Thank you, it was a good night.

Thanks, its been a while. Start of covid I needed to stop and take care of my elderly mother fulltime. That has blown out to a four year stint and I finally admitted her into permanent residential care last week as she is 99 and things were getting a bit hard here for both of us. Looking forward to getting back to what I was doing but its going to take me a while to ramp up. Yes, sold the house thank goodness, that was getting difficult as I am living far from it now and it was getting attacks from destructive people. Yes all the best over the next month, hopefully next year will be better for all of us.

I'm glad you got something from the video. Both options are ok. I usually record in mono if I am going to put the harp in a mix with other instruments as I find it easy to place. Solo I usually record in stereo. If you record in stereo be careful to avoid phase cancellation issues (other people have videos on this). There are plug ins to assist in phase cancellation issues if you are recording with a DAW or often a phase inversion button if you are going through a mixing desk. In the end it is all subjective like most other things about recording, there is no definitive "right" way, trust your ears to get the sound you like the best.

Yes its a nice machine. I haven't bothered making a video because I keep thinking all ukuleles on KZbin to me sound alike because to the compression that they use on the channel. People have been asking me about though, so I will probably do one after I get back from my trip. If I do I'll certainly let you know.

I forgot I did that, can't think of what I was thinking. I'm glad the video helped you out a bit. I've stopped operating a commercial facility, these days I just stick a field recorder in front of the harp and edit it on a laptop. Seems to work for most things, although while the field recorders that are commercially available are quite good, I'd certainly recommend experimenting with EQ to get a suitable sound for what you are after and to be wary of the hiss those things create and look at some way to gate it out.

Thank you very much. Its not easy to do a mix down with the two disparate elements. Looking back I regret putting the white noise in now, was trying for a seaside sort of feel with it.

Thank you

I'm glad you liked the video. I bought this harp because the idea of cross strung appealed to me but I didn't know that I could cope with the layout. I found that I was fine with that and have since sold this lovely little harp and replaced it with a large cross strung.

Thanks glad you enjoyed the show.

Glad you liked it mate. It was a lovely little harp, I have since sold it and bought a larger cross strung. Have played on a couple of other Stoney End instruments and they were both nice.

Not irritating enough?

Thanks Leonie, unfortunately I make it up as I go along and don't use sheet music. I've seen a few people play this so I presume there is music for it out there somewhere. If you get stuck see if you can pick out the melody by ear and maybe do a search for a guitar tab to give you the chords. That will at least give you a bass line to play against the melody and perhaps you can build up an arrangement from there. Sounds like a lot of work I know, and will probably take you forever to do the first time you try it but its a good skill to have.

I do have one music sheet, but your version is so much better. Thankyou and keep posting, you have a real gift.

I thought I might have covered this in the first two videos, but it was a long time ago. Let me see. The dulcimer is over 100 years old and was made in the backwoods of rural Western Australia. It is made out of a local wood called jarrah which is very good for building houses with but a tonewood by no means. Given where the dulcimer was found, the original maker was probably a local timber worker and jarrah may have been all he had access for. It was used for playing at local (to the area) dances up to about 40 or 50 years ago. The restoration is 90% complete. I still need to replace the side railways with tubing of a smaller diameter so they don't pop out and I need to put some superglue around some of the tuning pegs to help them hold better. Go to the last video in this series to hear what it sounds like.

Glad to help out John.

yes it is unfortunate isn't it. Glad you liked the arrangement, thanks for checking in.

Oh I'm sure. I'm looking into writing 15 second pieces for Facebook Ads, greeting cards, low fi computer gaming, instagram, tiktok etc. It looks to be a growing market. If something can be written and played on this little gadget then it fits the bill of working on other devices.

That was back in the days when I used to take the video making a lot more seriously. Had a lot of fun.

Glad it made your day better.

Thanks, a couple of false starts that got edited out but we won't tell anybody.

Thanks Jasmine would sound better out on the street but you can't have everything. Hope all is well.

