DM48 interview with Erik Lekholm and Jason Keene

Erik Lekholm and Jason Keene join me on episode 67.

Where we talk about the innovative DM48 midi chromatic harmonica, designed by Erik initially as a means to practise silently. He posted his creation on a harmonica forum and it soon gained interest, with people eager to purchase it. So Erik and his father started building and sold the first ones in 2017, with the updated version, the DM48X, coming out in 2022 .

Jason Keene joins me in the second half of the podcast, to provide the perspective of one of the leading players of the DM48, which he describes as a game changer for his music. Jason talks us through the set-up and the limitless possibilities that this midi chromatic harmonica  brings.

Links:
DM48 website:
https://www.lekholminstruments.com

Jason Keene website:
http://www.jasonkeeneharmonica.com/

Reviews of the DM48:
https://www.lekholminstruments.com/press.html

DM48 User forum:
https://groups.google.com/g/dm48-digital-chromatic-harmonica

Millioniser 2000:
https://www.synthtopia.com/content/2011/09/23/millioniser-2000-tutorial/

Videos:
Millioniser 2000:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRPI_fD0iKQ

Erik Lekholm demos some of the capabilities of the DM48:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpUpvxRfgXM

Erik Lekholm explaining the DM48 at the NAMM show, 2020:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKHvvudb1S0

Brendan Power compares DM48 to HM12 and gives overview of DM48 features:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCy-0DR6Ikc

HM12 midi harmonica video from Brendan Power:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbD9oRdT3O0

Jason Keene talking about the DM48 being a ‘game changer’:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuLcopNVm6Q

Jason Keene demoing using the 8K Controller to combine instruments:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EI-GpHTKVCQ&t=3s

Laurent Maur playing the DM48 live:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_rt70dZY1I

Podcast website:
https://www.harmonicahappyhour.com

Donations:
If you want to make a voluntary donation to help support the running costs of the podcast then please use this link (or visit the podcast website link above):
https://paypal.me/harmonicahappyhour?locale.x=en_GB

Spotify Playlist:
Also check out the Spotify Playlist, which contains most of the songs discussed in the podcast:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5QC6RF2VTfs4iPuasJBqwT?si=M-j3IkiISeefhR7ybm9qIQ

Podcast sponsors:
This podcast is sponsored by SEYDEL harmonicas - visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.seydel1847.com  or on Facebook or Instagram at SEYDEL HARMONICAS
and Blows Me Away Productions: http://www.blowsmeaway

Chapters

• 1:30 Erik Lekholm is the creator of the DM48 midi harmonica
• 1:47 What is the DM48 midi chromatic harmonica
• 2:18 Connects via USB on old version, or option to connect wirelessly in new version
• 2:34 Erik initially came up with the idea of the DM48 as a means to practise silently
• 3:20 Possibly the first midi harmonica was the Millioniser 2000, which came out in the late 1980s
• 4:15 Was interested in electronics when younger, so had some of the skills to develop a midi instrument
• 4:45 Worked on a midi instrument for a drum machine as a student
• 5:25 Now works as a Professor at the university in Gothenburg
• 5:40 Came up with prototype of the DM48 and started the company: Lekholm Instruments, alongside his father
• 6:34 Much interest in the DM48 when Erik posted about it on an online harmonica forum Slidemeister
• 7:17 First DM48 batch sold in 2017
• 7:24 What was the learning curve like for Erik to build the DM48
• 8:23 Uses CAD software to print the physical harmonica
• 8:38 Most of development is on software side now
• 8:50 DM48X model brought improvements to the hardware design, released in 2022
• 9:32 Had some experience using piano midi instruments before came up with the DM48
• 10:02 Company is a sideline, not planning on making it his full-time career
• 10:38 Most satisfying part has been seeing good harmonica players use the instrument
• 10:58 The DM48 has 12 breathe sensors across the 12 holes of the chromatic
• 11:45 What is a midi instrument
• 13:00 DM48 is mainly a chromatic harmonica, but it is possible to use it as a diatonic harmonica too (with some limitations)
• 14:10 Bending ability of the DM48
• 14:39 Is it more suited to wind instrument sounds?
• 15:49 Can store 18 different tunings
• 16:24 Slide can be configured to change note in whole tones rather than half-tones, and actually up to 36 half-tones
• 16:44 There are effectively three slides on the DM48
• 17:01 Speed of slider can be configured and new slider design on X model
• 17:41 X model can be played wirelessly and bandwidth issues
• 19:29 The DM48 is highly configurable but the default set-up gets you going quickly
• 20:28 Set-up of software instruments is straightforward using tablets or phones
• 21:11 Hardware synthesisers
• 21:49 HM12 midi harmonica has on-board sounds
• 22:57 What does the DM48 cost
• 24:13 The DM48 is not currently available, with limited stock coming soon
• 25:07 How to get hold of a DM48
• 25:41 Showcased the DM48 at the NAMM music convention in 2020
• 26:08 Meeting Stevie Wonder at NAMM, where he had a play on the DM48
• 27:50 The parallel life that creating the DM48 has brought to Erik
• 28:04 DM48 can become part of your harmonica arsenal
• 28:48 Harmonica sound on DM48 isn’t that great, so unlikely to replace actual harmonica
• 30:24 Jason Keene section start, who sees the DM48 as a game changer
• 30:54 Jason is now based in Los Angeles and has played the chromatic from a young age, mainly jazz
• 31:50 Doesn’t play any diatonic
• 32:38 When did Jason first get the DM48
• 33:28 Differences between original DM48 and X model
• 34:08 Set-up involved with the DM48
• 34:46 Use of the Yamaha VL70 hardware module
• 35:05 Has some experience using midi instruments before taking up the DM48
• 35:36 What are the advantages of the DM48 over a standard chromatic harmonica
• 36:17 Brings great variety to your sound when playing live
• 37:03 Quality of the sound it produces
• 37:52 Can play multiple sounds at the same time, such as different horns, using an additional controller
• 39:28 How do other musicians react to the DM48
• 40:07 How to transfer the techniques needed to play a different instrument to the chromatic
• 40:59 Jason is a lyrical player
• 41:54 Demo sounds from the DM48
• 42:45 Has released an album where DM48 is used
• 44:14 Guitar and piano sounds using DM48
• 45:17 Playing single or double notes on the DM48
• 46:05 Learning curve of the DM48: Jason gives lessons on the set-up
• 46:55 Will Gallison and Mickey Raphael has taken some lessons on using the DM48 from Jason
• 47:35 Cost of buying the software instruments
• 49:13 Cost of the whole package
• 49:51 Jason’s current live set-up
• 51:16 Newer iPad needed to run multiple instruments and more advanced set-ups
• 52:03 Uses Bose L1 amp
• 52:20 Uses DM48 wired (not wirelessly)
• 52:56 Volume level is all good
• 54:08 Don’t need to use a mic with the DM48
• 54:16 Other external accessories that can be used with the DM48
• 55:49 10 minute question
• 56:50 Plans to release an album where Jason is playing only the DM48
• 57:13 Community of DM48 players, including Laurent Maur
• 58:09 What does the future hold for the DM48

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Eric Lecombe and Jason Kean join me on episode 67, where we talk about the innovative DM-48 MIDI chromatic harmonica, designed by Eric initially as a means to practice silently. He posted his creation on a harmonica forum and it soon gained interest, with people eager to purchase it. So Eric and his father started building and sold the first ones in 2017, with the updated version, the DM-48X, coming out in 2022. Then Jason King joins me in the second half of the podcast to provide the perspective of one of the leading players of the DM-48, which he describes as a game-changer for his music. Jason talks us through the setup and the limitless possibilities that this midi chromatic harmonica brings. This podcast is sponsored by Zeidel Harmonicas. Visit the oldest harmonica factory in the world at www.zeidel1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at Zeidel Harmonicas. Hello, Erik Leckholm, and welcome to the podcast. Hello, thank you for inviting me. You're here today to talk about the very innovative product that you've come out with, which is the DM48, and now the DM48X MIDI harmonica. But first of all, you're based in Sweden, yep?

