Hi everyone!
As we are gearing up for the 2nd edition of Future Music Lab, I thought I would share some great communication between the past and present fellow harpists, Una Monaghan (2013 fellow) and Jennifer Ellis (2014 fellow) regarding microphone for harp. Jennifer will be starting her fellowship on July 8th!
From Una to Jennifer:
Hi Jennifer,
Lovely to ‘meet’ you! Great that there are so many harps in Future Music. For my harp, I use a combination of a normal microphone for sound quality and a stick on microphone for strength of signal. I still like some of the signal from the stick on mic to be usable as a sound source, so I try to avoid pickups, both because of the timbre of the sound and also the coverage. I find that they are limited in the way they take input from the strings they are close to, and much less from those further away. This is partly because of the surface area - many of them are small and circular, so when playing you can clearly hear which string they are near to. Of course this many not matter depending on the purpose of the pickup. If you are just using it to register a signal, i.e. to act as a switch when the harp is silent or close to silent, then the pickup might be adequate. Because I like to use some of the pickup sound, I use Cducer strip mics. These are longer strips rather than single circular discs. Theya leo come in a pair and longer and shorter sizes. They are also useful for pianos.
None of the amplification I use is built in to the instrument; I stick the Cducer mics on with tape and clip on the air mic. For this, I use a DPA 4099, with a saxophone clip, as I find this clips into one of the sound holes. Although it is then inside the resonant cavity and so sounds a bit boxy / enclosed, it is still a much more realistic harp sound than any stick on or pickup I have found. This is partly due to its not being stuck on, and partly due to the quality of the mic. The mic also has a bendable gooseneck to help positioning. I should say that both these options are expensive - I have so far borrowed both the DPA and the C-ducers, but I am saving for my own DPA now! I use the DPA for amplification and for sample recording as part of the live electronics so I need it to be as good as possible a representation of the acoustic harp sound. If you are less concerned with the reproduction / amplification of the harp sound, then pickups might be totally fine.
If I were recording harp I would use bigger diaphragm microphones positioned further from the harp, but for live electronics work this setup with a combination of a good strip mic and close air mic is the best compromise.
DPA: http://www.soundonsound.com/pm/jun09/articles/dpa4099mics.htm
C-ducer: http://www.c-ducer.com/
I hope you enjoy Future Music Lab - it was an intense few weeks for me but for this type of work I find it so useful to be focused only on it for a while. it is difficult to make good progress in interaction and live electronics when not immersed! Good luck and have a great time at Colby.
Best wishes
Úna