[Harp-L] In Which Brad... Meets "The Strnad"...

[Bradford Trainham <btrainham@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

So, after searching the far corners of the InterNet, (alt.harmonica?)
I
ordered (March 27) a Strnad pick-up, one of whose alleged benefits was
that it
could connect with a neck rack. 
I wasn't sure about electricity---, no disrespect intended toward the
purveyors of "dirty harp", but my whole notion of what I want my
harmonica
playing to sound like tends more toward the
acoustic-safe-seeming...sincere-sounding-accompaniment-to-the-primary-instrument-which-I-think-it's-!!still!!-marginally-safe-to-say-is-the-guitar.
(Sorry!!) 
So Best Little Harp House "hit" my credit card.  A week went by.  Then
another.  I called.  I was polite.  They allowed as how "it' was
back-ordered. 
I winced, but not audibly. 
Meanwhile, the whole issue of correctly/reliably playing "Please
Please Me'
and singing the George part eclipsed whether or not I'd ever get my
Strnad. 
I ordered the appropriate (I decided what was appropriate for me and
built a
myth to support that decision.)  harmonica, received it by April 21
and played
the gig.  I joined this list. 
Another week.  Difficulty from Best Little Harp House in determining
whether
or not the Strnad had been shipped...  Difficulty resolved...  Day
after
angst-filled-day!!!  And then... 
On Monday, my Strnad arrived. 
I promise I won't mention this on every post,  maybe just every other
post...
but I'm blind, so upon opening the box, I was a little like those
famous
jungle tribesmen, suddenly presented with a  (fill in the blank). 
But I figured out what was what about this seeming cross (if touch be
any
indication) between a plastic funnel and some
hopefully-never-to-be-completely-understood marital aid...  with a
quarter-inch jack attached to it at the end of a long cable. 
Being at hart an optimist, I kept my sighs short and set about
figuring out
where the harmonica would go. 
I soon had the "quarter-inch jack" connected to one of two pieces of
guitar
modeling silliness I own, and once that out put from that processor
was channeled
through an M-Audio "near-field" eight-inch monitor, I turned all
volumes up
toward some level where I knew I'd soon be hearing either harmonicas
electrified, unforgivable feedback, or evidence that I still haven't
mastered
the whole notion of when one needs phantom power and when one does
not. 

What I heard was actually encouraging.  The harmonica's sound was
"captured",
"funneled" through that mic and out its cable into the Korg AX10G's
"circuitry", through the same's output and into that monitor. 
It was a harp all right, but with a semblance of amp applied.  Now, I
was
excited, but my next order of business had to do with ascertaining how
this
device was going to work with a "neck rack". 

With a surgeon's gentleness and an uppity cockroach's mindless
determination, I
gingerly slid the "funnel" part of the Strnad pickup through the
menacing 
(Why is so much of this product's external side made of apparent
plastic?)
reptile's holding capacity of my Hohner neck rack, all the while
trying to be
mindful of the probable fragility of the
part of the Strnad device that was either a symptom of a universal
mammary fixation or a cheap simulacrum of a light-bulb. 

I !!finally!! got to some seeming balance wherein the "funnel" sat
waiting for
a harp to sit in it and the Freud's-own "other part" was undamaged by
the
tenacity of the securing potential of the neck rack. 
I started out with a Special20 g harp, figuring that if I somehow
damaged that
one, yes, I'd be mad, but the world might continue to turn. 
I, by literal "blind luck" mastered the art of "sliding" (Website
promo
verbiage)  the pickup on to the harmonica such that the two (pickup
and harp)
were more than casually connected. 
And now, (You thought I'd never ask.) comes my question. 
How does one keep a harmonica from being too loose within the
configuration
just painfully described?
I haven't tried this setup with a band at practice yet, but if I'm
playing a
guitar and a harmonica through this "get-up", I want the harmonica to
(out of
courtesy more than loyalty) stay still so I might blow it/draw it when
the
Muse suggests I do so. 

The whole setup seems a little too... spontaneous..., as if the
harmonica
might slide to right or left and deprive me an opportunity of some
surely
brilliant solo. 
I like the possibility of interface with a processor the Strnad gives
me, but
does anyone have any tips for "tightening up" the position of the
harmonica
within the "funnel" of the Strnad? 
I'm using the pickup designed for a 12-hole and that may be part of my
problem... but 10-hole, 12-hole or 14-hole, I'm still experiencing
what every
prudish proponent of virtue comes up against when facing too much...
"looseness". 
Any ideas?
Brad Trainham