SPEAKER_01: 1:41

That is correct, in Gothenburg, southern Sweden.

SPEAKER_00: 1:44

Can you tell us maybe about the product, give us an overview of what the DM48 MIDI chromatic harmonica is?

SPEAKER_01: 1:52

So the DM48 is... a MIDI controller. So it's a controller. It's not a complete instrument. It doesn't have any sound synthesis. It's not like that. It's just a MIDI controller, same as you can buy a MIDI keyboard. You would use that to trigger sounds from synthesizers. And these days, that would often be a software synthesizer. And this is exactly the same. So it's like a MIDI keyboard, but it's in the form of a chromatic harmonica. You connect it by USB or in the new version that we have now, the DM-48X, you can also So play wirelessly over Bluetooth and use it together with a laptop or an iPad or hardware synthesizers or whatever you want, really.

SPEAKER_00: 2:32

So great. So... You're a chromatic player yourself, and I understand you came up with this as a means initially to be able to play silently and for practice purposes, is that right?

SPEAKER_01: 2:42

Yeah, that was definitely one of the motivations. It all started with me getting a chromatic harmonica for my birthday for my wife some years back. And I've always been playing primarily piano and also drums way back. When I was younger, at least, I played instruments and played in bands and all of that, but I haven't done too much of it in recent years. But then I got this harmonica my wife started playing and somehow this idea came about to make an electronic harmonica and yeah that was one of the main motivations harmonicas make a lot of a lot of noise and we lived in a quite small apartment at the time also so i figured that would be nice to have an electronic one you can play with headphones

SPEAKER_00: 3:20

so there are other and there have been other midi harmonicas did you sort of help draw inspiration from those were you aware of those

SPEAKER_01: 3:27

i wasn't really aware of of any of the other attempts some you know after we we started selling the dm I've been contacted by a few people who have tried to do similar things. The one similar instrument that I was aware of was the Milunizer 2000.

SPEAKER_00: 3:58

believe that came out in the sort of late 1980s didn't it so it's quite a long time ago that one

SPEAKER_01: 4:02

yeah yeah i saw some videos some old promotion clip about this millionizer 2000 i felt like this is amazing that that would be such a cool thing to have and i even looked into trying to buy one but eventually i ended up trying to develop my own you know i used to be when i was younger sort of an electronics tinkerer i loved playing with electronics and also i started programming, coding very early when I was like 13, 14 years or something. But I haven't done a lot of that in recent years. So this was sort of a back to basics hobby project. I had a lot of fun putting this together. I never had any intentions selling it or anything. It was purely for my own pleasure. Mostly, I think the pleasure of designing it and building it. I didn't really know how it would turn out. So I studied engineering many years ago. And during that time, I was quite active with music, making music at home with my synthesizer. So I ended up doing a project, kind of a master's project at a small company. It's called Electron. They make electronic musical instruments. And one of their first devices was a drum machine called a machine drum. So I was part of developing some of the sound synthesis algorithms for the machine drum. Many, many years ago, this must have been like 1999 or something like that. So I have actually been part of developing another electronic instrument. That's kind of in the distant past. I left all of that behind me. What I do now, I'm a researcher. I work at the university here as a professor in bioinformatics. So I do research and teaching, working on human genomics. So this is sort of, the DM48 was a bit sort of reviving my old interests. But that's how it started. So then finally I had, actually rather quickly, I had this prototype and I realized it worked pretty well and there was nothing like it on the market. So that's That's when we started this company. Actually, it's together with my father, Håkan. So he's the other half of Lekholm Instruments. I would say more than half because he's the one who does all the daily work, all the economy, the sales, manufacturing, ordering components, taking care of

SPEAKER_00: 6:10

daily

SPEAKER_01: 6:10

work.

SPEAKER_00: 6:10

business. Is it right that he's the one who actually constructs the MIDI harmonica?

SPEAKER_01: 6:16

Initially, that's how we did it. And we never imagined selling too many of these. I had this prototype and Håkan, he also has a lifelong interest in music and playing instruments. So he got pretty excited about it and he recently retired also. So we said, let's try and see if we can sell a few of these. Also because there was quite a lot of interest posted on this harmonica online forum, SlideMeister, I think. And quite a lot of people were interested, were saying, I want to buy one. So we decided, let's give it a try. Let's build a small series of 20 instruments, whatever it was. Was it even 10 initially? I can't remember. And then it just sort of took off. And then initially he did, yeah, he even built all of them by hand. At some point I got too much. So now it's being done by this kind of subcontractor here in Göteborg. So I think we sold the first ones in 2017. So we should be on the fifth year now selling DM-48s.

SPEAKER_00: 7:24

But that's pretty amazing, isn't it? That you can come up with, it sounds like not a real expertise in this area and then go and build a MIDI harmonica or a MIDI any instrument. So, you know, what was the learning curve like to build and develop that and then get them out so you're able to get them to a quality to sell?

SPEAKER_01: 7:40

I mean, in fact, it was quite easy for me to build it. And it is a bit weird that this happened at all, that I now have this company together with my father selling a strange instrument. You know, I never would have imagined that like seven years ago, because this is very far from my normal daytime occupation but like I said I have a lifelong interest in electronics and especially when I was younger also I actually have an engineering background so I am an engineer so I do know these things the electronics isn't too complicated and programming is something I've been doing forever basically so it wasn't too hard I happen to have the right combination of skills also I've played around with CAD software like 3D CAD software and you can do 3D print thing very easily you know you draw something in your CAD software and then click a button basically and then it arrives in the mail a few days later so technically this wasn't too hard for me but of course the first prototype was fairly simple but most of the development has been on the software side since then and I don't have a lot of time for this so that's happened sort of incrementally I've added a few functions here and there and now five years later it's something completely different there was a big bump on the hardware side with this new X model that we launched a few For a long time, I felt that I won't ever have time to develop the hardware very much. But then suddenly got some inspiration. Also, some of the components in the initial DM48 were getting closer to sort of the end of their life cycle. So we wouldn't be able to buy them anymore. So it was a good time to redesign the hardware. And then I took the chance to also add some sort of much requested features like Bluetooth, MIDI and some other things.

