In this video, I love the sound of the harp in cherry, But, I own a DS walnut 36S, which also sounds just as beautiful! You can’t ever go wrong with any Dusty!!👍🎶
I loved hearing all of them one after the other! It is hard to choose. I have a cherry FH35 which I love, but I have always been partial to the maple. My harp teacher has a walnut one. Love them all! My cherry is special to me. I call her Spring.
It's funny--when you played the arpeggios, I preferred the Sapele, especially the bass, but when you played the song, I found myself liking each subsequent harp better than the previous one. The walnut model seemed to have an especially ethereal ring to it when you played the song.
Thank you for doing this! I currently own a Dusty Strings Allegro and a Lyon & Healy Prelude 38 which I use for weddings and other performances. I'm considering replacing both of those harps with a Dusty Strings FH36 . I love the Dusty String sound! My Allegro is almost ALWAYS in tune and the strings almost never break, much less work to transport! I think I prefer the warmer, fuller sound of the cherry because it seems to retain the light, sparkling resonance in the upper registers as well.
I wish you turned the microphone straight towards every harp every time . I t’s like the microphone picks up different frequencies at a different angle ..
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful and beautiful, all of them! My favourite is the Walnut, to me it has such a sweet and deep and romantic sound, so nostalgic and melancholic. Too magic! 💕💕💕💕💕 I wish with all my heart to get a DS FH36H in walnut, someday! ❤️
I had a fascinating conversation with my 8-year old son whilst watching this, as he's interested in learning to play the Harp, and I was going to get him a Dusty Strings harp to learn on. He preferred the Walnut whereas I preferred the Cherry and Maple, but the fact he appreciated the subtle differences in tone made it an enjoyable conversation to have with him. Thank you for making this video! If you happen to make one that includes the Bubunga model, I would love to watch it! Incidentally, what was the piece you played? We loved it!
Thank you for your response. There is a reason that we have not included a bubinga harp in this comparison. Importing bubinga wood into Europe is prohibited because it comes from the tropical rainforest. With a permit it is possible to import harps in this type of wood, but by not doing that I can ensure that a few less trees are cut down in these beautiful forests. The other woods also sound beautiful, so that is why it is not a consideration for me to import harps made of bubinga wood.
I liked the cherry but over all it was the walnut that I aim for. Thank you for permitting one to hear the differences. I agree with you whole hearted,y about saving the trees in Amazon Yvonne doherty
Very good comparison.... The differences can be heard very clearly. But honestly.... Owning the walnut harp myself.... I always think taking cherry would have probably been the better decision😂😂😂.As I once played the cherry harp in your shop and absolutely loved it but could not afford it. After this video though I agree with Kristine.... The Mahagony one sounds marvelous.... So for myself even with such a brilliant comparison 👏I cannot make up my mind. The grass is always greener on the other side..... They are simply great harps.... All of them. 🤗🤣
The cherry one is my favorite, for overall sound, in all registers. The maple is my least favorite of all, though! There is just a hard brilliance there that I do not care for. Thanks for this wonderful demonstration!
Hi! Can you please tell me the name of the song you were playing? It's soo familiar, but I can't remember the name and it's just beautiful. You played it so well! Thank you! I have a cherry FH36S, and a walnut FH36B, and it depends on what I'm playing which I like the best. I use the walnut for deeply comforting music, ( Hospice, palliative care, labor & delivery, neonatal ICU) and the cherry for light and airy type songs, or to play music that cheers people. The cherry rings and dances, and the Walnut embraces and comforts. I loved all of them. I never met a Dusty Strings I didn't love:)
So glad to hear from someone who has both cherry and walnut, which are the two I’m torn between. Your explanation of their characters is the best comparison I’ve heard/read yet! Thanks for taking the time to chime in.
Can you do a video playing F36 made of the same wood, but one is the S model and one is the H model? The S model is more expensive, so I'm curious about the difference in sound. Thanks!
I like the cherry do you have a creamy resonance sound The maple was the loud and most residents are very bold and clear walnut was the most mellow or least residence of the harps
I loved hearing them like this, but the speaker in my iPad isn’t like real life! I was able to go to Dusty Strings and listen to the harps before ordering mine. The maple has such a bright tone, almost like a piano; the cherry was - for me - the perfect balance of warm and bright, of resonance and clarity. The walnut and sapele are warmer and more resonant. Of course, they will change over time as well….
I wanted to like the Cherry wood best because I like the color. But for sound, I liked the Sapele and the Walnut. I found the Maple too bight. I prefer the warmer tone of the Sapele and Walnut. This has nothing to do with sound, but I like the two-tone colors of the Sapele.
