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It’s a 2005 Salvi Sinfonietta. Perfect condition as far as I’m concerned; it’s been treated with care with a humidifier or dehumidier running constantly according to the appropriate season.
I can check if there is a certain range that is further off, but I’m not sure as of now.
So here’s what happened. I hunted and found I could travel 5 hours to meet a traveling L&H Guild Member Technician. I am very dissatisfied in the resultant intonation after the regulation. Perhaps the other aspects of the regulation were performed fine, but my need of the regulation was simply for intonation. I had switched from bow brand strings to premier strings. That means all the gauges changed; while small amounts, they did change. This would mean a technician would have to adjust each and every disc.
I don’t know what happened. I wasn’t there to watch. In hindsight I wish I had. I trusted the guild member…his name pops up all over this forum and he is well known, but at this point in time I wont say who.
I played the harp to test it and used a piece with enharmonics. E natural and F flat didn’t match…hurt my ear in fact…it wasn’t close. Same deal with B sharp and C. I get the theory that enharmonics are not exactly the same, however, they should sound close enough. I got the technician to adjust these to better satisfaction. He used the istrobosoft app to do the adjustments. AHHH! I got him to use my app (gstrings) and the natural and sharps were significantly off.
Here’s why using a cell phone app for a regulation upsets me. I had discovered that istrobosoft worked acceptably on my old iphone in the past. However, when I later switched to Android, the software was not acceptable. My harp wasn’t in tune with this app on my new android. So I stopped using it and converted to another app (gstrings) which proved better accuracy on my android. I have two suspicions:
1) the istrobo software was created originally for iphone and was just thrown together at a later time into an android version, and the android version was not optimized.
2)an app is only as good as the microphone in the device. Androids are not consistent. Each brand can have who knows what quality of microphone. So if you use an android with a bad mic, it doesn’t matter how good the app is, the mic can’t pick up the level of accuracy required.I will make the assumption that the technician didn’t “blow me off.” By that I mean, he didn’t fake it…not really check each tone. I do wonder if that was possible…he could have assumed I didn’t have a good enough ear to know better and it was at the end of the day and perhaps he didn’t put enough care into making adjustments.
So assuming that is not the case, that he adjusted every note with his istrobosoft app, the app just doesn’t have sufficient accuracy. Whatever happened to technicians using a mechanical strobe?! L&H technicians used to brag about how expensive and accurate their equipment was…that $4000 strobe tuner.
So here’s where I am. All of my sharp disks are significantly off. The naturals are a little off. The sharp disks then amplify the error.
I regret I trusted the big name guild member technician. Perhaps, it was his error to use an app and he had no feedback yet that the app was not accurate enough? I wrote him that I was dissatisfied. He never replied. Next time I will check ALL THE STRINGS and not just four. I guess if I found four out of four that were off…that was a sign. Again, I trusted.
So here I am today. I’m faced with making the adjustments myself now. I got myself a mechanical strobe tuner (old peterson 420 from ebay). I will get a hollow ground screwdriver as suggested. It was mentioned that screws will break or the slots will strip at some point no matter how delicate one is. Where do I get these screws when that happens?
In the long run, I will be very happy to do the adjustments myself and finally have the control in my hands. Thanks in advance for the assistance.
My opinion is it is absolutely worth doing. And it doesn’t matter how new or old the harp is. If you are happy with the voice of your harp, it’s is not like you want to or need to go buy another harp to have the levers you like.
I did it myself some years ago. I got a old used L&H troubadour that had really bad levers and changed over to delacour levers. That saved the harp and made it a pleasure to play. Certainly the old holes are exposed, but you can decide if that bothers you.
I only levered my harp with levers that would be necessary for my use. This is because I am using this harp as a rental or teaching instrument. I made sure it had all the levers I would need for Suzuki Harp Books 1 & 2 (maybe 3, I can’t remember), and then I also made sure it had the levers that I needed to accompany Suzuki Violin Book 1 as I also teach Suzuki Violin. I have never found I needed the remaining levers although I completely realize that visually it would look nicer. You can see where the levers are dense in the middle that the exposed holes are hardly visible. I think if it was fully levered, no eye (but your own perhaps), would ever be bothered by the holes.
I also had to redo the bridge pins so that the string was the proper distance from the neck.
This was all done at the cost of the hardware because I did it myself. If you think you are skilled enough to do it yourself, then I recommend it as it really keeps the costs down. I recommend delacour levers. I know the website has disappeared, but I believe you can look up Andre Glemin and he is a delight to work with.
Like I said, let’s not argue about getting a professional regulation. I agree. I have really, really good ears and an average person wouldn’t need their harp regulated at this level and just leave it another year. It’s me just wanting to make tiny, tiny adjustments. It’s not practical to keep taking a string off.
Yes, I have thought of lots of options. We had a traveling regulator and he quit about 10 years ago when he had kids. I have contacted the traveling guild and they say “so you you’re in Michigan,” meet us in Detroit or Lansing. Are you kidding me? That’s 9 hours away. That’s a minimum of a three day traveling event, drive day 1, regulation day 2, drive day 3. I live closer to Canada, smack in the middle of Lake Superior. There are two pedal harps to be regulated in this area and the closest next place that will have maybe two more for regulation is 100 miles away. Plus then you have to convince these other harpists that they actually need a regulation. I can’t believe the number of harpists who just never get their harp regulated, period.
We used to have someone who would travel Chicago, Green Bay, Calumet, Marquette. They decided the travel wasn’t worth it anymore when they had kids. I posted a picture of the remoteness of our area; and where I live is actually 14 miles further than Houghton. It’s remote and we got 360 inches of snow this past winter. It’s not a drive you take lightly unless you want a snowmobiling or skiing vacation. Summer is nice, but you’d have to want to go fishing or something in addition to regulate two harps. Haven’t had any luck, so all the traveling technicians say go to a major city and that means a minimum 3 day traveling event.