SPEAKER_00: 9:18

Yeah, so you came out with the DM48X, as you say, this different hardware model. What year did you get it? Did you release that one?

SPEAKER_01: 9:25

The new one came out this year, the DM-48X. So it's fairly new. We started selling it early this

SPEAKER_00: 9:31

year. So again, as you mentioned, you were a piano player and a drummer. So you'd had instruments of playing piano MIDI instruments, had you, for recording purposes?

SPEAKER_01: 9:41

Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't call myself a piano or any player, but I mean, I played the piano. I'm not particularly good at it, but yeah, I do play piano. And when I was younger, I was quite interested in synthesizers and I had some home studio stuff. I still have, but I don't use it a lot. So I've played around a lot with synths and studio stuff.

SPEAKER_00: 10:02

Great. So it's a sideline for you. It sounds like your father is devoting all his time to it, as you say, as he's retired. Have you got dreams of this turning into a company that you could just do as your sole occupation?

SPEAKER_01: 10:15

Not really. I think we're happy the way it is. The motivation was never really to make a lot of money or anything like that. We don't really do that either. I think the main main satisfaction is that people are actually using it of course it is also a little bit of a side you know an income on the side these days but i don't think you can motivate it if you think about all the time that that went into it in the end especially for for my father but i think the most fun about this has been just you know seeing it take off seeing really you know world-class players using it and i guess making some sort of a little mark on the world of music that that's been the main satisfaction for us

SPEAKER_00: 10:51

no it's a tremendous thing you come out with and And I'm sure lots of people are very interested in buying one if they haven't already. So again, let's get into a bit more detail about what it actually is. So we've explained that it's a MIDI instrument that doesn't generate any sound itself. It needs synthesizers to play. So how this works is it's got basically... 12 holes just as a normal chromatic and it's got these breath sensors on it yes where it detects the breath of the plane

SPEAKER_01: 11:17

exactly same principle as these you know eewees or midi saxophones so you might have heard like Michael Brecker or someone playing you know playing a midi saxophone so it's exactly the same principle and probably the same type of sensor basically but just that in the DM-48 there's 12 of them these sensors can measure positive as well as negative pressure so you can do blows and draws obviously So basically 12 wind controllers in one box.

SPEAKER_00: 11:45

And so because it's a MIDI instrument, which if people, I'm sure most people are familiar with what a MIDI instrument is these days, but basically like on a piano MIDI keyboard, which most people, you know, that's the kind of default MIDI instrument, right? You press the key and then you're able to generate whatever sound basically you connect it up to software-wise, right? So this is the same principle. When you blow on the harmonica, you can generate any sound, obviously typically instrument sounds by connecting up to the software or hardware.

SPEAKER_01: 12:17

Exactly. For those of you not familiar with MIDI, it's a standard of communication between synthesizers that's been around since around 1980 or something. And it's fairly simple. It's simple messages passed along, like basically press C with a certain velocity or something like that. And then on top of that, you can transmit more information with MIDI. Like within harmonica, obviously a very central thing is the breath modulation. You need to continuously modulate the intensity of the sound based on how hard you're blowing or drawing in the harmonica. But it's simple messages that will tell a synthesizer to trigger a sound or to turn off a note or something.

SPEAKER_00: 13:00

and it is just a chromatic harmonica at the moment it's got 12 holes blow and draw and it's got a slide so there isn't a diatonic version and you're not planning to make one I take it for the reason that it kind of works better with a chromatic because it's you know blow and draw the available notes yeah

SPEAKER_01: 13:16

yeah I mean it works pretty well as a chromatic I think also I mean I've heard a few people trying to play blues on the dm48 and it's definitely possible and you know brendan power this amazing player he was actually the first harmonica player to try out the prototype he even designed a diatonic mouthpiece that you can fit onto the dm48 so you can convert it with his accessory into basically diatonic harmonica but I think blues players, they rely a lot on bending and doing all kinds of things. That doesn't work so well with the M40. You can certainly bend notes, but you have to do it in a different way. So for a blues player, they will lack a lot of the expression that they want. So I think it sort of works better with chromatic type of playing, which isn't as bending intense.

SPEAKER_00: 14:05

Yeah, so it's more clean notes, isn't it? Clean single notes. Exactly. There is the ability to do somewhat bending, as you say, and I think you said Brendan's come up with this where you can change the pitch with this add-on and there's various accessories.

SPEAKER_01: 14:19

Absolutely and now with our new model there's actually a built-in little pitch bender ribbon that you can drag with your finger on top of the instrument and you've always been able to bend with using pressure also on the DM-48 but it just works in a different way you know you can't know that you're shaping your tongue in a certain way or something it's just blowing a little bit harder basically and then you can get the note to bend.

SPEAKER_00: 14:39

I guess it's more suited to wind instruments is it?

SPEAKER_01: 14:42

Yeah Definitely. Sort of plucked instruments are a little bit incompatible with this type of control. I mean, you can certainly do it if you want to. And actually, Jason Keen, who I know will be part of this episode also, he did a fantastic video where he played piano sounds with the DM-48. piano plays But wind instrument sounds are, of course, a more natural fit because with a piano, everything happens when you trigger the note and then there's nothing you can do. You either trigger it with high velocity or low velocity and then you let the sound decay. But with the DM-48, the sound which is meant to be continuously modulated, that works much better.

SPEAKER_00: 15:31

yeah and as you say i'm speaking to jason keen as part of this episode as well so we'll get much more deeply into the playing side with jason but yeah so basically again you know it allows you to play pretty much any instrument that's available via the synthesizers that are available of which there are lots these days top of this it also you can have different tunings can't you so you can have i think is it up to 18 different tunings on the x model

SPEAKER_01: 15:54

Exactly. You can, by just pressing a button, you can change to any tuning you like. You can edit tunings, add new tunings. So I think there can be many reasons to get one. Some people are interested, like Brendan Power that we talked about in alternative tunings, and he's not the only one. Of course, this is an excellent tool to try out your new tunings. You don't have to spend an enormous amount of effort to retune an actual harmonic. In seconds, you reconfigure it and tune it the way you want.

SPEAKER_00: 16:24

Brendan's done an excellent video I'll put a link on to and he's showing that with the use of the slide you can actually configure it so that the slide changes it by a semitone or a tone or even up to I think 36 semitones so the fact that it's so customizable to do what you like you know and to have those say for example whole tones on the slide instead of semitones

SPEAKER_01: 16:44

and you can have actually there's basically three slides on the m48 and you can have them all do different things you know one semitone down or whatever you want so it's quite unlimited what you can do And also there's a lot that you can do outside in your music software also that would expand the possibilities.

SPEAKER_00: 17:01

Yeah, and also the slider actually can be configured to how quickly it reacts to the pressure. So if you think it's too slow or too fast reaction, you can change that.

