Harp recordings, how do i mix/treat it ?

hi guys, i need some nerd help here,

just got a harp recording from a friend, she recorded at her home with bad devices, the sounds isn't that bad finally but i just can't have this brightness shine, so far it's moody on 300/600hz and tried to compress a bit, doesn't seem to work well

first time i work on a harp recording,

anyone done this ?

i'd like to get close to this

I would recommend a few EQ's working in different hz and a tiny bit of reverb + some panning device (stereo imager) + a compressor.

EQ'ing harps and acoustic instruments tends to take time... lots of time. You sit there for hours and turn the knobs slightly slightly to achieve what you look for.

GL

thx GL

this is basicaly what i was doin,

i've found that aprox 490hz is a bad range and should be cut,

as for the 3.1Khz is great

still lot of work to do and hard hours for me : /

You should post it here so we can take a look at it

yeah makes sense

*https://soundcloud.com/kloremusic/sets/harp-rec/s-hJEjP*

Ran it through a few meters and I think I've cracked it - there's no stereo spacing at all. As soon as I whacked in a pseudo stereo plugin and increased the spacing/haas value the clarity of the track started to come in - a slight parametric curve cutting some of the 100-500hz range and the a gentle wide boost ~7khz seems to make things a little bit sharper too. If you're feeling fruity you could whack in a transient shaper too to emphasise the plucking (http://www.fluxhome.com/products/freewares/bittersweet-v3)

If you have reaper, here's a quick chain of the setup I used. It's not 100% but I haven't got access to my proper soundcard/headphone setup at the mo (remove the .txt in the file name, it won't let me attach a .rfxchain file here)

harp chain.RfxChain.txtFetching info...

thx mcbpete :)

I'd try some gentle shaping with that wonderful sounding (yet free) EQ. A dB or two can go a long way with that one, and I don't think that harp needs much more than that.

And then I'd add a tiny, tiny bit of reverb.

You can also try a gate/expander with a very gentle slope in the signal chain (before or after the reverb, it's up to you), to tighten up the transients.

Ps: it might be obvious to you, but avoid any kind of surgical cuts if possible : it'll create more issues than it will solve, especially on that kind of material.