bought my first amp

Chris · Guest

Hello, I am new to this board. I am also very new and probably ignorant to amps, etc.

My question is,, I recently bought a small 15W Peavey off of ebay, so it hasn't arrived yet. I wanted to use the amp for playing my harp (harmonica) thru. Now I get to thinking, maybe not all amps are created equal? All I want to do is get an electric gritty sound. Should I have bought some kind of "Vocal" PA amp?
Also, is there importance in using a mic that has some sort of appropriate impedance?

So, did I blow it? And is it time to buy an electric guitar?

Thanks for any help.

Chris

TimC · Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2003 11:41 am Post subject:

Chris, I'm guessing your mic uses the standard XLR connectors. Your going to need to buy an adaptor that takes your XLR on one end, and a male 1/4" phone plug on the other. Your mic produces a low impedance signal. The amp needs to be fed a high impedance signal. The adaptor will need an impedance matching transformer built in. Radio Shack sells a cheap one. You've got to remember that a microphone puts out a lot less power than a guitar pick-up. The amp will not be very loud unless you get a little pre-amp pedal to go between the mic and the amp to boost the signal some. These are available just for harp players. Learning all this electric instrument stuff is a long road with many a wrong turn. I think I'm mucking about in one of the blind alleys sometimes. Very Happy

TimC · Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2003 1:48 pm Post subject:

Sometimes an answer doesn't show as a new posting. Looks like this happened again.

Chris · Guest

Tim,

Thanks a lot for your help. At least I now have a place to start with all this!

Chris Very Happy