Harp On!
Harmonica Effects

Effects can enhance your sound, or transform it into a different instrument.

On this page. Effects pedals and units.

• Comment on effects
• Reverb & echo
• Other effects
• SBLive! effects
• Contents

You can learn a lot from Harmony Central Effects Explained. Also Harmony Central, user reviews is a good place to read up on different effects units, and people's experiences with them.

Distortion for harmonica is generally best achieved using a good combination of mic and class A tube amplifier (or preamp), eg. Shure 545SD through a Fender Pro Junior.
Most effects pedals are designed for guitars where gain and cut (treble) are high priorities. But for harmonica this is a lethal cocktail, guitar distortion pedals are an open invitation for feedback!
With all this in mind, it's all the more important as a harp player to try out effects units at a full volume with your own rig before forking out good cash for them.
Make sure you have good impedance matching and control over your sound set up to reduce the chances of feedback. I cover impedance, feedback and considerations under Amplified Tone.

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• Reverb & Echo
  If you're new to amplifying harmonica and want to get an effects pedal, I suggest you start out with reverb and maybe echo. Click the links to hear what they sound like. Harmony Central have explainations about Reverb and Delay.
  • TC Electronic Nova Pedals are pedal forms of very effective rack unit effects. The Nova Delay ND-1 is a stereo delay pedal with several models and a wide variety of controls with 9 user settings, tap tempo and audio tap tempo. Great sounding studio quality pedals in a price bracket that easily competes with the Boss DD-20, Line 6 DL4, up till now the best in their price range. From all reviews and reports to date, the ND-1 easily outperforms both those pedals with much better tone and functionality. Although the ND-1 lacks a looping mode, or expression pedal control. However on all other fronts it is a superb option, several sound samples are available on TC Electronic's site. Nova Delay reviews
  • TC Electronic Nova Reverb ND-1 is a stereo reverb pedal with a wide range of reverb settings with manual and preset modes to switch between. This is a reasonably priced pedal based on very decent rack effect units. Nova Reverb reviews.
  • Digitech X-Series DigiVerb digital reverb pedal is a good reverb effect, and whilst its named digital it has a very convincing spring, room, plate, hall and church type reverbs, along with a couple of other funky settings. Plenty of control with dials for selecting the reverb type, Level, EQ & Decay. And the stereo output works well. No clipping, smooth tone with no harsh distortion or synthetic edge. I am a happy owner of this pedal and delighted with it. If you're looking for a reverb effect this is worth checking out.
  • Electro Harmonix effects such as the Deluxe Memory Man analogue echo and The Holy Grail reverb. The Holy Grail is getting some good reviews among a few harmonica players as a reasonable substitute for true spring reverb. The Holier Grail offers more versatility. These units have true bypass.
  • T-Rex Replica boasts 24 bit digital/analogue convertors giving full a clean clear signal. Feature rich including tap tempo, digital delay and analogue echo up to 2000ms.
  • Hughes & Kettner Replex is a tube driven stomp pedal using circuitry emulating either spring reverb or tape echo effects including the ability to dial in "subtle combination of pitch shifting, wow and flutter, tape saturation and aging" found in the original PLEX units. This has come out with some excellent Harmony-Central Reviews, and write up.
  • DLS EchoTAP offers tap tempo echo, and an independant dial up echo rate, which can be selected by foot. It also boasts stereo in, stereo output, tone control, repeats and seperate levels for the two echos.
  • Digitech X-Series DigiDelay digital delay pedal whilst its named digital it also has analogue delay and (modulated) echo. One of the most important functions featured with the DigiDelay is the Tap function, with any echo or delay if you want anything more than a quick slap back, you need to have your echo/delay timing the same as the music you're playing, the most effective way to do that is using tap function - you tap the pedal to the beat and its in time - a feature which too many echo effects fail to include - unlike this one. Harmony Central reviews are mixed, but consensus rates it above Boss's equivelent.
  • DigiTech offer the Vocal 300, Vocal Effects Processor with a built-in expression pedal. Among many other effects it offers various delay and reverb types, which can be controlled with the expression pedal. Professional harmonica player Randy Singer has written a very positive review on his Vocal 300.
  • Danelectro Dan Echo Pedal is a good analogue echo pedal. Built like a tank, reliable, with a wide range of echo settings. One of the draw backs is if you plug a high impedance mic directly in, it loses some of your bottom end response. This is easily remedied by correcting the impedance on the input jack. You can do this by sending it to Ron's Tweak Shop, or do the modification yourself using Juergen's Dan Echo modification. If you have one already I think its well worth getting it modified, I'm happy with mine since doing just that. However if you don't own one I'd recommend looking at alternatives, preferably with tap function.
  • Danelectro offer a range of inexpensive small plastic effects pedals including Corned Beef Reverb pedal, which is a popular 1950s spring reverb with a light touch of slap back, the two controls dial how much to mix in, and High Cut which takes off the tops. Another is the BLT Slap Echo pedal, which is slap echo also good for harp, the two dials control mix and number of repeats. And for a wider range of delay effect you may prefer the PB&J Delay pedal with three controls for mix, speed and repeats, and an extra stomp button for long or short delay. They're a cheap solution to give more body to your sound.
  • Ibanez's TONE-LOK DE7 a reasonably built pedal with a wide range of both warm analogue echo and modern digital delay effects. You can select between echo & delay with a slider switch. Good control of time delays, with a three position slider for time ranges and nifty pop out/push in dials making it easy to manage on dark stages. Its as good as the Dan Echo with modification but with more functionality although without tap functon. I'd recommend this pedal over the Danelectro if you were to choose between the two.
  • The Original (((EchoPlex))) 1960's analogue tape reel echo effect unit is quite a popular & sought after item. The originals are old, expensive, and somewhat troublesome to maintain.
    