SPEAKER_01: 17:11

Yes, you can introduce a slight delay because it does have a different feel

SPEAKER_00: 17:15

from a normal one. And the X model did have a different slider design, didn't it? That is correct. It can also be retrofitted on the

SPEAKER_01: 17:23

old instruments. We had some criticism, but some people also liked it. But the initial slider was a bit, well, I would say very different from a normal chromatic harmonica. And what we have now has action that is somewhat more similar. It's still different, but it's, I think, easier to get used to if you have played a normal chromatic harmonica. I

SPEAKER_00: 17:41

think so. And also, as you mentioned, the X model, you can now play wireless because the original model, the DM-48, you needed to be wired in, but now you can play wirelessly with the X model.

SPEAKER_01: 17:52

Exactly. A lot of people have been asking about this since day one, basically, and some have also solved this using third-party accessories that will transmit the MIDI data wirelessly and So it can be received somewhere. But now it's built in. So there's built in support for Bluetooth,

SPEAKER_00: 18:10

low energy MIDI. Is there any issues with latency with using Bluetooth while playing?

SPEAKER_01: 18:16

There's a slight difference, less latency and more kind of bandwidth. Depending on what you're doing, a lot of data can be generated by the DM48X. So in certain playing situations, like let's say you do some tongue fluttering or something like that, there can be a slight noticeable difference in the response. And it also depends on distance. When you go further away from your iPad or your computer, then latency can become an issue. Yeah, a slight difference but it's fairly unnoticeable I think I think demanding players will notice maybe they won't even notice right away but sooner or later they will notice some kind of difference but I think it's surprisingly good and you know MIDI over Bluetooth is used by many professional sort of accessories these days. There's MIDI keyboards and everything that run over Bluetooth MIDI. So that works pretty well. I would say for my own part, I would use it definitely as a very convenient thing when you're just playing or practicing. If I would then do studio recording and I want the absolute best response, then I would probably wire it up. But it's not noticeable in most playing situations, I would say.

SPEAKER_00: 19:29

You know, kind of a barrier for some people as well might be the whole setup and again I'll speak to Jason about that in the next section but I've read through the manual which is available online and you know there's a lot of parameters a lot of customization a lot of configuration so what would you say to people about the setup you know I guess it works out of the box fine and it's just configuring it is mainly

SPEAKER_01: 19:51

yeah there's a lot you can do but I would say usually you don't really need to bother too much about it because there's a few presets and you can store global set settings and then recall them whenever you want and it comes pre-loaded with a few different settings that they will work for most normal playing situations they're going to be just fine and then as you get more familiar with instrument you may want to customize the response a little bit you know the the breath response curve or the sensitivity or things like that and then there's also a bunch of things you can do with the midi configuration and i'll say most of it is for for advanced users and you don't really need to know too much to use it

SPEAKER_00: 20:28

yeah but obviously what you do need is a uh is the synthesizer and then the software to run to make the sounds right so absolutely you know again i'll get into that with jason but from a basic setup if you've got like an ipad or or an iphone that sort of thing you're able to play it through there at least for practice purposes yeah

SPEAKER_01: 20:45

absolutely some of the best instruments you can use with the dm48 are are available for ios and particularly i want to make i could mention these swarm virtual instruments from an italian company called audio modeling they're just amazing wind instruments that are like perfect match for the DM48. And they're now finally available on iOS, on iPads and iPhones also. So even a small iPhone is all you need to get started. And then there's also some interesting hardware synthesizers from like back in the day. Yamaha used to make a synthesizer module called VL-70M, which was made specifically for MIDI, saxophone, EWI players. And that's just amazingly good. I haven't made these in a long time, but you can get them on eBay and they're quite expensive, sort of sought after around 500 euros or something. That works really well with the M48.

SPEAKER_00: 21:49

We mentioned some of the other MIDI harmonicas. So there's one out at the moment, isn't there, a Chinese one, which is the HM-12, which does have onboard sound, so you don't need to connect it to an external source like an iPad or a computer to get them. So is that something you'd ever consider doing with the M48? Not

SPEAKER_01: 22:08

really, never. I knew from the start that you can't do everything, you know, and making a good software synthesizer is a huge thing in its own right. So I always felt that a serious player is not going to be interested in some built-in sounds that are never going to be up to the kind of standard that you can get with the best software virtual instruments that are available in the industry. So it's perhaps you could imagine for just practicing or something that would be nice to have some simple sound But on the other hand, it's so easy now to connect it to your iPhone or iPad or something. So I didn't consider it. I felt that would be too challenging technically if it's going to be good.

SPEAKER_00: 22:48

Yeah, and I think you made the right decision. As you say, there's lots of amazing software instruments now which sound incredible, right? So if you want to perform with this thing, you want to be using those, don't you? So that gets us on to the million-dollar question, of course. What does the M48 cost?

SPEAKER_01: 23:03

So the cost at the moment is about 1,000 euros or 1,050 within Europe because then you pay VAT and it would be a little bit less if you buy it from outside of Europe, but then you might have to pay import taxes in your own country. It might sound expensive. The sad truth is that we're going to raise the price because we don't have enough profit margin with this price. They're pretty expensive to make and the most expensive component are the pressure sensors And there's also 12 of them. And prices have gone up a lot on these pressure sensors and also other components. And also the new model is more complicated to manufacture. And that's done in a very craftsmanship kind of way, all by hand here in Göteborg. So they are quite expensive to make. And we will need, unfortunately, to raise the price even further. And we are aware that that puts it sort of out of reach for many players who would probably like it, who would have a lot of use for it for silent practicing or like expanding the expression sort of. But unfortunately, we can't really lower the price. On the contrary, the price will go up, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_00: 24:13

But on top of this, as you say, you know, the components are going up. As we know, there's lots of component shortages all around the world at the moment. So this is a problem everywhere. So they're actually not currently available, are they? You're low on components. So when are you expecting the next batch to be available. So

SPEAKER_01: 24:29

we've been out of stock for, might be almost three months or something now. And it's in part because of components and also some issues with manufacturing. They've just been very busy working for other customers here. But the components is a major problem at the moment. But we should have a few in stock within a week or within weeks now. So finally, we're getting there. But unfortunately, we'll be quite limited and I think we'll run out very quickly again. But then hopefully we'll get some more. within a few months. So there's been a lot of demand for the new X model and we haven't been able to keep up with that demand.

SPEAKER_00: 25:07

Yeah, so if people want one, what's the best way they can do that? They can contact you via your website, yeah? I'll put the link on the podcast page.

SPEAKER_01: 25:15

Yeah, the best would be to email us and say that I want to buy, put me on the waiting list, and then we'll send out an email to everyone who's waiting once we have them in stock. And then after that, it's going to be first come, first serve, so you just have to be quick then. But it's unfortunate because we're happy that there's been so much interest in the new model, and it's a bit frustrating to not have an of instruments to sell, but hopefully we'll catch up.

SPEAKER_00: 25:41

So you went to the NAMM convention in 2020 in California, and there's some nice videos you did there, and you made quite a splash there. I think then you got quite a lot of attention, a lot of interest there.

