Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
How’s everyone feeling about their Premier strings? They’ve been around for a few years now and I imagine someone is prepared to talk about their experiences with them.
I looked at the Roland Street amp today but it’s 5 watts. I need something that will boost my sound above the chatter of cocktail hours, of dinner talk, etc when there’s around 100+ people. Also looked at the Roland 40XL and was about to buy it when I went to the inner-room for acoustic instruments at Guitar Center and listened to the amps in that room. I told them I wanted to spend “close to nothing” and they brought their house-brand amplifier into the room, an “Acoustic” amp. It is an Acoustic AB50 50watt 1X10 acoustic bass amplifier with no bells or whistles, only EQ (yay) for $149 (just now on sale) and it made the guitar sound totally clean and just… well, amplified… just like itself. I liked it better than the $700 Fishman amp. So I said “taken”, got it because I was enthusiastic about the sound, got it out of the car and realized it’s 33 pounds. Oh well. I have a small dolly I’ll put it on; was hoping for something I could just sling over my shoulder (one can wish…). Now for a microphone. I found an instrument maker (violins etc) here in Houston who amplifies his instruments. He said he’ll ponder harp/ research it and give me a recommendation on the microphone. I don’t want to drill a hole in the harp–I looked at the Schatten Pickup at schattendesign.com I’ll find out how it goes next Saturday at the 2 hour cocktail party for 200-300 people!Any suggestions are warmly welcomed.
As of today I’m in the market for the whole kit and caboodle and also want light & wireless. I’ve never had my own amplification but need to find something during the sales this weekend. The Roland CUBE 40XL looks good to me. Can you use a wireless mic with it?
A venue I once played set me up with a wireless mic and a Pyle Pro. Don’t know anything about it except everyone said it sounded good.
Sylvia, did you come up with a solution?Well, I checked the humidity and temperature here at home and it’s consistently 60% RH or a little below and 60-70 degrees in the house. I’ll have to find out about the finish.
Hi Carl–thanks for checking this.
The harp was originally put together in 1981 in CA by Dale Barco, then rebuilt in 2001 by Venus Harps. Actually, the sun wasn’t really bright and there wasn’t much beaming through to my area (I was in a semi shaded area). As I think about it, the sun was going down and more behind me… but that’s not to say there was no sun at all on the harp; also, the scenario might have changed during the ceremony (I was just watching for mothers, bridesmaids, the bride…etc.). IHi Karen,
Thanks for your concern. It was about a 20 minute ceremony and I tuned and played 30 mins before so I’d say about 1 hour at most that I had the harp out in the weather.I kept the harp room temperature low (in the 60s) before I took the harp out.
As far as sunlight, I put myself in a shaded area though there may have been a little sun on the harp. Your hypothesis may be correct because it was just one side of the soundboard that really had lots of hairline cracks. So maybe there was some sun on that side.And yes, the soundboard was rebuilt along with the harp back in 2001.
And no, there were no cracks before the gig. The reason I know is because I played a similar outdoor wedding last weekend and saw some hairline cracks in the finish on the other side of the soundboard which absolutely astounded me and I thought “hmm, the sunlight must be exposing them… I just never saw them before, good thing there’s only two”. Well, I guess the same thing must have happened then only with less effect. Maybe because last weekend was a windy day which lessened the effect of the sun?????
