Steve Baker and the HOHNER Harpblaster HB52
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- Опубліковано 21 сер 2024
- HOHNER Artist and longtime consultant Steve Baker talks about the new HOHNER Harpblaster HB52.
Modeled after the sound of legendary vintage harp microphones and with the help of professional players, HOHNER and sE Electronics have created the HB52 Harp Blaster, a dynamic harmonica microphone.
Boutique features and state of the art manufacturing make it the new standard in harmonica microphones.
Props to the location scout on this video, the microphone is clearly surrounded by larger members of it's species
Love the size, fits my hand far better than a bullet 🤘🏻
Very good video. Love your playing, Steve... would love to have heard more. Will be adding one of these to my arsenal, for sure. Cheers, mate!!
Doin’ the garden, pickin’ the weeds.
Will you still feed me ,will you still need me when I’m 64?
Well I just so happen to be 64 and been blowin’ the sandwich reeds for some 55 of those years. Finally took it seriously as a true instrument when my mother purchased my first Horner 64 Chromatic a Horner ECHO and a couple Horner Marine Bands actually 3 to be exact. She got them all together at a neighbour’s yard sale garage sale,rummage sale whatever you want to call it. Knowing these folk as my parents was familiar with many from selling carpets or ceramic floor or wall tile to so many. My mother was able to share some carpet samples,that had been discontinued so of no longer use. Quite the trade when you considered the true value . The harps were her husbands that he actually had just replaced. He happened to be a professional these harps as it turned out only had a handful of practices on them. So fortunate for this nieve boy of 9
I love your harmonicas, they are wonderful, too bad I still can't buy an original German harmonica, but I bought a Chinese one, I'll work hard to buy a German harmonica made by you, success
Where are you from? You can get hohners for 20 bucks.
Awesome. Is perfect for harmonica. Clean sounds and response. Great.
Up to now, reactions from players have been overwhelmingly positive.
Love It...Crunchmaster!
Mr. Baker that is a CLEAN machine shop, or is it a museum?
Just got my Harpblaster and am looking forward to using it in performance. Because of my playing style and the genres of music I play, I need a mic clip or holder for my mic stand. The large clip such as the universal clip doesn't work because it can't grip the shape of the Harpblaster and my Howler mic holder is too big for the Harpblaster. Any recommendations, or are you working on something that will work with this mic? Otherwise, really excited about this new harp mic!
Dear Paul, unfortunately, we do not have a mic clip for it (yet). Thank you for the idea though, we´ll forward that to our product managers to have a look into it!
I use a Y-shaped rubber coated hanger designed as a mandolin holder. You screw it onto your mic stand and hang the mic in it. I've never had any problems with this and it also fits larger mics. A simple and effective solution.
Agree, Horner should have a mic clip. Customers shouldn’t have to rig something up.
C'mon, man-the Audix Fireball mic is also made for harmonica, and it's awesome. The Harp Blaster is not "the first time a real high end microphone manufacturer has developed a microphone specifically for harmonica". I have the Harp Blaster and the Fireball. They fill different needs
Hi,
i'm wondering which one i prefer between theeses two mics. I play a chromatic suzuki scx48 and for now i'm using a vintage astatic 335 which i think is perfect for his small size and can give me a surprising warm and clean sound. I think i prefer the clean sound from the audix fireball cause it seems to have less high ends and more bottom end than the harp blaster.
So can i ask you, do the harp blaster have a clean sound if you deal with the volume pot really low ? Do the sound can be warm and no't to shrill ? Do you think it's more versatile than the Audix ? And do you thing it's no't too big with a chromatic harmonica ?
i will really appreciate your opinion,
Cheers mate
@@alexandregilabert3711 My ear's not good enough for me to talk about warmth and bottom. But I can say this: the Fireball is cleaner and less prone to feedback in my experience. The Harp Blaster provides some crunch, but lately I've been using two Lone Wolf microphone pedals to provide crunch and bottom for the Fireball. I use the Harp Break for crunch, and the Harp Tone+ to warm up the sound. If you get a Harp Blaster-it's a nice mic-you'll need an XLR to 1/4 in. adapter, because it's a high impedance mic that uses an XLR cable. The Fireball is low impedance, so if you're not going through a PA system you'll need an impedance matching transforming to go into a guitar amp
@@hanshogers5943 I'm so grateful for your advices !! that's the kind of information so valuable and hard to find on internet. Thanks a lot Hans ! I think i will prefer the sound of the Fireball. Can i ask you a last question ? Would you say that a low impedance microphone is generaly cleaner than a high impedance microphone ? Have a great day Hans
They aren’t the same at all. They serve totally different purposes, but the HB52 can be both clean and dirty, the fireball is only clean. You can add effect to the fireball, but it will sound very thin vs cupping a bullet mic. A vast majority of the tonal qualities people want in a mic for blues harmonica are achieved with hand technique and cupping, which the fireball cannot do. The fireball is great for clean playing, but not for the blues. You won’t find a single legitimate blues player using a fireball.
@@norfolknwhey4787 Thanks for the insights. I'm not being ironic, seriously-I learned stuff from your reply. I'll stick with my Fireball for the bands I currently jam with, because they cover a ton of songs that are not blues
P.S.: I never said the two mics were the same. I said "they fill different needs"
Awesome!
Great video. Is it necessary to put it through an amp, or is it possible to get the same sound straight into a PA mixer?
Great sound
Are you still using it ?