SPEAKER_01: 25:52

Yeah, that was fantastic. It was such a nice experience going there with my dad. Just a fun trip and just meeting everyone in the industry and fantastic musicians and all of that. That was such a fun experience, I have to say. Yeah, one of the most amazing things about NAMM was that early on, right after I had this first prototype, I thought about, you know, I really like Stevie Wonder and his harmonica playing. So I thought that this could be something that he might appreciate. So we sent him an instrument and we didn't really hear much. I did hear a little bit that, yeah, he might have, he has tried it or something. And then at NAMM, we were standing there by our booth and we heard some rumors that Stevie Wonder might come by. He really likes NAMM. And then amazingly, he comes in through a back door, like 10 meters from our booth. This is an enormous convention, but he just comes walking there right where we are with all his security and everything. So I held up DM48 and caught the attention of one of his studio guys, probably the same guy that that had helped set it up and unpack it in his studio or something. So then he kind of waved me over there past the security. And so we both had a little chat with him, with Steve there for a few minutes. And he was very, I would say, polite. He said, yeah, I really like it and everything. And clearly he has tested it. It's obviously not his favorite instrument. We would have seen him play it somewhere. But for me, it was enough to know that he has tested it at least. And just to meet him there was fantastic. So that's another example of how this can be much more rewarding than just selling a product. This is the kind of thing that makes it worthwhile. That was a fantastic thing that I will never forget. Not me or my father, Håkan. Amazing. That's been one of the most rewarding things about this, is all the people that we have gotten to know, like Brendan and Jason, for example, just to mention these two that we already talked about. It's like a parallel life now because it's so far from what I normally do. And then we can go to LA or Anaheim and just talk to two harmonica people for a week and have a lot of fun. So that was fantastic.

SPEAKER_00: 28:04

Yeah. So did you have a sense going to NAMM that, you know, these kind of MIDI instruments, are they the future of music? You think we're going to abandon the old style physical reeds and things like this and move to, you know, more electronic generated music?

SPEAKER_01: 28:17

I don't know. But I mean, NAMM has everything. It's the biggest music convention in the world so I mean I think there's room for everything and this is just you know another tool in your toolbox if you're a harmonica player and I don't think that many will band on their acoustic harmonica and well Jason I think is almost doing that but if I just think about myself I still enjoy a lot playing my normal acoustic chromatic harmonica so it's just two different things so no I don't think that's true with the M48 and I don't think that's true in general there's a place for for everything. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 28:48

And so the DM-48 as well, you wouldn't necessarily replace it as a harmonica because the harmonica sound, there aren't the greatest harmonica sounds available at the moment for it compared to some of the other instruments like saxophone.

SPEAKER_01: 29:00

Yeah, and honestly, it's not going to feel the same way. You won't get the same type of expressions. You know, if you want to play... harmonica then you should play harmonica i think if you want to do something else then then you can play the dm48 so thinking now about coming back to nam we had these amazing players coming by our booth they might have heard of it or maybe even never even heard of it and then you know they start playing this and all their life they've been having the same sound the harmonica sound you know same way as a saxophonist will always play the same sound and then you know suddenly they can do something completely different with the same technique that they already have just see their faces there sometimes was fantastic. It's such a surprise to them. And I don't think any of them would contemplate changing their old harmonica for a DM-48, but I think Many of them were tempted to get it as a compliment.

SPEAKER_00: 29:50

So that's fantastic, Erik, then. Thanks so much for talking. So we're going to move over to talk to Jason next to talk through more from a kind of harmonica player's perspective and what it brings to their arsenal of harmonicas you've just mentioned. So thanks so much for talking to me today. Sure. Thank you so much for inviting me to your podcast.

UNKNOWN: 30:09

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00: 30:17

So hello, Jason Keane, and welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much. So hi, thanks for joining, Jason. So you're here as more of a player and probably one of the most prolific users of the DM-48. You've definitely seen it as a game changer yourself,

SPEAKER_03: 30:39

haven't you? Oh, absolutely. I mean, I was playing quite a bit just sort of locally and people appreciate jazz harmonica, but this definitely causes jaws to drop a lot more.

SPEAKER_00: 30:49

Yeah, we'll get into all that and then the reaction and then how you use it. But first, a little bit about you. So you're based out and now in Los Angeles, yeah? Yes, sir. But you've been playing harmonica, chromatic predominantly, for many years before you picked up the DM-48.

SPEAKER_03: 31:04

Well, I mean, I had one in my hand when I was really young. The first harmonica that my dad gave me when I was about 12 was a chromatic. That's one of the reasons why I play chromatic. After that one died, I killed it, I'm sure. Went to a diatonic and it's like, well, where's the button? So I just always appreciated those little half steps.

SPEAKER_00: 31:23

And so you've been predominantly a jazz player then, have you?

SPEAKER_03: 31:26

It's really my main interest. You know, I play bass in the rock world with a band named Kyle Gasband, but my interest has always been jazz. I've been listening to jazz since I was really young and I rated my dad's records when I was about nine years old. He had all this Chet Baker. He was really into West Coast jazz. Sort of my general interest is more cool jazz and less the hardcore stuff.

SPEAKER_00: 31:50

And so now you are only playing chromatic, not diatonic.

SPEAKER_03: 31:54

I'm just the worst diatonic player ever. I mean, I wouldn't say that, but it's like so much respect for what diatonic players do. It's quite a different technique. There's so much more bending and it's just a whole nother instrument. Whereas the chromatic, as soon as I heard two Stillman. It was like, okay, wow. If you can do that on that, then that's where I want to go. And again, my influences were less harmonica and more guys like Chet Baker and Jerry Mulligan and all these real lyrical guys.

SPEAKER_00: 32:38

So you played a normal chromatic for several years. You must have been excited to see the DM-48 come out and the jazz possibilities. When did you get one of those?

SPEAKER_03: 32:49

Well, I got one of those, I would say the first month it was released. I saw that and my eyes popped out of my head. I was touring at the time as a bass player and desperately trying to practice all hours of whenever. And of course, the harmonica definitely penetrates every wall in a hotel. I saw that and thought, oh my God, this is the solution. But as soon as I started playing it, I realized, okay, this is actually a real instrument. This thing is not just a sort of a practice device. I had enormous potential for expression and everything else. And it's only gotten better since Eric continues to update it. Do you now play the X model? I do, yes. They're both pretty similar. The X has that little ribbon in it that allows you to do these cool slides. The possibilities are sort of endless. I keep expecting some 19-year-old kid to finally figure out just how cool this is and just become the next YouTube genius on this thing. Well, at the moment, that's

SPEAKER_00: 33:49

you. So You're holding on until a young person, as you say, comes and takes your crown. One thing I want to talk with you about is all the setup and what's involved with that and how complicated it is and how quickly did you sort of take on, you know, connecting it to the software instruments and that sort of thing?

SPEAKER_03: 34:17

Almost immediately. You can plug it straight into an iPad. And of course, in terms of flexibility and mobility, that was just amazing. You know, you plug it into the iPad, put on your headphones, and then you can play it flying on a plane to wherever. That was just so much fun because I'm sort of a chronic practicer, you know, whatever I could do to enable more time was great. Right off the bat, there was a lot of, you know, Korg makes an M1 module, which sounded pretty good with that. And then for more serious applications, I was using a VL70, which is a Yamaha module that a lot of the EWI users play with. And that was pretty amazing. Like that's modeled rather than sampled. That also was like, oh my God, this thing is, it's sort of limitless how much you can do with it.

