Choosing an Amp
The Crate Taxi

Crate amps are a respected name. There are lots of good brands out there. Watch out for the boy guitarist rigs that sell excessive features, sexy geejaws, and lousy sound. Look for amps designed for acoustic instruments as opposed to just acoustic guitars. The Crate Taxi amp is one. The Crate Limo another.

Amplified harpists have lots of favourites for their Celtic harp music..

Best way is to take another harperisterer with you, your widest range harp and listen to the amp yourself while they play their Celtic harp music through the offered amps. If nothing else you will make the saleman work for his commission. If you can not discern the sound differences, do more listening research until you can. Choose a pleasant clean sound to your ear. Your ear loses discernment ability very quickly (10-20 minutes). Be patient, take a long break away from noisy environment and reconfirm choices with fresh ears before buying. Ask about resale. Alternately, there are always used amp dealers around, find one you trust personally and wait for a deal to pop up for a given choice.


Most importantly, what purpose do you intend to use the amp for?  IE:

  Used as a point source beside harp versus creating big volume in a room?

  Does the physical size/ volumes/ looks fit your shtick as a harpist? (important at weddings etc)

  Can you lift it? Now and in 10 years?

  Will it fit in car?

  120V versus battery? (busking, outdoors, setup time)

  Does it need a preamp for your pickup?

  Do you want to use a vocal microphone?

  Background noise from circuitry?

  Resale value?

We use the Crate Taxi with an added speaker socket spider on the side so that it can be used on a speaker stand.

Pros: Battery lasts forever, point source sound in any location, fast setup, no pick-up preamp, uses vocal mic, great for weddings- outdoors - mini concerts, good to great sound depending on how used. Works best when used only to double or triple harp volumes.

Cons: You got to like yellow (Looks great under white linens or beside a black harp in a jazzy/upbeat marketing setting), will not fill a larger space well with sound for concerts (we use a sound system for that), has a very narrow sound dispersion which gives uneven sound distribution up close (good however for focusing sound in front of harp - throwing sound long distance or bouncing off ceiling).

Safety: A major grouping of non-industrial electrocution fatalities in the USA is comprised of musicians. A good percentage of the musicians were no different than you. Buy a three prong circuit tester at the hardware and test every circuit for ground. We get a 5-10% ground/ miswiring failure rate (where you would least expect it too). Never play with the ground lifted/ not present. Never play on damp/ wet ground If you are playing for dollars you are carrying a very significant commercial liability, for financial piece of mind use a GFCI shock ground protector. I would use one under any circumstance anyway. An additional surge protector/ RFI is needed for digital functions (digital reverb) or else the fridge in the kitchen may "crash" your amp with distortion or worse.

Pro continued: The Crate Taxi has none of these safety concerns (battery)

Enuff

I will add your knowledge and experience to the “mix” if it can add to the effectiveness of these articles. The rest of the Harp Amplification Series is available here.

Stephen Vardy
Harpsound Audio
[email protected]