Dan Treanor

Last night Dan Treanor dropped into the Blues Jam my band Roadhouse Joe hosts at Ziggies in Denver. My GAWD, what a tremendous harp player! In this pic he is playing "sweet" into the vocal mic, before he pulls that EV RE-10 mic out of his pocket and plays "nasty." He was plugged into my 1953 Masco ME-18 amp (visible in lower left), and he sounded incredible.

More pictures from the jam can be found at our Myspace site.

More Tweaks to the Champ

Amp Porn. My naked 1971 Fender Champ. See that output transformer? It's about twice the size of the original. See that choke? There isn't supposed to be a choke on a Champ. Hmmm...

Tweaking a Fender Bassman Reissue amp

On Saturday we spent about an hour at Mission Amps' shop tuning up AC Blue's Bassman reissue amp. The amp is late 80s reissue with lots of patina from being vigorously gigged, first as a guitar amp and for the last couple of years as AC's main gig rig for blues harp. It was sounding a little tired so he brought it to Mission Amps for a check-up, and I hung around and took notes and photos.

First, Bruce Collins -- the owner of Mission Amps -- re-wired the rectifier socket so it would accept a tube, and replaced the solid state rectifier with a new old stock 5U4GB tube. Next, he found that the 6L6 power tubes were mismatched an one was failing. Bruce replaced them with a matched pair of new Sovtek 6L6 tubes, and biased them at 15 watts each. The amp produced 48 watts of power when bench tested.

The improvement in tone was impressive. I tried it with both AC's EV RE-10 mic and my Front & Center crystal bullet mic, and the Bassman just ripped. Lots of texture, lots of beef. The tube rectifier gave it a nice touch of sag. It's now a very good-sounding harp amp.

The last task was a line out. Bruce removed the "Ground" toggle switch (which did nothing) and replaced it with a 1/4 inch phone jack. He stepped down the speaker tap with two resistors, 270K and 27K, shunted to ground. The unbalanced line out delivered about 700 millivolts with the volume on 4, when the amp was just barely tipping into distortion. When we plugged it into Bruce's Peavey PA the Bassman sounded big and bad-ass. AC is a happy harp guy.

NOTE: I played AC's EV RE-10 mic for several minutes and really liked it. It has a big sound and a deep tone. The mic itself is a bit too small for me to hold comfortably when cupping the harp, but the sound was excellent, very similar to my F&C crystal bullet mic. I can see why some players are so devoted to the RE-10.

New 5U4 rectifier and 6L6 power tubes:

The line out jack where the "Ground" toggle switch used to be:

The line out originates at the speaker tap:

The most important instrument at Mission Amps: Bruce Collins ears:

AC Blue playing Blues on Diminished-Tuned Harp

Here's AC Blue playing a solo in "Got My Mojo Working." He playing a diminished-tuned harp that can get all the chromatic notes simply by using regular half-step bends. Pretty remarkable, eh?

AC is playing through an EV RE-10 mic into my hot-rodded 1971 Fender Champ amp. Nice tone, dude! What's more amazing is that this was an unrehearsed Blues Jam that my band hosts at Ziggies in Denver. You know what it's like to get on stage at jam sessions...

Al Chesis and The Delta Sonics

Denver harp master Al Chesis and the Delta Sonics workin' the stage at Ziggies, March 5, 2010. Al Chesis on harp, Jeremy Vaszquez on guitar, John Butler on bass, Willie Panker on drums.

Al is playing through a custom "Bandmaster" clone from Mission Amps. There are three more videos from this gig up on my Youtube channel.

Are Custom Harps Worth the Money?

It is a fact that custom harmonicas – harps that have been built or heavily modified by skilled customizers – do indeed play better than any off-the shelf harp. They play beautifully, with a balance of action in all holes and great sensitivity. That also cost a LOT more than standard harps: $200 for a full custom vs. about $30 for a standard. Is the extra money warranted?

Customizers do various things to a harp: Embossing the reed slots and upgrading the comb makes the harp much more airtight and responsive. Gapping the reeds allows for better action and easier overblows. Opening the back makes the harp louder, and smoothing the corners of the harp make it more comfortable to play. They also tune the reeds to perfect pitch. What results is a fine instrument that is clearly superior to an out-of-the-box harmonica.

