It’s amazing the difference that you can get from throwing away the book. Everything I’ve been reading about sound recording (not much, admittedly) says that you need to set your recording levels as high as possible without introducing clipping. But with the harp – my harp, at least – that makes everything should like it’s in a cave.
This sample is recorded on my laptop using Audacity with
- Two pickups – one is a Barcus Berry, made to Alfredo Roland Ortiz’s specs
- The other is my cheapie clip-on that I use with my tuner (!)
- The input of the Barcus Berry was EQ’d with a Fish and Chips pedal to reduce the low frequencies (200 hz and below)
- All fed into a digital interface
- Input levels set L-O-W
Post processing was minimal – I boosted the level all around and used the envelope tool to reduce one big boom in the left hand (at 35 seconds, can you hear it?)
Not my best playing (you can hear I was distracted by my cat at about 2:30 into it), but a good experiment with sound production. So am I approaching demo quality, with a minimal equipment investment?
I’ve heard of people who produce commercial CD’s on their iPads. What is your setup?
Shannon Schumann, CTHP, RMT 
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