Who wants to challenge themselves building an FX/plug-in chain for harp?

[wen]

I'm tired of my current setup and want to see what new stuff might be an improvement. This is for a pedal harp that has a built-in mic with a custom IR, but I also use a regular mic. I've messed around with Bloom, Smooth Operator, Schepps Paralell Particle, Sugar, Claro, the Izotope Suite (Neutron, Neoverb, Ozone, Noise Reduction), Valhalla (Shimmer, Supermassive, Plate), Maserati acoustic guitar images, and distortion and guitar pedal stuff. I do love the Valhalla stuff but overall, nothing is really cutting it for a good, natural-sounding harp that has minimal noise in the track.

If you're up for giving it a shot, please let me know!

Wenda

[seriouscollective]

Have you tried using equalizers like Fabfilter Pro-Q3 or Waves SSL G-Equalizer?

[AlanHall]

Are you using a preamp/limiter at the top of your chain? The right one will allow the sparkle and body of your harp to shine, and limit the dynamic range to improve noise rejection. Lots of emulators out there. I prefer the 'classics' for their well-defined behavior, such as 1176 or LA2A models. JM2C

[MarkFeil]

I would try using parallel compression and subtractive EQ to sculpt the sound you're after as a first step. I just used Final Mix's Parallel AC Acoustic Guitar III on an Oud sample and it worked wonders. I also like to use Waves H-Comp for parallel compression. You could also copy the take to a second track and only use compression on one of the tracks, then blend. But watch out for possible phase issues. Subtractive EQ and possibly a multi-band compressor are very important to look at here. I've been using Waves C4 for the multi-band. Hope this helps!