SPEAKER_00: 35:05

So were you into, you know, playing MIDI instruments before? Is that something you had to learn about when you got this?

SPEAKER_03: 35:11

Sort of. I used to sit at home and be the mad scientist and literally punch in chords on the piano like one at a time. My first MIDI setup was an Atari ST. So I was somewhat versed with MIDI, but not to the degree that I sort of needed to understand it a lot more. And plus MIDI capabilities have increased enormously over the years.

SPEAKER_00: 35:36

So the obvious question for a harmonica player is, you know, is it a harmonica? And it kind of isn't a harmonica, right? Because it sounds like other instruments and that's the whole point of it, right? So, you know, what would you say are, you know, besides the fact that you can sound like lots of instruments, you know, what do you see as the main advantages of it over a standard chromatic?

SPEAKER_03: 35:53

Well, just the variety of sound. There are also a lot of things you can do with it. I use these, I sort of developed this system where you could use a hold button and an octave button to do these little piano arpeggiated things. I think there's a video out where I did sort of sort of a have you met Miss Jones sort of roughly, but kind of illustrated how that works. There's lots of actual physical things you can do with it. Playing live, it was one of these things where it's like, you know, you play harmonica all night long and it was fine. But when you can then whip out a horn section or you can, certain guys I know are using it for organ, it just opened up a whole world of possibilities. I mean, I see it very much like keyboardist. Now you can have an acoustic piano or you can have a synthesizer.

SPEAKER_00: 36:40

Yeah, exactly. And all those cool sounds that those keyboards can make, you can get close to that variety, can't you? Which is incredible. You can do it completely.

SPEAKER_03: 36:48

It's limitless. Since this will trigger basically any module, there's no limit to what kind of sounds you can produce using the DM. It's just a controller. So it's got all the capabilities of an electric keyboard.

SPEAKER_00: 37:03

Yeah, and so the quality of the sound, as in performing and recording, I mean, obviously you've released them album on with this instrument as well we'll get we'll get onto that but but the quality of sound is you know he's definitely good enough to perform and uh and to record with yeah

SPEAKER_03: 37:17

for sure yeah no i mean well it is to me you know i'm sure some trumpet players might be going wait a second come on yeah and that's specific to trumpet you know the thing is is when you're talking about all the different synthesizer sounds and bass and uh if you already know how to play the chromatic harmonica or diatonic for that matter this just puts a whole new set of tools into your hands that's the way I look at it it's like just part of the toolbox versus you know one or the other

SPEAKER_00: 37:45

You know, harmonica players are always talking about emulating the horn sound. You know, I can play the horn line from this song. You can really play the horn, right?

SPEAKER_03: 37:52

You better believe it. And combine horns. I mean, that's one of the things that has been the most fun is that once I kind of figured out, wait a second, you know, I use this device that I had built, which has eight buttons underneath it as well. That enables me to combine different horn sounds. And it's been a great education in horns as well. I started noticing like the trumpet and an alto is sound has a real kind of cool Mancini sort of an effect because it's these two higher instruments.

SPEAKER_02: 38:23

And

SPEAKER_03: 38:25

then you add in the tenor during the chorus and it's like, wow.

SPEAKER_00: 38:29

So you're not just playing one instrument. Like you say, you're playing multiple instruments at the same time. Yeah. The same notes on these three instruments that they're playing in unison.

SPEAKER_03: 38:37

Well, they are if you want them to. One of the things I do, my main gig right now is playing in Palm Springs on the street. There's this thing called Village Fest and I do it every Thursday and it's a long drive, but it's really fun. And there's just a zillion people floating around Like if you want to sort of attract some attention, I'll start off playing like a Miles Davis tune where when it goes to the chorus, I'm using not only three different horns, but the old classic, you know, Freddie Freeloader triad stack. You just tune the horns differently. And then the only thing you have to think about is like, okay, well, now when I'm soloing on the tenor, I'm actually soloing in more of a B flat configuration versus C and that kind of thing. So it's helpful if you know, you know, if you're a multi-keyed chromatic player.

SPEAKER_00: 39:26

Yeah. Wow. And you mentioned trumpet players, you know, so how do people react to the sound of this thing? And, you know, is it always well received when you're playing with other musicians?

SPEAKER_03: 39:36

It has been. Yeah. In fact, if anything, I've had a clarinet player came out to me and said, that's just not fair, man. How come you can do all this and I can only do this? So I think people generally get the gig in that it's not meant to, I'm not saying now I'm a trumpet player or now I'm a tenor player. It's an emulation of an instrument and it doesn't sound exactly the same and it can do certain things that a trumpet can't do. And there are certain things that vice versa.

SPEAKER_00: 40:07

I was going to ask that exact question, which is, obviously there's certain techniques to playing an instrument and certain sounds that, you know, are to do with the physicalness of the instrument, right? And the chromatic's the same. So can you really sound like a trumpet playing it on a chromatic harmonica, for example?

SPEAKER_03: 40:23

Well, the trumpet actually, to me, sounds pretty good because when I hear trumpet players, it's got more of those, you know, the sort of short bursts and things that a harmonica can do a little bit better. The harder is like a tenor sax when he's just doing a straight chromatic up and down you don't have obviously that kind of facility because you're blowing in and out and hitting a button so it's not exactly the same

SPEAKER_00: 40:49

so are you finding yourselves then you know finding techniques when you're playing the different instruments that kind of work on you know using the dm48 that you know that kind of work

SPEAKER_03: 40:57

yeah exactly and then you know my style is such that i'm more of a kind of a lyrical player anyway i think i mean you know that's uh could be just a limitation of my own technique or my own knowledge or whatever but But I've always, you know, sort of gravitated towards like find a really nice motif and then kind of develop it and less about how much shredding I'm doing and more about, you know, let's find a really juicy kind of tasty line to play. So that lends itself to, you know... The kind of emulation I'm doing on different horns is that I'm not actually trying to play Coltrane.

SPEAKER_00: 41:35

Yeah, so you're not like taking the Charlie Parker Omnibook and trying to sort of play all the Charlie Parker lines and that sort of thing?

SPEAKER_03: 41:40

No, and I'm, you know, there are guys on the harmonica that are amazing at that, you know. I would say my goal has always been to be a blend of Nat King Cole singing and Chet Baker playing the trumpet. Maybe give us a bit of a demo now. These are some different horn sounds and how I'm blending them. So this is a trumpet.

SPEAKER_02: 41:58

Here

SPEAKER_03: 42:03

is a tenor.

SPEAKER_02: 42:04

And

SPEAKER_03: 42:10

we've got an alto.

SPEAKER_02: 42:10

And

SPEAKER_03: 42:14

even a flute. Et cetera, et cetera. Now, when you start blending in is when it really gets fun. So like this is tenor and trumpet. And then you add in a tenor. Et cetera. I mean, it's limitless. It's just so much fun.