Actually I sold this a couple of years ago. The only reason I bought it in the first place was to see if I could deal with the fingering system. I ended up getting Brandden Lassels to build a bigger one for me. I have it with me, but can't really play it as my elderly mother who I am caring for cannot stand the sound of it (or any music in general). How is your prototype coming along?

Adam B Harris I’ve finished... will put up a clip this weekend.

Ha, not me, you must have me confused with some other gentleman.

Certainly not the instrument's strength, but it's not a big feature of my playing anyway. I have since sold this one and graduated to a 61 string model. Good fun and you can do most things.

Adam B Harris I guess it sounds out of key unless you are in C. I never liked piano glissandos in other keys

Glad you enjoyed the show. Unfortunately, they cranked up the heating in the church half an hour before I started which put the hammered dulcimer out of tune by quite some margin. All for a good cause.

Thanks mate, I used to do a lot of piano bar work back in the days when I played piano and got used to working without music then.

Thanks mate, been thinking about doing one for True Colours as well.

Didn't see you there Phil and they never told me. Good to see you are still with us. Having just listened to this the first time since it was done, yes its ok, probably needs some more midrange and highs in the percussion section.

@@AdamBHarrisHarpist Yeah I know...I've had a couple of comments I received last week but were written to me over 2 years ago! How are you anyway? regards, Phil

@@philsskills Yeah ok Phil, unfortunately due to lack of gig opportunities I've had retire from music, don't know if it will be permanent at this stage. I've moved to the norwest corner of Australia where I am looking after my elderly mother. No plague up here, hope you are likewise ok.

@@AdamBHarrisHarpist I hope you'll be able to get 'back on the saddle' again. Live Gigs have been cancelled worldwide and it's had a devastating effect on performers. :-( It's good to hear you are in a COVID free zone. Loving care is always better than professional care but keep your options open for fear of them becoming lost for ever. Stay safe and best wishes to you and your Mum. :-)

Hey didn't see you there and KZbin never told me like they should. Thanks for taking the time out to listen, glad you got something out of it.

Temporarily located to a quite remote part of WA, should be ok here for a while. Hope all is ok in your parts.

I'm a freaky guy.

Thanks Kevin. Its a little travel harp made from carbon fibre that I do most of my gigs on these days. The link to the maker is below the video if you click on "more". They are Canadian made and only weigh 3kg.

Its all you need to get started, although the Samsons that I have heard tend to be a bit noisy (hissy).. I don't know what type of set you have but there is plenty of advice about if you google removing hiss from recordings. experiment with mic placement to get a sound you like. About 3 feet in front of the harp, pointed say a third up the soundboard might be a good place to start.

@@AdamBHarrisHarpist thanks for the advice Adam will give it a try :)

Thanks Marianne, I'm glad you enjoyed it. Unfortunately, I do it all off the top of my head and its different each time.

@@AdamBHarrisHarpist Thanks for the quick response. It's to bad... but it makes your performance even more impressive!

Thanks mate, I'm going to be applying for some cruise ship work so I need to get a little portfolio of clips happening.

@@AdamBHarrisHarpist Good luck with your applications :-)

Thanks Phil, thought I owed the channel a music video. It was an afternoon Sunday session from 12 to 3,

@@AdamBHarrisHarpist Cool.

Thanks Gilbert, good to see you back.

Thanks for checking in Giovanna, glad you liked it.

Back at ya Reeka!

Thanks Phil, I've sold the clip on mics and looks like I've sold the big tube mic, so it was worth making a video for. Need to do a couple more as I have a lot of stuff to clear out. Would like to get back to making some normal videos too. Hope all is well with you.

@@AdamBHarrisHarpist Cool!

Thank you, I'm playing this harp for most things these days as it's nice.

Yes you could do that, but if you are after something you can have in onboard luggage try Hadyn Harps. They make small carbon fibre harps.

Adam B Harris Thank you for responding. I’ll check that they have cross strung harp! :)

@@Harpiano I know he has double strung not sure he does cross strung yet.

@@AdamBHarrisHarpist Thank you so much for letting me know that. The carbon-fiber string is so interesting and that size can fit onboard luggage. I put this on my option for travel harp. Thanks.