Clearly the maple instrument had the biggest sound….but one wonders how much the microphone placement and the room acoustics played a part in that decision. Are the soundboards the same as the neck and pillar. Spruce is the best material for soundboards in all other stringed instruments of course.
While I don’t support the use of endangered woods for any purpose, there is a DS comparison video by Sylvia Woods on RUclips, the last harp she‘s playing is the FH36 in bubinga if you’re interested in the sound
I noticed that the walnut harp is placed further from the microphone than the others in the part of the video where you played the song. Perhaps that is why it seemed to be softer. Our perception of timbre does change with volume. The soundboards also appear to be different. Are they all the same material but stained differently? What is the composition of the soundboards?
The Dusty Strings website has a page about the woods they use for the different parts of the harp. For their higher-end large harps, they use a two-part soundboard--spruce in the bottom third of the range and mahogany in the top two thirds. Their webpage about it explains why. There's also a page about the various soundboard veneer options.
In addition, I've copied-and-pasted the following from their page about veneers: "For most of our cherry and walnut harps, we use a figured cherry veneer, and we pair our other woods with a curly maple veneer (also called flamed maple). For those interested in something a little bit fancier, we offer two other options for custom soundboard veneers on any of our FH harps."
@@organist1982 Thanks very much for your reply, MusicGuy.The soundboard composition is so crucial to the timbre of the instrument that I suspect that even a difference in veneers will result in some change in the instrument's voice. I find the video helpful, and I will also check out the Dusty Strings website, but I think a true comparison of effects of the woods used for the neck, pillar and soundbox would need to have identical harps made in each wood with identical soundboards, and identical recording conditions. In the end, though, perhaps it doesn't matter. Maybe the selection is more like the difference in fine wines, and it's really just a matter of personal preference. If you love the wine, drink it. If you love the sound of the harp, play it.
So for me, the sapele wood model has the most powerful and resonant sound among them. The both in the middle are quite soft in their sounds especially the second one with the white wood but sapele is more powerful and rounding sound.
I really liked the Mahogany and the Walnut the best. And if I had to pick between the two it would be the Mahogany. But the Walnut has a softness that I really loved.
Beautiful video and such an incredible harp - every single one - I have been a long time dusty strings fan - no other harp on the market like yours ( and mine ❤️)
The walnut has the best sound. The mahogany is a bit short and the maple has too much resonance, which is a little distracting. The cherry is nice, but I love the walnut the best!
I honestly can't draw anything from this test, because the sound of each harp was more affected by their placement in relation to the microphone than any other factor including the difference in instrument. It would be much more effective to run a test where each harp has the same relationship with the recording situation.
Unfortunately this video is not helpful at all… I really can‘t decide and now I think I need all of them 😂 No, seriously, each one is special in their own way. I currently play a Camac Excalibur but wanted to give DS a try since I heard so many positive things about them. Unfortunately they are extremely expensive here in Australia but if I win the lottery I‘d like to buy all of them, one harp for every season. I‘d play the cherry in spring, maple in summer, walnut in autumn and sapele in winter. Thanks a lot for the video, all of your videos are incredibly helpful for people like me who can’t try many different harps before deciding to buy one 💕
This was a false comparison and a waste of time because the harps are in different positions in the room and in relation to the mic. You need to learn about the importance of room acoustics and mic placement.
In this video, I love the sound of the harp in cherry, But, I own a DS walnut 36S, which also sounds just as beautiful! You can’t ever go wrong with any Dusty!!👍🎶
For me, it's the maple. Just seems to sound effortless and has an incredibly well-rounded tone.
I loved hearing all of them one after the other! It is hard to choose. I have a cherry FH35 which I love, but I have always been partial to the maple. My harp teacher has a walnut one. Love them all! My cherry is special to me. I call her Spring.
It's funny--when you played the arpeggios, I preferred the Sapele, especially the bass, but when you played the song, I found myself liking each subsequent harp better than the previous one. The walnut model seemed to have an especially ethereal ring to it when you played the song.
Thank you for doing this! I currently own a Dusty Strings Allegro and a Lyon & Healy Prelude 38 which I use for weddings and other performances. I'm considering replacing both of those harps with a Dusty Strings FH36 . I love the Dusty String sound! My Allegro is almost ALWAYS in tune and the strings almost never break, much less work to transport!
I think I prefer the warmer, fuller sound of the cherry because it seems to retain the light, sparkling resonance in the upper registers as well.
What a great video! They were all beautiful! If I had to pick one, I liked the walnut harp best.
I'd definitely pick the sapele 😍 Hoping to get a FH36 one day! Is my dream lever harp.
I wish you turned the microphone straight towards every harp every time . I t’s like the microphone picks up different frequencies at a different angle ..
Exactly what I was thinking, phase cancellation/enforcement with stereo mics that close together can change the sound in dramatic ways!