SPEAKER_00: 42:44

That's amazing, yeah. So you have released an album where you've used the DM-48 on some of the songs, right? So in, I think it's 2019, it's Jason King with Friends. I think you used the standard chromatic and the DM-48, did you?

SPEAKER_03: 42:57

Mostly, yeah. Mostly the chromatic. I was still feeling a little like I needed to explore it a bit. I threw a couple of things on there, and I'm a little more confident now. I mean, the next album I do, I think it's going to be mostly DM, just to say, this is the DM album kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00: 43:12

But for example, playing Goodbye, Port by Heart, a great Mingus tune, and you're using a guitar sound.

SPEAKER_03: 43:39

I always loved the Jeff Beck version. His is obviously better, but I thought, wow, you know, that would be really fun. Cause I love the, I love the song goodbye pork pie hat. And I put that out on YouTube just using the chromatic. That album is more about highlighting the amazing players that, I've had the good fortune to work with in Los Angeles, then it was about showing how great I am. Because if I could go back and redo it all, I would, for sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 44:05

But you've got plans, as you say, to release another album, which is going to feature the DM-48 more strongly than this one. Like you said, you hadn't had the instrument long then. But going back to this guitar sound. So I touched on it with Eric. Does it work better with wind instrument sounds rather than stringed instruments?

SPEAKER_03: 44:22

I don't think so. I think that every single instrument that I've sort of explored has its own technique. I haven't found particularly hindered. You know, like using the guitar, you can really explore some of those bends because this thing actually bends pretty well. And it's also not limited by a reed. So you could do octave bends if you wanted to. You could do almost anything. So I don't think it's actually that limited by the fact that it's a wind controller. Now, obviously, when you're playing a wind instrument, as a harmonica player. It's an easy transition to sort of, you know, the technique is very similar to a harmonica. But that piano stuff is, I mean, that's sort of my newest intrigue that I'm still exploring a lot, using techniques where you're using hold buttons and octave buttons and all that. I mean, I think pretty much anything you can think of, eventually you can play on this thing, I think.

SPEAKER_00: 45:17

Yeah. And so there's this concept, which we get too heavily into it now, but you can play either single notes or double notes right using it so you know which one do you like to use or both

SPEAKER_03: 45:28

playing live has been mostly about playing jazz and using these different horn sounds so i would say that's primarily what i'm doing but there's a huge possibility with you know using a piano sound and um it's completely polyphonic there's no limits in terms of a single note double note thing when i'm playing a horn you want to have it on a monophonic setting just because the swan instruments that i like to use on the ipad or that will first of all they're monophonic well actually that's not true the um the bass and the cello and some of those strings instruments will actually do double stops and things like that

SPEAKER_00: 46:05

so the setup can be simple if you you know you're just going to plug it into an ipad or something but if you're going to use it more performance and you're using these these swarm instruments you know what's the sort of learning curve to be able to do that is it still simply into an ipad and i mean there's a learning curve for

SPEAKER_03: 46:19

everything really you know just using a harmonica properly uh close micing or however you want to do it. It takes a certain amount of technique. You know, and I fiddle around with the Swarm sounds because that is, I must say, I mean, Swarm sort of was a big game changer for me too because they use that modeled setup versus sampling. It's a really big difference in terms of playability and how much it responds like a real instrument. You know, the learning curve is there. I give lessons,

SPEAKER_00: 46:48

so... Yeah, I was going to mention on your website, you actually do give lessons to the whole setup. Yeah, I

SPEAKER_03: 46:55

gave lessons to Will Gallison. So that was one of my big claims to fame. He's kind of a buddy of mine and a phenomenal player. He's one of my very favorite players of all time.

SPEAKER_00: 47:06

So he's using the DM-48 now, is he?

SPEAKER_03: 47:08

Yeah, he just bought one. Well, he saw one of my videos and said, okay, you convinced me. Because I think like so many other players, he was sort of like, come on, you know, I mean, really? You know, trumpet player? I mean, again, it's all just about adding new tools to your toolbox. And this one's a really fun one. Yeah, and Mickey Raphael also took some lessons from me. So I'm like the celebrity DM teacher.

SPEAKER_00: 47:34

There's these kind of different choices. There's these different synthesizers and software and things. And so I take it that some are better than others and the quality of the sounds are better and you have to pay more. So what sort of cost on top of the actual instrument is it to buy these software instruments?

SPEAKER_03: 47:49

Well, the Swarm stuff, when I first started, when I just first discovered the audio modeling Swarm instruments, they were only desktop. And they were pretty pricey. Me and a guy named Laurent Marr, who's an amazing harmonica player as well, and also one of the first guys that got a DM, we both wrote almost the same day probably to them and said, hey, how about some freebies? And so I think they threw me like a tuba. And whatever. Then I started, you know, I bought a couple of them and they were over a hundred bucks, I think. But now on iPad, these things are 29 bucks and then they go on sale sometimes for 20 bucks. Audio modeling has sort of reached out a couple of times, say, you know, what can we do for you, et cetera. I just buy them because I figure, you know, they're an amazing company. And for 20 bucks, that's pretty cheap for a virtual instrument that can sound so cool, both live and in studio So once you buy that, can you then play any notes using that instrument, basically? Yeah, you buy the trumpet and the trumpet has a huge variety of sounds in there. You know, you can do muted trumpet, you can do all sorts of stuff. And all those parameters, I don't mean to sound like an ad for Swarm, by the way, because there's lots of other great apps out there as well. But, you know, that is primarily what I'm using right now live.

SPEAKER_00: 49:13

I was talking to Eric about the cost of the instrument and, you know, it's not cheap. And so one concern people obviously they have is you know everything else you have to buy as well presuming you've already got you know a computer or an iPad or whatever so it doesn't sound like the instruments are that expensive these days you know you buy yourself you know what like kind of 10 instruments for$200 sort of thing

SPEAKER_03: 49:32

Yeah, if you even need that. I mean, that's probably the max of just buy four instruments. That's all I ever use live. You know, expense is one of those things that if you want to buy a professional trumpet, what are those, like$10,000? Yeah, exactly. which is, you know, it's a hardware module. And I had a whole setup with a mixing board and all this business. It was actually a pretty cool setup, but I had two VL-70s because right off the bat, I wanted to see like, wow, you can use two different horn sounds. You know, on my mixer, I had a little panning device so I could go from trumpet or then pan it back to the tenor and then put it in the middle. And now you've got tenor and trumpet and it sounded really cool. Then once this stuff came out on iPad, You know, then I realized, oh my God, you know, why limit it to two horns or three or four or whatever. I have some setups where I'm using, you know, like eight horns and you'll have some that are tuned slightly differently. You can do stuff like detune to three different horns to give an almost tremolo effect. It's kind of limitless. I start getting into mad scientist mentality once I start talking about this because it's just so much fun.

SPEAKER_00: 50:57

You know, you mentioned the live setup there and what you're taking. So what is your live setup when you're using the DM?

SPEAKER_03: 51:02

My live setup now is I use an iPad Pro and I just recently upgraded to the one terabyte, which gives you 16 gigabytes of RAM. That's a lot. That's plenty for what I'm running.

