Re: [Harp-L] Re: Hohner Hoodoo Box 5W amp and Madcat shaker mic or Ultimate mics

[Richard Hunter <turtlehill@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Mike Fugazzi wrote:
>The HD sounds GREAT and can do more than I'll ever
>need, BUT there is a steep-steep learning curve.  That being said, the
>tone of the HD's and even the Zoom stuff has been really impressive.
>
>I know Richard loves the DT stuff, but it appears they are moving a
>different direction with modelling after having fallen far behind
>competitors like Line 6, Axe, and Zoom regarding options and quality.

The first paragraph above is true.  To put it politely, the second paragraph above is simple nonsense.

First of all, price is always a factor in any purchase decision.  The Line 6 HD500 retails for well over TWICE the price of a Digitech RP355. Does it sound well over twice as good?  I doubt it.  But perhaps Mike will be generous enough to post some sound clips to a location we can all access, so we can judge for ourselves how much better it sounds than the Digitech, if at all.  I've posted plenty of clips to my site at http://hunterharp.com, which by the way were recorded live without post-recording processing.  In my opinion those clips sound great, and my customers, not to mention the musicians I play with everywhere I go, seem to think so too. But hey, post the clips, Mike, and we can all decide for ourselves.  (I'm planning to post clips of my new patches for the RP150/155 within a week or so.  In the meantime, plenty of my RP355 and RP350 clips are up; you can start listening at http://hunterharp.com/store/.)

Regarding Digitech having fallen far behind: Digitech is now offering amp and effect modeling running on an iPad, and it's obviously more flexible and expandable than any piece of hardware Line 6 offers.  It's also more expensive, and I frankly don't think harp players in general are ready to throw down $700-800 for an amp modeling setup.  And why should they, when they can get a great-sounding setup for less then $200?

Digitech offers devices in the same price range as the Line 6 HDs, including the RP500 and RP1000.  I haven't yet developed patches for those devices, but I'll get around to it.  In the meantime, the RP355, 255, 155, etc. make great sounds for very reasonable prices.  And at the risk of being redundant, when I say "great sounds", I mean GREAT sounds.  I do recording work with my RPs for composer/producers whose music can be heard on TV and radio worldwide, and nobody's ever told me that the sounds weren't good enough.  Quite the contrary, in fact.

Second, as Mike accurately notes above, "there is a steep-steep learning curve" with the HD500.  No kidding.  It's designed for guitar, not harp.  I've put hundreds of hours into developing sounds for the Digitech RPs, and my customers get all that hard work delivered to their email inboxes for a mere $25-35 above the cost of the device itself.  Anyone who buys an amp modeling device from Line 6 or Zoom should know what they're letting themselves in for.  To put it mildly, they're not going to take that thing to the gig the night they get it, or the night after that, or the next week after that.  My customers get their RPs up and running with dozens of harp-friendly sounds within minutes or hours, not days or weeks.  The biggest problem they seem to have is deciding which of the many sounds I provide to load first.

The same learning curve applies to the Zooms, or the Axe, of course.  Regarding the Zooms, as opposed to the Line 6 stuff, the options may be delightful on paper, but the sound engine up through the G2NU is NOT as good as the Digitechs.  Period. That's not only true for harp, by the way. I recently sat with my brother while we did a side by side comparison of his guitar sound with a Tech 21 Vox pedal and a Zoom G2NU.  The Zoom had nowhere near the detail and character of the Tech 21 box; it sounded like a distortion box, not an amp model, and there is a very big difference. Lots of features are nice, but it's how they sound that matters. It's possible that things have improved with the G3, but there's no question in my mind that any harp player is going to like the sound of a Digitech RP MUCH better than the sound of a Zoom G1 or G2.  I spent a lot of time working on patches for the G2NU, and I have halted development for the moment because of that very issue.  I don't want to sell harp players something that doesn't meet my standards, and the Zooms don't.

It's disappointing to see people slam other people's gear, especially when said people aren't offering any hard (read: recorded) evidence to back up what they're recommending.  I'll sum it up here: I don't bother slamming other people's gear choices.  There's plenty of great-sounding gear out there; the real issue is value for money.  I tell people what I use, I offer un-doctored recordings to back it up, and I make the exact stuff I use on those recordings available to others at very reasonable prices.  In my opinion, anything else is bulls---.

Regards, Richard Hunter 



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