[Harp-L] Re: Audix Fireball



No need to echo Richard Hunter's reply, but build upon it.

For all the endless discussion about tube amps, bullet-type mics, and what makes what this this, and what makes this that, and bona fides means and methods, the truth of it is one can never foretell what combo is going to turn up with that cherished tone. Little Walter picking up the nearest mic at hand and plugging into an available amp and coming up with that ' tone' was more an exercise in serendipity than studious research on his part. And a lot of that tone comes from the mouth itself, not just the hardware.
As example of shouldn't-be-but-is, I have a Fender RI Bassman (modified with a tube rectifier), a Fender Pro Junior (more seriously modified, with a Bassman's Jensen Special 10 replacement, and the mic input running through a small tube preamp [Presonus] fit into the back of the cab before going to the PJ's jack), and lastly a Pignose Hog 20. I favor a late model Shure Green Bullet,.
So while the Bassman comes closest to my ideal sound, it's the Pignose that comes in second (and often, to my ear, it's a tie). The PJ, for all my efforts, lags behind. Tthe irony is that the Pignose-- as solid-state as you can get, nary a vacuum tube to be found anywhere in its makeup, its five inch speaker a ceramic magnet rather than the prized alnico, and designed for guitar--produces, for all those no-no's, a really nice punch'n'crunch' tone'.
Even as the little dwarf stands breaking all the cardinal rules of electrified harp blues. Go figure.


I bought the original Fireball to play impromptu thru house PAs at jams. It serves that purpose well--it's near absolute resistance to feedback a gift from the electric gods. And I don't have to look like an idiot blowing furiously but virtually inaudibly into the easily- lug-able Pignose, overwhelmed by drums and guitars smashing and slashing all round (general jams are rarely for blues purists). Through the PA, even without a Commando, I can get heads nodding approvingly--who otherwise don't know blues harp tone from breaking wind.
And as extra bonus I just discovered is it also makes an excellent cab-mic, much like the SM57, if slightly more bright (probably more linear).


I'm by no means new to the harp; my first encounter was listening to my older brother's first Bo Diddley album in '58, and hearing Billy Boy Arnold. Then, back in summer of '65, I saw Paul Butterfield et al several successive and blissful evenings--his band just having left Chicago and on their way to fame at Newport--in a folk music coffee house across the street from my home in Oak Bluffs, Martha's Vineyard. And these two musicians made an indelible stamp on my ear for the harp. And it's important to note that neither played exactly the 'Chicago Way', even though they hailed from the Windy City, and back when players (Little Walter, Big Walter) who are identified as the originators of that South Side tone were still above ground (if a bit wobbly).





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