But, the question remains: It is worth the money? A good analogy, I think, would be a $200,000 Ferrari vs a car that costs $30,000.

Do custom harps make you a better player? No. No matter what gear you use (be it harp, mic, pedals, amp, etc) you are going to sound like you. People who are familiar with your playing will still recognize it no matter how much you spend on gear. I think the custom harp will be fun for you to play (they certainly are for me) but they don’t really change how you play.

Do custom harps last longer? Only if the player babies them. If you normally blow out a harp in 4 months, you will blow out your expensive customs at the same rate. If a harp normally lasts you for years, so will the custom harp. There is nothing about the customizing process that I’m aware of that makes the reed more durable. Some players – me included – tend to not reach for the custom harp because of the expensive risk. Under those conditions, customs last a LONG time!

In fact, custom harps may be less durable in the hands of a typical player. Tuning the reed weakens it. Tighter tolerances allow for easier bends, but also make it easier to bend too far, damaging the reeds. After blowing a reed in your expensive custom harp you feel compelled to send it back to the customizer for repair, adding even more to the cost of your harp.

So, is all this worth the money? Think of the analogy… Is a Ferrari that costs $200K worth the money? It may be, to those who buy them. A Ferrari is a wonderful performance automobile whose limits and capabilities are far beyond most of the people who own them. But having that potential is satisfying to the owner. I think the same is true for many buyers of custom harps.

For working pro harp guys, custom harps can make sense. For the rest of us, I’m not so sure. There are several good choices in premium harps that cost a little more than the standard $30 models, such as the Hohner MB Deluxe and Crossover. The customizers will insist these premium harps are not as refined as their products, and they are right. But it is inarguable that premium harps are MUCH better than standard harps, and may well provide all the advantages needed by – and which can be exploited by – the typical harp player.

Expensive high performance custom harmonicas are similar to a Ferrari. I suspect many Ferrari buyers are interested mainly in impressing themselves and others, not in improving their driving. Custom harps seem to have taken on that same panache. But, it’s still you behind the wheel.

Roadhouse Joe at Blues Fest

We played a Blues Fest with several other bands last Sunday. My Mission 5F2H amp can be seen behind the singer perched on a milk crate. The sound guy mic'ed it up with a Sennheiser mic; it sounded really good. This was a very fun gig.

EL84 Harp Amps

It has happened twice recently: I run into someone I’ve never met who says, “You’re the guy who hates EL84 amps!”

Well… “Hate” is kind of a strong word. Let’s just say I prefer the tone of other amps.

The EL84 is a power tube used in some amps popular for harp. I am unaware of any custom maker of harp specific amps who uses EL84 tubes in any of his products. However, there are lots of EL84 guitar amps that are adapted for use with blues harp. These include the Fender Blues Junior, Fender Pro Junior, Peavey Custom 20 (and Custom 30), Epiphone Valve Jr, and the vintage Kalamazoo amps, among others.

Here’s the problem: Some harp players like the EL84 tubes because they are easily driven to distortion with the high output of bullet mic meant for blues harp. The output of a bullet mic is MUCH higher than a typical electric guitar pickup. The distortion that results is annoying. I describe it as a crackly mush in the upper mids. I hear it to some degree in all EL84 amps.

Here’s what causes the problem: The EL84 tube is subject to a condition called Grid Blocking when it is driven with a hot signal. The tube has a low level Negative Bias Voltage that can easily be overwhelmed by an input signal larger that it expects. This causes the tube to stop working as intended and become a diode; an On-Off device. The resulting signal is a square wave; an ugly, non-musical tone that guitar players call “farting out.” Amps with a single EL84 power tube do this the worst. The effect is lessened when there are multiple tubes.

Some harp players are happy with this distortion. When new players acquire small amps they immediately start looking for “That Chicago Tone and Breakup” and any distortion sounds better than icepick clean tone.

