[Harp-L] New heavy metal harmonica on hunterharp.com

[Richard Hunter <turtlehill@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I had an idea for a song last week, something slow and heavy, inspired in part by Hendrix's "Are You Experienced".  I put a drum track, synth drone, and bass together quickly, then recorded a few harp parts over it.  I still need to do the vocals and a solo, not to mention a final mix and mastering, but I'm excited by the sound of this thing already, so I'm putting a little taste out there for your listening pleasure.

You can find an excerpt from the piece, called "If I Open", at:

http://www.hunterharp.com/heavy-metal-harmonica-with-the-rp350355/

A few details about the piece: there are no guitars on this recording.  The instrumentation consists of synth bass (the Manybass VST plugin), a synth pad (drone) sound courtesy of the Wusikstation 6 soft synth, and sampled drums (the Steven Slate Collection Metal Hybrid set, to be exact, plus percussion by Drumcore 3).  The things that sound like big metal guitars?  Those are harmonicas (a Seydel 1847 in G and a Lee Oskar low F) running through my Digitech RP355, using a couple of heavy metal patches that I've recently developed.  

There are three main harmonica parts, one of which uses a low-pitched distorted sound, and the other two a higher-pitched sound with flanging on it.  Both sounds use the Roger Mayer Octavia distortion effect from the RP355, one of my favorites--it doesn't just add distortion, it adds octave overtones as well, and it really puts a big mean edge on the harmonica.  I also used a little bit of a Master Volume amp modeled patch with a fast, deep vibrato that I used previously on my recording of "Pull of the Moon", which you can hear at:

http://www.hunterharp.com/?p=346

I recorded straight from the RP's 1/4" mono output into the input on my computer soundcard.  I used very little post-recording processing on these harmonica tracks, so what you hear is pretty much what the RP puts out.

I don't think it's amazing that you can get these sounds on a recording; in a modern computer-based recording studio you can do damn near anything to a source sound.  I DO think it's amazing that you can make these sounds on a stage, live, using a road-worthy device that costs under $200. These are big, tough, modern sounds, and they change the game for harmonica players.  If you can make a harp sound like this on stage with inexpensive gear, then it's not Chicago in 1955 anymore.   Not that there's anything wrong with Chicago, but if you want go to somewhere else, now you can.  

The only remaining barrier is being able to sing while you play this stuff on the harp.  I'm working on it...

Regards, Richard Hunter


author, "Jazz Harp" 
latest mp3s and harmonica blog at http://hunterharp.com
Myspace http://myspace.com/richardhunterharp
Vids at http://www.youtube.com/user/lightninrick
more mp3s at http://taxi.com/rhunter
Twitter: lightninrick