The Autoharp is one of the quieter instruments, which causes many problems on
stage. Its quietness is further aggravated by the fact that when you play it,
your hands are right where the mike should go, so you cannot get the mike very
close to the sound source. Because of the inverse square law, if you double
the distance from a sound source, you get 1/4 the volume. It is my observation
that to allow the audience to hear anything that resembles what you hear when
you place your ear against the side of the harp and play it, you need either
a mike or pickup or both built into the instrument.
Microphones
Lavalier mikes or mini-mikes are made by many manufacturers, and come as either
high or low-impedance, and as either directional or omni patterns.Almost all
of them are condenser miikes, which means they need a source of electricity,
either a battery, or supplied from a mixer or power supply as "phantom
power". (Shure made one model I saw that was a dynamic mike) You can sound
pretty good and probably good enough for a lot less work and money if you use
a high-impedance mike, though low-impedance signals are cleaner, and can travel
hundreds of feet in a mike cord. High impedance signals have trouble going more
than 20 feet.They only have two conductors (hot and ground), and use a normal
guitar cord to plug in. I like it when it is lying flat on its side against
the back of the harp inside the sound hole. You can use self-stick Velcro to
do this, since it also cushions the mike from body vibration. The autoharp body
is not very deep, so you don't have problems with the mike being inside the
instrument like you do with guitars.
I much prefer the sound and properties of a low-impedance mini-mike. They ar
harder to experiment with on autoharp than guitars and other instruments, because
they have to be placed in the soundhole, under the strings, to sound best, and
this means you pretty much have to drill a hole and install a jack so that the
wire does not hit the strings. Some people clip an omni mini-mike to the back
of the harp, which sounds OK but not optimum, in my opinion.
Pickups
There are two basic types of instrument pickups: magnetic and piezo-electric.
The pickup that comes with an Oscar Schmidt harp is a bar magnet, and the stick-on
things you put on your instrument, sometimes called "contact" pickups
are the latter. They use a piezo-electric crystal or a similar material that
generates an electric current when it is vibrated. Magnetic pickups are loud,
and great for bass response on an autoharp, while the piezo pickups have a more
woody, natural sparkle. Piezo pickups have to be placed properly, and it can
be quite a period of trial and error to find the "sweet spot" where
it sounds the best. Magnetic pickups have to go under the strings. Both types
of pickups need to be EQ'd= have their tone adjusted, usually with a graphic
equalizer. Most of them need to have a lot of midrange removed. Piezo pickups
sound a lot better when they are used with a pre-amp. They put out a very weak
signal, that can sound pretty awful if it's not connected to a device that is
designed to accept those kinds of signals. They can be had for under $50, and
DiMarzio makes one of the best readily available ones, that's round and half-dollar
size. Most amps and mixing board inputs are designed for magnetic pickups, which
have very different electronic characteristics.
What I do...
To me, the autoharp is a very imperfect instrument, and this includes its sound.
Even when I record the harp, I usually use a mixture of microphone and pickup
sounds- the mike gives me natural clarity and high-end sparkle, and the pickup
gives me warmth, bass, and sustain. I have a built in Crown GLM-100 hypercardioid
mini mike and a stock Oscar Schmidt magnet pickup and a Fishman AG-125 piezo
pickup all built into my harp. The pickups are wired together as one, and it
works for me. My mini-mike is wired to be unbalanced, and it connects to the
ring of a stereo jack, and the other 2 pickups connect to the tip. The ground
is shared. The pickups are grounded to the strings for hum reduction.
I plug a stereo cord from my harp into a Fishman Blender, which is a $350 box
(powered by a 9V battery) I usually keep on the mike stand that is a pre-amp
and impedance buffer for the pickup, a 9V phantom power supply for the mini-mike,
a 2-channel mixer to allow me to adjust tone, volume and phase on the two signals,
a good quality active direct box , and a patch bay to allow me to patch in a
tuner and effects pedals to the pickup signal. The Blender also has a mute switch
to allow me to connect and unconnect my instruments and switch instruments on
stge without a loud POP in the PA system.
What you should do...
This is of course subjective, but so is a lot of good info. What you need depends
on 1)how loud you want to get 2) how natural you want to sound 3) how much money
you want to spend 4) how often you perform and 5) where you perform. If you
only perform in quiet, listening settings, you don't need a pickup. A uni-directional
mike on a stand might do, and certainly either a low-impedance mini-mike installed
or the GDR would give you lots more volume. If you play in a band, even an acoustic
one, or if you are a professional player of any type, you should have a pickup
in your harp, even if you only use it for a tuner and for emergencies. There
are situations where you just need the volume, and being heard at all is the
issue. You may need at least a graphic equalizer or a good pre-amp($50 -$80
each or so). The way to mix the signals on stage is to start with one (usually
the mike) and get it as loud as you can before it starts to feed back or sound
really boxy and weird. You can't push a mike beyond that point. (With sophisticated
EQ you can get a few more db's of volume, but positioning the mini mike properly
does a better job in my opinion. When you find the right spot it sounds good.
Then add the pickup signal until you reach desired volume overall. Anything
beyond a certain volume will of course contain an unhealthy high proportion
of pickup signal, which always sounds less natural. But it can be heard. If
you want to sound fabulous, you can count on spending minimum (these are discount
prices) $50 for a piezo pickup, $10 for a jack, $10-20 for a stereo wire, $80-100
for a mini- mike, $50-60 for an equalizer, $90-100 for a stereo chorus. or even
more if you want a better mike. They start at $100 or so. That's a lot of money
to amplify a cheap instrument. But if we're on stage together, I'll blow you
away!
Songwriter and instrumentalist Harvey Reid has been a full-time acoustic
musician since 1974, and was the 1981 National Fingerpicking Guitar champion
and 1982 International Autoharp runner-up. He has released 11 solo recordings
on the Woodpecker label. © 1996 by Harvey Reid
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