SPEAKER_00: 51:15

So from an iPad point of view, you do need a newer one, which has got better capability.

SPEAKER_03: 51:20

You know, I used an older, quote unquote, older one, but it's still upgradable, you know, so it's probably going to say 2018, something like that. And I did okay. But I would run into some stuttering once it got up to, let's say, four or five different instruments. Now, I rarely use that live, so it wasn't an issue. But then I was like, you know what? I really need as much RAM as possible just for safety's sake. When you're out there live, you want to have everything running good. So that's when I upgraded. And on the one terabyte iPad, they give you 16 gigabytes of RAM.

SPEAKER_00: 51:57

Yeah, sure. So there's the iPad. Sorry, carry on with the rest of your live setup.

SPEAKER_03: 52:01

It's an iPad. and then I go into basically a Bose L1. It's a kind of an efficient little speaker system. They are so much fun. And then I have two little, you know, the little base modules that go with it. And that's my live setup, basically an iPad into the L1. Are you connecting your DM wirelessly or do you wire it in? Eric and I always talk about this. There is very little latency, but there is a modicum of it. And so I generally play it wired just because I don't want, you know, to have any latency if possible.

SPEAKER_00: 52:35

So you've got your DMY into the iPad and then the iPad is then, you come out the headphone socket into the amp?

SPEAKER_03: 52:42

Yeah, exactly. I do have the new iPads, unfortunately, and this is a huge source of irritation for a lot of musicians, don't give you a headphone jack. Yeah. But there's a lot of third-party adapters that I can use.

SPEAKER_00: 52:55

Yeah. Volume is all good. Obviously, you get as loud as your amp can go, yeah? So there's no limitations on volume when you're performing live.

SPEAKER_03: 53:02

No, if anything, I'm always turning it down because those L1s can get loud as, you know, they get loud. So, you know, it'll fill a street put this way, which is primarily where I'm playing these days, but I've used it live on stage. You just put the L1 back farther and it's like, you've got your own monitor as long as it's mixed in the house, you know, by a credible sound guy. Sounds great.

SPEAKER_00: 53:25

And obviously you could plug it into a PA, you know, playing live as well. And so that's good. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 53:30

Yeah, no, it's it's again, once I went to iPad pretty much exclusively for live, things got really easy because when I was using hardware, it was obviously a lot heavier and I was using an outboard compressor. I have a Neve preamp, which I was putting my harmonica through and it was just a lot more involved. So I've got a simplified setup now because I still play chromatic, obviously live, and that's just basically a simple reverb. verb unit and I go straight into the L1 and then I can blend it with the backing track so they use on the iPad

SPEAKER_00: 54:07

so when you're playing the DM obviously into the iPad you clearly you're not using a microphone because it's going straight into the iPad as well so that's quite a difference as well isn't it

SPEAKER_03: 54:15

oh it's amazing

SPEAKER_00: 54:16

You mentioned you've got this MIDI controller, so that's an additional sort of add-on to the DM that you use. Any other sort of accessories like that you're using with the DM?

SPEAKER_03: 54:25

No, not really. The little button device really changed everything because my problem was that once I went to the iPad and I wasn't using a mixer to pan between two different instruments, I would have to... basically use my finger on the iPad. And I found that to be incredibly unpredictable because iPads get real funny in cold weather and some other things. So I'd be out there blasting away on some Christmas tune and I just couldn't, you know, I couldn't get the trumpet out. Come on, man, just, you know, what's wrong with you? And that sort of thing. So then I realized, well, you know, MIDI is something that you can configure all sorts of different ways. And I looked into if there were MIDI controllers that might fit underneath the harmonica. Now, this one's still kind of big. Eric always fusses at me about that. It's like, oh, man, that thing is so big, it ruins the lines of the DM. And he's right to some extent. But it works really beautifully. So essentially, with just a click of a button, I can put the trumpet in, click of a button, it's out. So you can do some really rapid fire. I mean, I like to do fours and eights when I'm soloing just because I can. It's like, well, let's have the trumpet player play a while. OK, great. Let's have the tenor player. Hey, and then now they're going to do something in unison. How cool is that?

SPEAKER_00: 55:45

You're a whole jazz band in one there, aren't you? Which is incredible. Pretty much. A question I ask each time, Jason, is if you had 10 minutes to practice, what would you spend those 10 minutes doing?

SPEAKER_03: 55:54

Honestly, I've been married to the Jamie Aebersold dominant cycle book for like 30 years because essentially I just run the whole thing. So what they have is they have all 12 keys and each Each of those keys are about three minutes long. But then if you want a quick study, so to speak, that the next track after all those is basically, okay, now we're going to run all of them and we're only going to do eight bars a piece. I get a big kick out of, you know, the dominant cycle kind of thing is just sort of endless exploration. And then I started studying with a guy named Terry Harrington a few years ago, and he was really trying to clue me into all of this, a little more advanced theory. There's so many possibilities with just playing against a simple backing track like that. So I'd say if I only had 10 minutes, that's what I usually do. I usually warm up. In fact, frequently I warm up on the way to the gig in the car.

SPEAKER_00: 56:50

Just talking about what future plans you have for this, you've mentioned releasing an album more than dedicated on the DM. So is that something that might be coming out soon?

SPEAKER_03: 56:58

I'd say this year, definitely. Let's say within a year from now, I want to put out another album and just really highlight all the things this thing can do.

SPEAKER_00: 57:08

And it sounds like we're going to be hearing albums from other players. And of course, there are other players using it around. So there's a little community of DM48 players around the world. Are you in touch with each other? Well, I'm in touch with

SPEAKER_03: 57:19

Lauren. I've actually taken some lessons from him because he's just a great player.

SPEAKER_02: 57:23

So

SPEAKER_03: 57:34

He also is sponsored by Lecombe. Yeah, there's just a whole bunch of people that are now starting to just explore it. I'm happy to show them anything I can with the hopes that eventually they're all going to come back and show me stuff. There is that kind of attitude right now, which is this is just a whole new world of things you can do as a harmonica player. These things have always been open to keyboardists. It's such a game changer for me because I love the harmonica, but I I also love just sound in general. So the ability to say, well, what kind of sound should we create at this point? And what could enhance this song other than a harmonica?

SPEAKER_00: 58:17

Well, as we mentioned, there's probably some 16-year-old listening to this who's going to come and revolutionize ADTM.

SPEAKER_03: 58:23

I expect it. It's like it's your obligation to basically take this instrument to the next generation. So if you're out there, get cracking.

SPEAKER_00: 58:32

So thanks so much, Jason, for speaking to you. Ditto. Thanks to Zydle for sponsoring the podcast and be sure to check out their great range of harmonicas and products at www.zydle1847.com or on Facebook or Instagram at Zydle Harmonicas. Thanks to Eric and Jason for talking us through the DM-48. It sounds like whole heaps of fun to play with. Also thanks to Rob Sawyer for donating once again to the podcast. Please be sure to check out the website at happyhourharmonica.com We all wished our harmonica had a brain. with the DM-48, perhaps it now does.

UNKNOWN: 59:48

Thank you.