  • The Plex reissue from Rock Hard Inc / Play Master.
    The Plex is discontinued. Rock Hard Inc has gone.
    Redesigned with the original (((Echo Plex))) in mind using purist analogue approach, but using the advantages of todays technology. Harmony Central Reviews, Keyboard Museum details on The Plex, and another Plex review..
  • Fulltone are now building their Tube Tape Echo. (Picture top of this page) Real tape, real tubes, with modern design benefits. The reviews are very promising.
  • WEM Watkins designed and manufacture various models of Watkin's "Copicat" vintage valve tape echo unit, preserving the sounds of the 60's.
    
    Harmony Central Reviews
    Review by Paul White
    Check out their other products too.
  • HIWATT offer the Custom Tape Echo. Includes useful foot pedal. Designed with reliability & quiet efficiency in mind. Minimal FET solid state circuitry.
  • Guyatone offer their RTE-3000 solid state tape echo unit. Harmony-Central Reviews
  • Carlos del Junco uses the Roland RE-501 Chorus Tape Echo unit with chorus, spring reverb and echo effect. Check out the reviews. Or try out similar vintage tape & tube echo units, like the RE-201 Space Echo.
  • '63 Fender Tube Reverb brown Tolex all-tube driven, outboard reverb unit.
  • Kendrick Amplifiers offer the Tube Model 1000 Reverb stand alone reverb unit which is similar to the Fender Tolex.
  • The NanoVerb by Alesis has many useful digital reverb, echo & chorus effects.
  • Lexicon Pro offer a wide range of high quality 24 bit audio rack effect units, listed under their Legacy and Professional product ranges.
    Richard Hunter recommends the discontinued Lexicon MPX100 now superseded by the MPX110 for all your reverb needs. Further up the food chain are the MPX200, MPX550, MPX1, and MPX G2 which can be used with the MPX R1 remote (foot) controller. All of these effect rack units offer presets, user programs, a range of effects plus reverb, a wide range of control, and all available in glorious stereo.
  • Visit Loopers Delight for more ideas on echo, slap back, loop style effects which may work well with harmonica.
  • In addition to the V-Amp amplifier & effects emulator (with delay & reverb effects), Behringer offer a "DIGITAL 24-BIT MULTI-EFFECTS PROCESSOR" rack unit, the Modulizer Pro DSP1224P for under US$100. And for a bit more you can get their "DIGITAL MULTI-ENGINE 24-BIT MULTI-EFFECTS PROCESSOR" rack unit, the Virtualizer PRO DSP2024P for under US$160 with many more features & effects including virtual room Reverb. Both these units include amplifier & cab emulation, chained effects, are MIDI programmable and so on.
  • Line 6 offer DL4 Delay Modeler and MM4 Modulation Modeler. These incorporate tube tone emulation and give a good approximation. Some musicians have found practical limitations with the pedal setup in terms of lack of programable patches. However their tonal qualities are generally favoured, and they benefit from 24 bit processing technology.
  • Also of interest are Line 6's ToneCore stomp pedal range. The Echo Park has gotten good reviews, and contains many of the sounds the DL4 has to offer. It has two minor draw backs compared to other stereo echo pedals, it's not true stereo, fudging the incoming signal, and it adds a bit of gain when engaged, but otherwise great sounding pedal. The Verbzilla is fantastic stereo reverb, and in my opinion better than the DigiVerb or any of the Boss digital reverb pedals. Also of note The Roto Machine is worth checking out as well. fl0w3r
  • Boss offer delay & reverb effects pedals: DM-3 analogue delay, DD-5 Digital delay, RV-3 Reverb & RV-5 Reverb. Just be sure to compare against other products first, like Digitech.

