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Hannah
The Nightingale is made by Lewis Creek Harps and yes, it is one of the best lap harps made. Any one who wants to try their hand at wire wire strings the Music Maker Limerick with wire strings sounds great and fits most people’s budget. Good choices Hannah.When buying an amp for a harp make sure it is a bass or keyboard amp. Not a guitar amp. The bass amp will pick up the highs with no problem but it will be able to handle the strong basses. A guitar amp is not made for the strong bass signals which will damage the speakers and over heat the electronics causing breakdowns and repairs.
If the cable between the amp and the harp create a swishing noise when moved someone sold you a speaker cable (not shielded) by mistake or you purchased a very cheap cable. A high quality harp and a high quality amp requires a high quality connection between the two. You CAN hear the difference.
I’d like to tell you a story when I was at the WHC in Vancouver. I walked into the vendor hall and heard what I perceived was a wildly great harpist playing on an amplified pedal harp. I was right about the first but wrong about the latter. Head popping over the crowd I spotted Jakez (Pres. of Camac) playing up a storm on ,yes, a Grand Harpsicle. When he was done he said, “You can really play this thing”. I guess so. You should of heard him. Also in the booth was Marta Cook (Grammy harpist and Irish champion). She told me she twice took a Grand as her primary harp on two tours in Europe because it weighed only 11lbs, was easy to take on a plane, bus, taxi etc. and she had the option to play it acoustically or plug it in.
That being said the rest of this is probably too much info but this is the part that interests me. The Grand does not have a pickup on every string like other electric harps so I don’t think it would work will with Midi systems. It uses a single L.R.Baggs strip pickup when in conjunction with the narrow soundbox gives a really well balanced acoustic sound, not an electric sound, when plugged in. It has a built in preamp. All preamps I know of need a 9 volt battery that wear out at the worst time have to be changed. Their preamp has no battery but uses a capacitor that will never wears out. Just charge it for 60sec. and it lasts for 18 hrs. “Cool”. The amp they were using was a 250 watt Fishman Stick that weighs only 25 lbs. No wonder why it had such a big sound.
I too got my start on a MidEast harp. The Pakistani harp was the only way to go for a “cheap harp” until the Harpsicle came along. It’s slightly above your budget but you’ll find it worth it. There are actually top name harpist (Sylvian Blassel, Patrick Ball, Cheryl Anne Fulton) that play or perform with them. In the UK you can find them at Pilgram Harps. They make their own harps but the Harpsicle is the only harp they carry that they do not make. Troubadour Harpen sells them in the Netherlands. There are outlets in Spain, France and Germany but I don’t know who they are. I hope that is some help and good luck.
You may want to check out the electric/acoustic Grand Harpsicle. It is 33strings, designed for airplane transportation,weighs about 10 pounds, and uses an advanced MiSi preamp with an L.R. Baggs pickup system. I don’t own one myself but on a few occasions I have had to plug them in on stage. They really need no EQ adjustment. Plug them in to the sound system with all knobs flat set at zero and it sounds great. I know that Grammy winning Marta Cook USA and Una Flanagan IRE travel with them and use them in concert and pub settings.
If you want it done in California, check with Sylvia Woods Harp Center in the Los Angeles area or Harps Etc. in the Bay Area. They would both know where to send you in the Calif. area. Best of luck.
A good harp soundboard should belly up. If not, it is too thick and over built. Bellying is caused by all the strings pulling up on the soundboard. It will eventually stop which at that point it is said that the soundboard has “opened up”.
This is for Diane. I am a sound tech and a musician/teacher. You are very wrong about “Popsicles” actually Harpsicles. If you want them as a “toy” I guess you can do that. But they can also be a serious instrument. They are sold by Sylvia Woods Harp Center, Harp Connection, Pilgrim Harps UK etc. and they would not ruin their reputation by selling a “toy”, I know of pedal harpists that use them as practice harps and serious musicians that perform with them on stage. Being a sound man I can tell you that the Harpsicle does have good balance of bass and treble, plenty of acoustic volume and when they are plugged in these little guys are awesome.
