mid-east parisian lever inotnation price?

[HBrock25]

I am not looking to be a pro harpist. I am a good musician and this used harp came into a store that I work at. I tuned it up and I enjoy it. I would have to pay 175 for it roughly. However, the levers do not raise most of the notes a well tuned half step up. Now, I tried to loosen some of the levers and slide them down (because the problematic ones were raising the pitch too much) but I can not seem to get them in tune no matter how low I slide it down. It needs more room than is available to actually get it to not go too sharp. Is there anything that can be done? Replace the levers, unscrew them ad adjust where they are screwed in? How much would that cost if it needed work?
And am I crazy for still considering buying it? My reasoning being, that I can always just tune it with the hammer to different keys. I will probably mostly keep it in one key just to noodle around with anyway, so maybe for under 200 dollars I should be satisfied to just do this? And never worry about fixing it.
That said I don’t think it stays in tune too well, but I think it would sound fine for hours at a time and does sound okay after being tuned.

Thoughts or advice or alternatives,

Brian

[william-weber]

Mid-East’s levers and the bridge pins upon which they depend are placed with such imprecision it might require a machinist to add or remove metal to get the intonation right. If you are truly satisfied with the tone, then keep it as an unlevered harp. Markwood strings will help there. Maybe you could get some Universal levers from Music Makers (try just one to see if you can get it set up).

If ever you get a harp made in a 1st-world country, you’ll be placing your Mid-East back on the market.

[kay-lister]

Save your $ for a better harp!

Kay

[Tacye]

If the levers are raising the pitch by too much you should be sliding them UP not down so they make less of a length change.

That said, may I draw cardboard harps to your attention?
http://www.harpcolumn.com/forum/message-view?message_id=23244914
I haven’t met that very model in person, but the cardboard harps I have met have tended to be more consistent in their behaviour than Rosewood Pakistani things.

[Brian T]

Maybe I am doing this wrong. What I was doing to try to adjust the tuning, was loosening the screws and then trying to move the position of the lever up down left right and seeing where that took the pitch. For some. I could get it where I wanted, and when I did, I tightened the screws back up…though this was difficult to do without it moving more in the process. But what I found was that when I raised position, the note indeed was getting higher pitched, and when I lowered it it would get lower in pitch. When I say lowered, what I mean is I tried to move the whole apparatus closer to the string. Maybe this goes against physics and or experience, but it did seem to be the case. Is there another way to move them up and down without having to loosen or tighten the screws?

[Tacye]

Ah, does it have that type of levers where there are two prongs sticking sideways form the lever?

[Brian T]

I am not sure I understand your question…but let me clarify…I did have it wrong. I was moving the lever as far up as I could. The reason that I said down and not up was because the screw was moving closer to the bottom of the lever. So I had the illusion that I was moving the screw down… But I was moving the lever up, as you said I would have to be doing to make the note more flat. And the problem was that I ran out of room to keep moving it to get flat enough to be just a half step above the natural note.

[Tacye]

That makes more sense.

[michael-rockowitz]

Brian,

Here’s an idea that seems like it should work.

[Brian T]

Tacye,

Looks more like the first one. Though I do not see the part you pull up or down. Maybe that is not part of the lever but called something else? But that does look like what those things are attached to.

Brian

[william-weber]

According to the tiny owner’s manual packed with Mid-East harps, you can slide the bridge pin in or out of the neck to ajdust the amount of sharping by the lever. To decrease the amount of sharping, adjust the bridge pin by pulling it out of the neck slightly, (using pliers) so you decrease bending of the string by the lever. It’s a bit like the fine adjustment for Loveland levers, only your bridge pins do not screw in.

[Tacye]

As William says, if they are not too far off the right position you can pull the pins out of the neck slightly to decrease the amount of sharpening.

[Author]

Posts