MIDI/Electric Lever Harp

The Kortier MIDI Lever Harp is two harps in one. It is a great sounding electric harp that is very portable and has tremendous stage appeal. At the same time, it is something revolutionary- a MIDI controller harp. What this means is that any synthesizer can be connected to the harp with a standard MIDI cable and triggered or controlled by this harp. As you play the harp, a stream of digital messages (MIDI is the acronym for this) is sent out from the harp, controlling whatever MIDI hardware or software program that you connect to. Adding this capability to the regular sound of the electric harp gives you literally unlimited sonic possibilities. Here's how it works- Pickups (Piezo transducers) are attached at the base of each string. When a string is plucked, an electric current is generated by the transducer. These impluses are received by the microprocessor on the main circuit board of the harp, which converts them to a stream of MIDI messages. These digital MIDI messages describe what you are doing with the strings- what strings were plucked, how hard (volume), and when they are stopped. These MIDI messages travel to your synthesizer via the MIDI cable, which responds by producing the type of sound that you have dialed in, with all the articulation and other nuances that are present in your playing. Those same pulses created by the plucking of the harp strings are also amplified as ordinary electric harp tones. This makes the instrument very "harplike" since we can hear the actual sound of the harp strings at any time, either alone or blended with the synthesized sound. The harp has a pitch bend knob that allows you to bend synthesized notes up to a half step upward. A jack is also present to connect a sustain pedal for holding synthsized sounds as long as you wish. If any synthesized sounds need to be stopped suddenly, there is a "kill switch," a push button that sends an "all notes off" message. I build this harp in two sizes. The 31 string harp is small enough to play on a strap, standing or moving about. The range is to low C, two octaves below middle C. The 36 string version is a floor standing harp, 5 full octaves, with the bottom note A. Features of both: Clear, clean sound from fluorocarbon strings, steelcore in bass octave. Proper tension and string spacing for good technique. Camac sharping levers. Very portable, comfortable to play. Rigid insulated travel case. Stand connected with two wingnuts, easily connected and removed with no tools. Price- 31 string $6,500, 36 string $6,995 Pitch bend knob and kill switch

36 string MIDI/Electric harp 31 string MIDI harp