Software Amplifier for Blues Harmonica (Harp)

[Bubishi]

Hello,

I started learning harp some time ago, now I wan't to try amplified playing. Normally people use valve or transistor amps, mostly designed for guitar players. Searching the internet let me stumble upon guitarix, which uses Jack. But I have problems with getting sound out of jack (ubuntu 16.04), I only get quirky noise from the mic, and I'm completly new to making music with linux.

So before digging deeper in problems with jack, I thought it might be helpful asking you for alternatives - maybe you would recommend some other programs for playing amplified harp, maybe you would not recommend using guitarix for harp at all?

Any help is greatly appreciated!

Kind regards,
Bubishi

[eric71]

If you add the KXStudio repos, you can use Carla (which can use alsa) to load lv2 or vst plugins. So you could load Guitarix lv2 plugins in there, or something simpler like the MDA Combo might be a good plugin to try for harp.

[eikakot]

I had good results with guitarix on harmonica and I'd recommend to fix whatever is preventing you from using jack

[glowrak guy]

What interface is your mic using? If it's a laptop combo jack,
meaning mic sometimes, and line level other times, you'll want to
aim for a higher quality i/o, and such laptop or motherboard hardware
is often not well implemented.

In the meantime, or if my guess is wrong, this tutorial will get you familiar with jackd,
and qjackctl gui:

http://libremusicproduction.com/article ... arted-jack

I'd suggest starting with an effects chain of

Clean preamp
EQ
saturator
reverb

and perhaps a compressor in there too, but I'm the Sargent Schulz of compressors.
Someone with experience might chime in.

Feed this to google, for lots of expert advice:

"harmonica effects chain"

Calf, Guitarix, and Rakarrack (among many others) all offer different options for effects,
so you'll be well catered to.
Cheers

[CrocoDuck]

+1 for Guitarix from me. Fact is that, as you mention, harmonica players usually use guitar amplifier through a so called harmonica microphone, shaped sort of like an old bike light. Part of the technique is indeed holding the microphone against the harmonica properly (and all sort of cool effects can be done by opening or closing the grip with your hands). These mics are made like vintage mics, so they sound pretty dirty, which is why people like them.

To simulate the amps Guitarix is brilliant: you can really cook your amp with the valves you want. 12AU7 and 12AX7 are favorites of harmonica players as far as I can tell (we had an harmonica player in our band). Guitarix is my very favorite, I always state it is the best amp simulator around (of course, that's my personal opinion).

To simulate the microphone dirtiness (if you don't have an harmonica mic) I would suggest using an overdrive before the amp, so to make it dirty, maybe in addition with some filtering to control low end and high end.

You could then add a cabinet simulation. Small cabinet and small speakers should be the natural option. I am not sure I would use a compressor: distortion is going to compress the sound already, while harmonica is an instrument with which dynamics can be very finely controlled. The result might be unnatural at the end, especially for the player not finding the instrument responding as it should... I would consider it for fine tuning only if you need to.

[GMaq]

Hi,

On the hardware side of things as mentioned by CrocoDuck the mic is kind of an important part of the signal chain mostly because harp mics have a pointed high midrange kind of like a guitar speaker so you may find running a backwards scenario like running a guitar cabinet simulation before the overdrive may simulate that kind of mic more realistically. The defacto standard is the Shure Green Bullet mic but for under 100 bucks Apex makes a decent harp mic as well:

http://apexelectronics.com/microphones/ ... t/apex327/

I have one of these and it works great, also good for a vintage vocal sounds as well!

[Bubishi]

Thank you all for your answers, I'm in good progress.

I tested KXStudio via the live cd, and got every thing working. I wrote the jack settings down, which didn't work completly on my normal installation, changing the frequency to 96.000Hz (iirc) and using 1024 samples brought me sound without crackles. Now I added the kxstudio repos, for the time being it's installing, I'm very curious if every thing works.

One problem was the mic I used (thank you for making this clear to me). I use onboard sound from the motherboard (maybe I will buy a better sound card some day, if I decide to stay with software amps), and the mic I used was a stereo mic, which doesn't seem to work with the plug provided. Are there adapters to transform stereo to mono? But I guess I should buy a mic which is good for harp players. I don't like the "dirty" sound from the bullet mics, I would prefer to use a mic like the one Christelle uses here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcInWpp ... P9&index=8

(does one know what kind of mic this is, and if it is usable with computers and with standalone amps?)

And thank you for giving me a guitarix effect chain - I find it quite difficult to get good sound out of guitarix, which is not it's fault, but mine - I simply do not know what all thing things even mean, as I'm completly knew to all that reverb/gain/chorus/you name it-stuff.

I really find it great to meet blues harp players here, didn't expect to be that lucky!

I suppose I will come up with more questions,
thank you so far!

[glowrak guy]

Some of many resullts from google: gainstaging vst effects tutorial

https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques ... w-software

https://ask.audio/articles/5-gain-stagi ... s-to-avoid

Cheers