be at The Hog Pit in Midland opening for The Band of Heathens. The 24'th we will be headlining for the Permian Basin BBQ cook-off also in Midland. These will be some fun shows leading up to our string of road shows in May. Come on out if you're around, and if you live someways away keep on reading and maybe we'll make it there eventually.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Waiting on the internet
Sorry for not posting recently. I am currently moving apartments and will have spotty "borrowed" wifi access for a bit until we can schedule a cable/internet set up for the new home. I'll probably be back posting this week or even tonight, but the frequency will be spotty until the internet is hooked up and flowing.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
radiofreetexas.org