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• Other Effects
  In the hands of a good musician with a discerning ear and an open mind people like John Popper of Blues Traveller, Peter "MadCat" Ruth, Lee Oskar, Pat Missin and lately Richard Hunter explore wild combinations of effects for harmonica.
  • Other good effects to try out with harmonica are a decent stereo Leslie Rotary Speaker effect, a mild Chorus is a popular choice, an Octaver that produces a suboctave really helps get an organ-like feel, funky Envelope Filter aka Auto Wah, Flanger, Phaser and rich Tremelo, Pitch Shifters, galactic alien robot Ring Modulation, heavy distortion, Jimmy Hendrix style Fuzz pedals, and some expression pedals are very useful for controlling things while playing through your harp.
  • Electro Harmonix have produced three very good polyphonic octave generators, including the POG which offers sub-octave, up one octave, up two octaves, plus detuned octaves, and a filter. And then there's the much smaller Micro POG, which simply has dials for sub-octave, up one octave and dry signal. Both are more transparent, and have better tracking than the Boss OC2 and OC3 pedals. But the OC2 and OC3 offer a different kind of synthy effect that is sometimes desirable.
  • DLS offer their RotoSIM stereo rotary speaker simulator. It has useful controls usually found on real Leslie Speakers, yet missing from other popular rotary speaker emulators, plus many more besides making for a great sounding pedal.
  • Behringer offer reasonably priced sound reinforcement and effects, definitely worth comparing gear against what they have on offer. For instance their latest range of mixers have very good preamps, so you can plug your effects chain directly into a channel and get a nice warm tone, and some of them include a 24 bit effects processor offering a range of great sounding effects.
  • Line6 offer a range of effects pedals, their earlier multi effects floor units with four stomp buttons apiece, and more recently their ToneCore range, which are more orthodox in design and purpose. Their Roto Machine has gotten positive reviews from gigging musicians compared to other pedals, besides the DLS RotoSIM.
  • Digitech have a wide range of effects which sound good, have good built in features, easy to use at a competitive price. Their multieffects are good quality for the price and pretty impressive.
  • Boss are a common brand of guitar pedals and reasonable for the price. They offer CH-1 super chorus, PS-5 Super shifter & OC-2 octave.
  • Danelectro have a number of inexpensive minuature pedals, some of which are useful for harmonica.
  • The discontinued Peavey Delta Stomp Digital Stereo analogue Multi-Effects floor pedal, got some good reviews. A heavy-duty box (!) that utilizes Peavey's "DeltaFex" technology, offers 16 preset reverb, delay, chorus, flange, phase, volume swell, wah, and rotary-speaker programs. The stereo device has two parameter-adjust knobs -- as well as mix, input, and output controls, and a speed-select footswitch for the rotary-speaker patches.
  • The guys at www.MetaSonix.com have some cool CV tube driven gear.
  • Its easy for an adventurous harmonica player to explore all sorts of new tonal soundscapes with the technology we have available today. There are lots of sophistocated guitar effects and emulators by Behringer, Digitech, and Line6. As the years go by more and more audio gear companies are joining the multi-effects & tube amplifier emulation wagon. For example Fender have a range of amps with built in effects units.
  • If you want to get REALLY serious about effects you could consider investing in an Eventide effects processing unit... strictly for the professionals or insanely rich.
    
