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Electric
Lever Harps
Electric
Pedal Harp
Purchasing
Information
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After much experimentation, I have developed a pickup
that is specifically suited to amplifying the harp. Most other
methods of capturing the sound of the harp fall short in some
manner. What is needed is a device that simply captures the vibrations
of the strings. The strings carry the full sound of your harp,
but they have a very small surface area and don't radiate well
enough to be heard directly. To capture these complex vibrations
a pickup must be very sensitive to the strings, yet remain relatively
insensitive to the "housekeeping sounds" of
the harp such as pedal movements, tuning wrench noises, the inadvertent
bump against the body of the harp, and of course feedback. The
Kortier harp pickup does all this, and sounds great.
Here is how the system is put together- the Kortier
pickups contain a small piece of piezoelectric material which
is encased in a protective resin housing. A stainless steel dowel
is situated between the string and the piezo element. The piezoelectric
material emits an electric signal when vibrated by the harp string.
To protect against hum in the system, the signals are transferred
by a coaxial wire terminated by a coaxial connector. These connectors
snap onto matching connectors on a common buss strip which is
also fully shielded. The buss strips are in turn connected together
by coaxial cables to form a single complete circuit. The output
jack has a preamplifier built into it and this also has the same
UMCC coaxial connector preinstalled on the input lead wire. It
is snapped onto the common buss wherever convenient, and the
combined sound of all your strings is sent out to your sound
system or recording device. The preamplifier is powered by a
9 volt battery which lasts for an estimated 1,000 hours of use.
Pickups on YOUR harp-
If you are a DIY sort of person, technically inclined,
I will sell you a package including all the parts necessary to
install pickups on your harp. You
can build a solid body electric harp from scratch, retrofit an
existing electric harp that is not working up to the task, or
install the package on an existing acoustic harp to make it into
an Acoustic/Electric harp. The process will not change the acoustic
functioning of your instrument. The complete cost for a 36 string
harp is $600, or $800 for a pedal harp. This includes the 36
or 47 pickups, all necessary wiring, a Fishman preamp, and shipping
to you. Additional pickups are $12 each, additional preamps are
$100 each (If you wish to separate your string band into zones.).
In order to install the pickups on your harp you will
need to drill a 3 mm hole (1/8 inch) through your soundboard
next to each pickup. This does not appreciably weaken the soundboard,
but you must decide whether you are comfortable doing this or
not. I give no guarantee, but I have never had a problem. The
wire coming from each pickup already has the tiny coaxial connector
attached to it. This connector will pass through the 3 mm hole
into your harp, and it snaps onto a mating connector on the connection
strip which you will mount inside your harp. These connector
strips can be fastened in place using foam mounting tape. The
connector strips are, in turn, connected to each other using
cables with the same UMCC connectors..The Fishman Powerjack preamp
also has this connector preinstalled, so you can snap it to your
array of pickups. The pickups and the preamp can be snapped on
at any point that is convenient on the connector strips since
they all feed into the same common circuit. The preamp is powered
by a 9 volt battery, which you will mount inside the harp in
the supplied velro pouch. As mentioned above, you can separate
your strings into more than one area by purchasing another preamp
for each additional section that you want. However, most harps
work best by simply connecting all the strings into one circuit,
with one output jack.
To purchase, go to my Purchase
Page, click here.
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