It’s not that I hate EL84 amps; it is that I MUCH prefer the tone of amps with 6V6 tubes. These amps include the Fender Champ (and all the 5F1 clones), Princeton and Deluxe, vintage Gibson amps, and old PA amps such as the Newcomb E-10b, among others. A good 1970s Fender Champ can be found on eBay for around $300, and modifications to its old-school point-to-point circuits are simple.

The 6V6 tube has a more robust Negative Bias Voltage that is not so easily driven to square wave distortion. Its overdriven tone is much warmer than the EL84. The crackly mush in the upper mids is gone, replaced by a darker hair-on-the-notes quality. There is a soft tearing of the notes on attack and decay, not the harsh fuzz-tone of an EL84 fighting for its life.

I’ve heard some EL84 amps that sound pretty good, and I’ve written about them. But for the most part, they make me wish the player were using a different amp. They are the ultimate one-trick-pony, and the trick gets old in a hurry.

12AX7 Tube Swaps, Hot Mics, and Other Myths

I am constantly getting questions like this: “I have a small tube guitar amp and I really want to get that Chicago harp tone and breakup. What tube should I use in place of the 12AX7 in the preamp section.” I see this question on harp forums and on Harp-L. It is probably the most common gear-related question asked by new harp players.

The answers they often get are incomplete at best and ludicrous at worst. I’ll try to lay out a clear and simple explanation of the issues here.

First, the short answer to the question is “None.” A preamp tube swap won’t get you “Chicago tone and breakup,” at least not as I define that sound. It might get you going in the right direction, but it’s only a start. And if you follow much of the advice that springs from anonymous commenters on the Internet your tone could get ugly.

The common theory is that a preamp tube with a lower gain potential will give a player more headroom, allowing him to drive the amp into distortion before the amp is loud enough to start feeding back and howling like a banshee.

There are several problems with this: In small amps (which are usually the subject of these questions) using a lower-gain preamp tube will rob so much volume that it will become unusable except as a bedroom practice amp. With only 5 watts to begin with, any reduction in gain is a big sacrifice.

The tubes with less gain than the 12AX7 – typically the 5751, 12AT7, 12AY7, and 12AU7 – are not all compatible with the circuits designed for the 12AX7. Tubes with lower gain also usually have lower impedance. This affects the components downstream of the preamp section, which are the coupling capacitors in the tone stack. The lower impedance will shift the frequency of the tone stack upward, making the amp more shrill and less warm.

The 12AT7 tube is a terrible tone generator. It was meant to be a driver (such as a phase inverter) not an audio tube. It will work well enough to get you through a gig, but it is not the tone you seek.

The 12AY7 has 44 percent of the gain of a 12AX7, so in a small amp it takes a big cut. It also suffers from an impedance mismatch. The 12AU7 has a fraction of the gain of a 12AX7 and is not compatible with these circuits. I don’t advise using it.

That leaves the 5751, a more rugged version of the 12AX7 with about 70 percent of the gain. Its impedance is a close match. This is the tube I recommend.

A common notion among harp players is this: They want a HOT microphone that will drive the preamp tube into crazy distortion. But this has its own issues that are related to our discussion of preamp tubes.

Preamp tubes are biased just like power tubes, but they sit in the circuit before the volume control. In other words, preamp tubes are always working full blast. The only way you can turn them down is with the volume control on your microphone. If you hit the preamp tubes with a big signal from a hot mic you can overwhelm the tube into square waves, which sound unmusical and ugly. Here’s the rule: If the signal into the preamp tube exceeds its bias voltage, the tube stops working. Preamp tubes are biased at 1 volt or a little more. My red bullet mic with a hot Shure CM element puts out about 1.5 volts on a big tightly cupped riff.

Here is the secret you need to know: turning down the volume control on your hot microphone has the EXACT same affect on your tone as swapping in a lower-gain preamp tube, except you don’t have the impedance mismatch issues with the tone stack.

So, what does all this mumbo jumbo mean?

-To get slightly more headroom, swap in a 5751 tube in place of your 12AX7 preamp tube. This is the tube positioned closest to where you plug in your microphone. Leave the other tubes alone for now. You can buy a very nice-sounding NOS JAN Philips 5751 from Tube Depot in Memphis (or at their website) for about $20.