Have had trouble. I'm on my third one and have not been able to get anything @ all out of this mic. I'm running an xlr to 1/4" cable ( new ) into my amp ( Fender Super Champ)...nothing. I have tested the cable w/ another mic and it works fine. The amp works and is used regularly. As I'm on my third new mic (the company that I purchased it through has been very accommodating) I'm really wanting to experience this mic. Is there anything you may be able to suggest that may perhaps guide me. I'm out of ideas and after 3 offerings I'm beginning to think that it is not a manufacturing defect. Any help will certainly be appreciated. No one else has been able to troubleshoot this dilemma. Thank you.
Hey, you are probably using your cable configured for a old american made microphone. These old microphones have a different pin config on the XLR. A normal balanced XLR should be 1:ground, 2: hot, 3:cold. In the old american pin config they switched hot and cold. When using balanced it doesnt matter, but when using with cable to unbalanced (TS) Jack you need to connect ground and cold to sleeve of the Jack(so pin 1+3 to sleeve) and the hot to the pin of the Jack. Your cable is probably pin 1+2 to ground and pin 3 to tip. That's why I think you have that problem.
@@2fd742 thank you for your knowledgeable response. Ended up needing a "stereo cable?". 2 rings on the qtr. inch. The company was very accommodating as mentioned to the point of sending me a 10' cable gratis. They were stumped too for a minute. All has resolved itself favorably. Thanks again.
@@davidswaney2553you don’t need a stereo cable, what they gave you was probably the only 2-pin hot cable they had, which happened to be stereo. I use a simple XLR to female 1/4” adapter and any mono instrument cable.
Steve - was that original mic a Strand? I have one (made from bicycle tail light) from YEARS AGO, during that ol' Golden Age when we were all young lions.
Got some good crunch. What took so long?
It's quite an undertaking to design a mic from the ground up. We spent 2 years working with sE Electronics on this. The HB52 actually has slightly less crunch than comparable mics, because in my experience good players can learn to control this through their enclosure and playing attack. This gives a more differentiated sound than just relying on mic and amp to distort.
Steve Baker Harmonica thanks for the extra explanation. It’s what I was wondering about
Cheers
i can't get mine to work, i've plugged it into every amp i have and even bought a new cable. it just doesn't make sound. it's brand new so im stumped.
Make sure you get a cable wired with pin 2 hot. A lot of xlr to phono cables are wired with pin 3 hot.
@@davidhall158 thanks David for the reply! I bought a balanced chord and all is well
Charla por mi peine? Zeñorez
got lot mics, this delivers too much bass , have to crank the lows down on my bassman. i use it as a hammer now, as suggested by hohner
That’s not accurate at all. I use several vintage element mics for recording, and the HB52 for live shows. I use a GA-20 and a 59’ Bassman, the HB52 works very well with both. If you’ve got any of your tone knobs above 3 (out of 10), you need to sharpen you amp dialing skills. You don’t use the tone knobs to change the tone per se, you use them to boost certain frequencies from Zero. Start with all of the tone knobs on zero (flat), turn the master and volume up til feedback, dial them back a touch, and only then do you begin to adjust tone knobs to suit the desired sound you’re after. If you’re using the tone knobs without first finding the ideal break-up volume for the venue, you’re robbing yourself of what makes the Bassman so great.
@@norfolknwhey4787 thnx for these precious hints. how much do you crank the volume poti of the mic?
@@detharp when sound checking always have the mic on 100% to ensure your max level won’t feedback… then dial it down to about 80% for playing, which still gives you the option to crank it up for solos, or if the band gets loud.
Sorry but Hohner has not been a very good harmonica for me so far it has been the worst of all the others I have purchased and the most expensive must have just been my bad luck. Last time I bought a Hohner was in the mid 90's or close to it I bought a New CF Martin in the key of A made by Hohner price was $40.00 plus tax that would be equal to $100.00 or so now in 2023.it has never been playable I'm not a great harp player for sure but have let two others try to play it that were very good on the harmonica and nether one of them liked it at all or could play it. I Have three Lee Oskar harps bought around the same time and they still play good. I feel kind of sure that they must have made some of the best over the past years but just not for me. Might give it one more try with the special 20 or marine band and hope it works.
expertise is pronounced ex-per- Teese-
Not where I come from.
I just put 250 bucks on a mic
Raleesha Lowman you don’t even know what i bought lol. You know i looked up the amp in this video its a literally a little tube amp that does matter i agree i really like the way this microphone sounds. I didn’t buy a vintage mic with a new element. I bought a custom microphone custom milled with a custom element similar to this that was built for and by harmonica player. Which this was outsourced to people that don’t actually play harmonica.
@@ryanlea750 Dear Ryan, that´s not quite true, this was developed by our product managemenet team (of which all are harmoncia players) together with sEelectronics team and several professional players like Steve to really know what´s important...
Yeah sorry Hohner thats not what i meant kinda what i said. I would have bought your mic. It sounds great. And was in my price range i spent over my budget and had to save for way to long to buy it.
Sorry you guys are great and seems like you hit it out of the park with your new mic
@@ryanlea750 thanks for your kind response. This was the first time that sE Electronics had attempted to build a mic for harmonica, they otherwise make an excellent range of stage and studio mics for all purposes. However, they listened to the advice of great players and then analyzed the frequency responses of a range of vintage elements before creating a brand new modern element to consistently recreate their sound. As far as I'm concerned they did a really great job and it was a pleasure to work with them.
@@ryanlea750so you wrote all of that to say you bought a Bulletini? 😂