I will do the 3 days when I have to and can make it work, but right now an appropriate screw driver is more practical.
I’m very glad I tried because it appears to have worked! I just was looking for a little nudge that the bridge pin was worth an attempt or not. I first tried the bridge pin, but then still changed the bite on the disk with the disk screw. Maybe none of these adjustments changed anything by a measurable amount, but overall it moved enough. And the intonation is fine. That G flat – natural – sharp series is better than many of the other strings that I haven’t touched.
I hear what you are saying. I’m not afraid to try because facing the buzz for another few years will drive me insane because as a musician you work on tone and train your ears to listen in-between the notes. This makes me cringe.
I’ve replaced disks on this harp before and worked with the little screws. It appears to be one of the Venus harps with the brass problem. And so the forks on the disks have been braking off over the years and I have had to replace the disks myself. Yes, I know it should have been taken in for the factory to replace all the faulty brass, but
1) I didn’t identify the problem until the fourth disk had broken and happened to stumble across another harpist who told me Venus did have a brass problem at some point.
2) My recommendation to take this harp back to Venus for disk replacements has fallen on deaf ears because it’s a university with a bureaucracy to manage.When I have replaced disks in the past, my intonation and tuner tells me the disk is not perfect, but it has been good enough to get me through. I will trade a small intonation error to dealing with this buzz.
I would never do this with my own harp because I want the perfection of intonation from an expert regulator. But I’m willing to drive my harp to Chicago for a regulation every two years. The school hasn’t been willing to pay me to drive their harp in and set up accommodations for my stay, so they get their “ad hoc” regulation by me for free and if it’s not perfect, well that’s what it is.
When a pedal rivet broke off, I had to take the harp to the physics department machine shop for a repair. I think it’s safe to say I do have a back up when something goes bad because it’s an engineering school. But, the disks and screws are available at the click of a button to order from Venus.
I will try to find those regulation sources you recommended, because yes overall knowledge of the physical system is the secret to success.
I have worked wonders on their instrument so far.
So I’ve gotta try.
I need to follow up on this topic I started. The string was utter crap. I have never had such a bad string in all the 21 years I’ve been playing. It wasn’t just a slight discoloration that happens naturally when bending the string. There was not a single part on the entire length that wouldn’t make the crisp snap. I blew through the three lengths on that string in less than a month. And that harp isn’t really played but a handful of times. It was dreadful.
This was not the normal discoloration. But anyways carry on.
P.S. I think the Chicago 40s are then strung with more nylon by Lyon & Healy for budget reasons in the attempt to keep their profit up on a budget harp which is why your tech then recommended you switch it now that it is your personal instrument.
The string already broke within three days. So it didn’t last long. I used the next part of the length and will find out if that lasted or broke next time I’m at the university.
(Anyone having issues with their posts disappearing? This one seems to have disappeared.)
I disagree, many harpists use gut in the 2nd octave. Not all, but many do. I’ve used gut in the 2nd octave for 21 years and been just fine. It depends on the climate though. L&H strings their pedal harps with gut in the 2nd octave.
My personal harp will break 1 or 2 strings a year, the university harp will break over 20 strings in a year. It is because of it’s use by students and fluctuating climate control in the building. I am in Michigan where we get an average of 300 inches of snow per year but can also go swim at the beach in the summer. We can have negative 10 degrees Fahrenheit in winter up to 100 degrees Fahrenheit in summer if we were to hit the extremes.
The heating system can kill the humidity in the months of winter! I dump gallons of water into my humidifier at home each day at this time of year. But the university harp…I am wary of that humidifier in the ductwork. One year they forgot to turn it on even, so that’s why I am wondering if perhaps a month of extreme dryness could have toasted a string.
Certainly, I keep the storage strings in their plastic bags. I also date all of the strings in my inventories (personal and university) with when they are purchased and placed in inventory. That way I know that this is a Feb 2018 2nd octave A while at the same time I replaced a 3rd oct D with 2015 string. I can’t complain about the 2015 string, but I think the Feb 2018 string should not have been cracking like this.
The cracking Bow Brand string came from Vanderbilt Music and not Lyon & Healy.
The cracking string is a Bow Brand string. While I recently strung Premier strings on the 4th and 5th octaves of my personal harp, I was still sticking to Bow Brand for the university instrument because of the lower price.
I’m just wondering if this cracking problem is in the string or from sitting in storage for 1 month in a dry environment.
If harpists reply saying “no string could dry out that bad in one month,” then I feel I could justify asking the university to pay the higher price for Premier strings at least in the 2nd octave.
But I know this university harp breaks strings at an alarming rate because it’s in a poorly monitored, inconsistent environment…now it’s way too dry and then summer, I really don’t know how consistently the air conditioner is running. It sits all summer with no use and then I return for the fall and there are usually 10 broken strings. So it’s almost a waste to have higher priced strings in place going into summer.
The new levers came with threaded bridge pins, but the problem is the diameter is smaller than the existing hole. I did examine that the cut bridge pin still has a tad more than half of its length below the surface as suggested.
I finally got the courage to start this project. Â What I ended up doing is cutting the bridge pin shorter. Â Do you think this is acceptable or would drilling the hole deeper be preferred for a particular reason?
Hi there, I can’t help you, but I’m the one who put out a call a few posts earlier for Salzedo teachers. It seems us Salzedo harpists really like our method and want to know who also is Salzedo style. Membership lists should let us put an S or something next to our name so we can easily identify our peers.