-Don’t crank your hot Shure CM/CR mic to the max and then complain about feedback! Turn it down! If your mic does not have a volume control you can buy a wonderful in-line device from Greg Heumann at www.blowsmeaway.com. He has sold hundreds of these to all players from beginners to full-on pros.

-You still will not have the tone you seek. Your next step will be a speaker swap. For 8- or 10-inch speakers I recommend trying Weber Signature series. For 12-inch speakers I recommend Eminence Patriot series.

-Why go to all this trouble? Save you money and buy a HarpGear HG2 from Brian Purdy. No tweaks required.

OR, for a true custom harp amp voiced to your taste, contact a tone guru like Bruce Collins at Mission Amps in Denver.

The bottom line is this: There ain’t a tube swap that will get you the tone you seek. Amps are complex systems, and guitar amps don’t always make good candidates for harp projects. It is a common myth that you can substitute a couple of tubes and get good tone, but it is a myth nonetheless.

[Lets see how long it is before someone chimes in that to get good tone it takes PRACTICE. I left that part out because it is painfully obvious.]

UPDATE (02/12/10): Another thought on hot microphones. There seems to be a cultural myth among blues players that the hotter your bullet mic is, the better your tone will be. It ain't necessarily so. I often noticed that my red bullet mic -- which is extraordinarily hot -- would sound crappy with some amps. I always blamed the amp. But I discovered that the mic was beating the input tube into really ugly harmonic distortion. You can see it on a scope.

I also discovered that if I turned my hot mic down a bit I could crank up the amp more, getting a louder better tone before feedback. That is the same goal we week when swapping input tubes, but this only works if your microphone is a bullet with high output, greater than 1 volt on loud passages. Some CM/CR mic fit that description.

UPDATE (12/13/10): In the comments Big Ernie Fuller asked if using the lower-gain preamp tubes will actually do any damage to the amp. Bruce Collins from Mission Amps touched on it in his comment but I wanted to write a little more about that here on the front page.

The short answer is “No.” It is conceivable, on some cheap amps with printed circuit boards and weak components, using a tube with lower impedance could burn out the plate load resistor. But on any point-to-point wired amp it is unlikely.

But remember, a lower impedance tube draws more power from the B+ rail, which is the pool of power to supply all the components. Your lower gain tube in place of a 12AX7 is like a bucket with a hole in the bottom. It leaves less power for the other components, so they are now running out of spec.

You CAN sub these other tubes for a 12AX7 preamp tube, but it is unlikely to get you the “Chicago tone and breakup” you are looking for. I suggest taking it easy on the preamp tube swaps and concentrating instead on other parts of the amp system – such as the speaker or your mic – to get where you want to go.

"Oh yeah? Well, you play like CRAP!"

LOL. It never fails. Every time I get in to an online debate with someone about anything that has to do with harmonica (and never has anything to do with anybody’s playing ability), the other guy in the debate will get frustrated and attack my playing, spewing what he thinks is the ultimate put-down. It reminds me of that hilarious scene in the movie “The Sandlot” where a bunch of adolescent little leaguers throw down their best insult: "You play like a GIRL!"

Yesterday I had an email exchange that went like this:

Hater- "You suck. You are an intermediate player!"

Me- "Uh, yep… I’ve always claimed to be an intermediate player."

Hater- "Well…. I was wrong. You are a BEGINNER!"

Sheesh!

As I’ve written before, I am a PROUDLY intermediate harp player. I have NEVER been one of those pretentious twits who claim to be better than anybody else. Insulting somebody’s playing to make cheap points in an argument is reprehensible. It is a failure of imagination, no different than those adolescent boys in the movie.

In the last 12 months I’ve played 70 paying gigs, including one last night. That is not a big number, but it’s about what I want. (You can check the schedule in my band website to see where I've played.) This blog gets more than 500 hits per day, almost all of them from people searching Google for information about harp amps and gear. Am I the best player around or the biggest authority on all things harmonica? Heck no! But I am happy with my place in the blues harp community.

For you haters with a festering urge to insult my playing, I say, "grow up!" You’re acting like a 12-year old little leaguer.