Electro-Harmonix Tube Factory in trouble
It looks like the Russian vacuum Tube factory owned by Mike Matthews' company Electro-Harmonix, is having some political problems. The story is that some powerful Russians want to take over the factory and low-balled an offer. When Matthews wouldn't bite, they started harassing him by cutting the power. The factory makes the popular New Sensor tubes that I buy for my own tube amps. These tubes are better made and more reliable than their Chinese cousins. You can read the story as it appears in The Moscow Times. 
¶ Friday, December 30, 2005 0 Comments

  Another iPod tube amp

Here's yet another tube amp for iPods. The Concertino
costs $4000. I'll build my own when I can afford to buy an iPod. 
¶ Friday, December 30, 2005 0 Comments

  Harmonica Therapy
The harmonica is a good respiratory therapy tool. If you play harp you might try holding a blues harmonica class at the local nursing home or senior center. You won't make any money, but it may help someone live a longer happier life. Teaching harp is easy and fun and all you need is a few cheap harps and just a little more expertise than the people you are teaching.
Something to think about doing in the new year.
Read this article: Musical medicine Lung patients get a lift from the humble harmonica 
¶ Tuesday, December 27, 2005 2 Comments

  Auld Lang Syne harp tab
This is first position and uses the high end of the harp. It will take a little practice not to choke then notes. An up arrow is blow a down arrow is draw.

Should	auld	ac-	quain-	tence	be	for-	got
And	nev-	er	brought	to	mind?
Should	auld	ac-	quain-	tence	be	for-	got,
And	days	of	auld	lang	syne
For	au-	ld	la-	ng	syne	my	dear
For	au-	ld	la-	ng	syne
We'll	take	a	cup	o'	Kind-	ness	yet,
Fo-	r	au-	ld	la-	ng	syne.

 
¶ Tuesday, December 27, 2005 0 Comments

  Merry Christmas and a Harpy New Year

From Keith

 
¶ Saturday, December 24, 2005 0 Comments

  New Blues CDs Expected in January
Here is a list of new CDs that are scheduled to come out in January. Some of them are reissues or remasters of older CDs, but all of them look interesting:

 
¶ Wednesday, December 21, 2005 0 Comments

  Hughes & Kettner Clock

Hughes & Kettner - Clock
- This is a little silly. It has Nixie tubes inside that show the time in glowing numbers. If you are really really into tubes than this is a cool thing. It is an advertising piece and you might be able to get one cheap from a h&k dealer in a couple of years. 
¶ Tuesday, December 20, 2005 0 Comments

  Euro Tubes
Take a tour of the JJ tube factory. Euro Tubes 
¶ Tuesday, December 20, 2005 0 Comments

  atomic age hi-fi audio
Wonderfully artistic hifi tube amps. It's like an art museum. 
¶ Tuesday, December 20, 2005 0 Comments

  USB turntable for ripping vinyl
Hey you - rich guy who reads harpamps.com. I want this for christmas, please. I have a ton of Hot Tuna, Muddy Waters and Lightning Hopkins albums that I would like to rip to mp3. iTTUSB . This is just a little to expensive to buy on my own so I'm counting on you. 
¶ Monday, December 19, 2005 0 Comments

  Blues Harp Internet Radio
MidnightBlues.com has a Blues Harp only interent radio station. I'm listening to George Harmonica Smith playing Last Night and next up is Billy Branch. Pretty good stuff, if you ask me. 
¶ Monday, December 19, 2005 0 Comments

  Ugly ass amp
I've seen amps made out of old suitcases (cool), gasoline containers (not cool), beer cans, and backpacks, but this is the ugliest of them all. It's made from a PVC sewer pipe T. That's just the image that you want for your harp playing.
Actually, he shape of the six inch "T" is pretty good. There may be a certain odd aesthetic to the amp. I guess the guts would be the telling point on the quality.
You can buy a good IC stereo amp circuit board for about $20 and the T costs around $5. A 6 inch speaker goes for $10 at the electronics hobby sites. Throw in $5 worth of hardware and the thing can't cost much more than $40 before labor. $149 may be too steep, I'm guessing $79.99 is the right price for this. 
¶ Monday, December 19, 2005 1 Comments

