What mic is best suited for harp?
If it’s a full size, grand concert harp, it’s gonna be a bitch to record. You need some distance to avoid all the creaking and clicking noises those pedals make. I tried every mic I owned and most of them sucked for harp. The harpist brought three concert harps too, so it wan’t a problem with this particular harp. Here’s what I found: Putting her and her harp in the corner of the room helped with the room resonance problems. Putting the harp on a large piece of plywood helped direct some of the highs up towards the mics. None of my LD condensers or ribbon mics really sounded good. And most of the small condenser mics had way too much noise. I finally settled on a pair of Shure SM81s, positioned about 6 feet back from the harp, about 7 feet in the air, and arranged in an X/Y configuration. Now all of this is before MXL, Oktava, and SP mics were on the market, so those may just work fine. But when you finally find the right spot, oh God, what a glorious sound. – Harvey Gerst I’ve had my