  • And for a bit of humour check out The Official Red Telextronix.

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• Using your PC's Sound Blaster LIVE! Sound Effects processor
  • If you use a PC Computer and have a Sound Blaster Live! card or better you have a reasonably powerful effects unit right here in front of you.
  • A small PC in a baby sized case with roll away or compact keyboard with mouse roller and small LCD monitor could be your complete rig that you just plug into the PA. With some music software it could serve as your drummer as well, not to mention the ability to record yourself.
  • First you will need to find a way to plug your choice of microphone into the computer. You can get a simple plug adapter suited to your microphone and plug it directly into the microphone input on your card.
    If you want to use effects before the unit then perhaps you can use a preamp, mixer and/or DI box to plug your microphone and other effects into, then use the line signal into your PC.
  • Next you need to work out how you want to hear the music. At home just using headphones or speakers may be fine. You can get a better sound plugging into your stereo. But for gigs you'll need something more serious and can plug the computers outputs into a mixer or PA. The other option is to find a way to take the computer's line signal and use it with your other effects or favourite amplifier. You can get away with using a 4mm stereo to 1/4" mono plug adapter and going straight into your amp or whatever however this is not an ideal situation in terms of impedance (meaning feedback and tone hassles) and your ability to drive your other equipment is limited.
    For instance I have a cheap Leem mini mixer that takes up to four high impedance signals (harp mics, effects, or electric guitar), and has a mono instrument out signal which I can use to drive an amplifer or any other effects I want at the end of the chain.
  • See Amplified Tone for more on connection types, impedance levels and audio equipment. Some experimenting and experience can help you find the solution that works for you.
  • With the connectivity sorted out, on your PC: In the Creative Labs menu, Sound Blaster LIVE! menu, you will find AudioHQ which has a number of applets including Environmental Audio. Environmental Audio applet accesses the built in effects processor of the Sound Blaster Live!. You always have Chorus and Reverb effects in the chain which you may choose to use or simply turn off. In addition from a range of effects including Frequency Shifter, Vocal Morpher, Ring Modulator, AutoWAH, Flanger, Distortion, Echo and Pitch shifter, you can add up to two more. A couple of the effects cannot be used together due to hardware constraints, but for the price of a cheap Sound Blaster Live! card you gain access to a powerful range of sound processing gear.
    
  • Every effect comes with some preprogrammed setups so you can get going straight away, but the real power is that each effect is fully programmable, with several parameters giving you a great deal of control. You can spend hours experimenting with just one effect to get the sounds you want.
    
  • Each effect has a library of settings which you can add or delete from as you wish. Environmental Audio has an overa library of settings which you can save the setup of the effects once you've got the exact sound you want.
  • This makes a whole world of home studio recording a very accessable option to the aspiring harmonica player, and with the right computer setup and an understanding venue, an great way to squeeze even more value out of your computer as a not so portable rig.

Harp On! Amplified Harmonica main page.

• Microphones Bullets, elements & vocal mics.
• Amplifiers Tube/valve amplifiers, preamps and emulators.
• Effects pedals and units.
  • Comment on effects
  • Reverb & echo
  • Other effects
  • SBLive! effects
• Amplified Tone Avoiding feedback & getting good tone.
• What G plays through

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