  Portugese amp blog.
If you speak portugese there is an interesting artcle about champ tone at Portal Gaita-BH. I tried translating it at babelfish.altavista.com, but I only got tantalizing bits of it, and not the full sense. 
¶ Monday, December 19, 2005 1 Comments

  Jet City Blues
Check out Mike Lynch's Harp Blues Blog. Some good stuff there. Jet City Blues I liked his tip on amp channel jumping. I've used it, and it does make you a lot louder, and not having to struggle with volume helps your tone.  
¶ Monday, December 19, 2005 1 Comments

  Cookie Blues

This is an amazingly well done animation. Check it out if you have time. 
¶ Friday, December 16, 2005 0 Comments

  Harmonica pictures at Buzznet
I found this cool image at a place called buzznet. It's a good place to find pictures for your website or to just browse. 
¶ Friday, December 16, 2005 0 Comments

  Backpack Amplifier - $10
Rig a microphone adapter for your JT30, put this on your back and you are an instant wandering minstral - only ten bucks. (limited time) Buy.com - Sonic Impact 5032 Boom Backpack 
¶ Thursday, December 15, 2005 0 Comments

  AmpliTube - Demo Download
Amplitude has a free download of their Tube Amp modeling software. This is a plugin that you can use with any Audio editing software that supports plugins. You can get Audacity multi-track audio editor for free from Sourceforge - http://sourceforge.net/projects/audacity. Audacity is a great package to edit your sound files and it's free. Now, with this module, you can model the amp with Audacity.
AmpliTube - Demo Download 
¶ Tuesday, December 13, 2005 0 Comments

  New Classified Ads section
I've installed a classified ad system called Noah's Classified for harp amps. At this moment there is nothing there, but I'll take some pictures of a few odd pieces and test it out by selling an old silvertone amp this weekend. I will try and sell some mics also.
If you have something to sell, please give it a try. 
¶ Friday, December 09, 2005 0 Comments

  10,000 page views a day
HarpAmps.com, JT30.com, HarpTab.com, HarpLinks.com and HarpLog.com get about 10,000 page views per day. If you want to advertise on these websites, you can sign up to google adwords through the Google "Advertise on this site" links. When you do this, you can then create ads that are targeted to the Harmonica websites that I run. 
¶ Wednesday, December 07, 2005 0 Comments

  Free Harmonica????
I've been seeing these free harmonica links all over the interent and I finally decided to click on one. They were giving away a Suzuki Chromatic so I decided to see what it was about.
It is not quite a scam, but it is not quite a free harmonica either.
They make you click on about 40 different pages with various "free" offers or special deals. On my modem line each took 30 seconds to load so there is 20 minutes of my life that I'll never get back. I finally wound up on a page telling me that I had to choose three items form a huge list of offers and then I'd get the harp.
I could not find any combination of the "free" offers that would result in a net profit. If you are looking for a credit card, life insurance, credit checks, CD of the month clubs, or mp3 download services, then you might find something that you were going to get anyway. Of course, I discovered this long after they got my telephone number and email address. I gave them a special spam address, but still...
So once again there is no such thing as a free lunch. I can warn you, but I can't discourage you from trying this offer if you see it. You may get a free harp in exchange for some service that you might have bought anyway. Just don't give them an active email address and never give anyone a credit card number for something that is FREE! 
¶ Wednesday, December 07, 2005 0 Comments

  ZVEX iMPAMP - iPod tube amp
If you need a tube amp for your iPod, there's the ZVEX iMPAMP 
¶ Monday, December 05, 2005 0 Comments

  How to Build the CMoy Pocket Amplifier
Here's a nifty headphone amp that you can build for about $20.
How to Build the CMoy Pocket Amplifier 
¶ Monday, December 05, 2005 0 Comments

  Christmas Carols for the harmonica
It's that time again! Christmas Carols for the harmonica 
¶ Monday, December 05, 2005 0 Comments