Very helpful! Now I aim to own a dusty string harp in walnut. I adore it!
Thank you so much for this, it is so beautiful, to hear them all 🌺😍🌺
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful and beautiful, all of them! My favourite is the Walnut, to me it has such a sweet and deep and romantic sound, so nostalgic and melancholic. Too magic! 💕💕💕💕💕 I wish with all my heart to get a DS FH36H in walnut, someday! ❤️
Love the maple too! Sound is so ethereal!
Excellent comparison. All the harps sounded beautiful. I liked maple the best. 👏👏 🎶 👏👏
Oh god i need them all.......
I had a fascinating conversation with my 8-year old son whilst watching this, as he's interested in learning to play the Harp, and I was going to get him a Dusty Strings harp to learn on. He preferred the Walnut whereas I preferred the Cherry and Maple, but the fact he appreciated the subtle differences in tone made it an enjoyable conversation to have with him. Thank you for making this video! If you happen to make one that includes the Bubunga model, I would love to watch it!
Incidentally, what was the piece you played? We loved it!
Thank you for your response. There is a reason that we have not included a bubinga harp in this comparison. Importing bubinga wood into Europe is prohibited because it comes from the tropical rainforest. With a permit it is possible to import harps in this type of wood, but by not doing that I can ensure that a few less trees are cut down in these beautiful forests. The other woods also sound beautiful, so that is why it is not a consideration for me to import harps made of bubinga wood.
I believe the tune is called Sally Gardens (down by the sally gardens, maybe?) :)
@@SerinaVassar Thank you!
I liked the cherry but over all it was the walnut that I aim for. Thank you for permitting one to hear the differences. I agree with you whole hearted,y about saving the trees in Amazon Yvonne doherty
I love the sound coming from the maple wood.
The sapele is visually beautiful, but the maple is STUNNING. So rich sounding.
The Sapele Mahogany and Walnut wood are my favourite. The maple wood has a peculiar resonance that I like. 🌸
I think the walnut and the maple are the best; they have the clearest sound, crisp and bright. These videos are most helpful! Thank you so much.
I liked the Sapele the best. I would like to hear the walnut and sapele side by side as I think they sound the closest to each other.
The cherry wood harp. But I love my dusty strings Ravenna 34 string harp and she sounds just as beautiful 😍
Very good comparison.... The differences can be heard very clearly. But honestly.... Owning the walnut harp myself.... I always think taking cherry would have probably been the better decision😂😂😂.As I once played the cherry harp in your shop and absolutely loved it but could not afford it. After this video though I agree with Kristine.... The Mahagony one sounds marvelous.... So for myself even with such a brilliant comparison 👏I cannot make up my mind. The grass is always greener on the other side..... They are simply great harps.... All of them. 🤗🤣
The cherry one is my favorite, for overall sound, in all registers. The maple is my least favorite of all, though! There is just a hard brilliance there that I do not care for. Thanks for this wonderful demonstration!
Such a tough choice but I think the Cherry. Love them all!
I love both Cherry and Walnut. Are these the H or S series? Do they sound different? For example walnut in H and S series?
Hi!
Can you please tell me the name of the song you were playing? It's soo familiar, but I can't remember the name and it's just beautiful. You played it so well! Thank you! I have a cherry FH36S, and a walnut FH36B, and it depends on what I'm playing which I like the best. I use the walnut for deeply comforting music, ( Hospice, palliative care, labor & delivery, neonatal ICU) and the cherry for light and airy type songs, or to play music that cheers people. The cherry rings and dances, and the Walnut embraces and comforts. I loved all of them. I never met a Dusty Strings I didn't love:)
Sally Gardens
So glad to hear from someone who has both cherry and walnut, which are the two I’m torn between. Your explanation of their characters is the best comparison I’ve heard/read yet! Thanks for taking the time to chime in.
Can you do a video playing F36 made of the same wood, but one is the S model and one is the H model? The S model is more expensive, so I'm curious about the difference in sound. Thanks!
Yes please, that would be really helpful!
I love the Dusty Strings! They are my favorite harps. ❤️
Cherry is my favorite, followed by the walnut. They're all beautiful, though!
I like the Sepele for its brightness and the walnut for its warmth.
Walnut, then cherry!💖💖
I like the cherry do you have a creamy resonance sound
The maple was the loud and most residents are very bold and clear
walnut was the most mellow or least residence of the harps
I loved hearing them like this, but the speaker in my iPad isn’t like real life! I was able to go to Dusty Strings and listen to the harps before ordering mine. The maple has such a bright tone, almost like a piano; the cherry was - for me - the perfect balance of warm and bright, of resonance and clarity. The walnut and sapele are warmer and more resonant. Of course, they will change over time as well….
The maple reminded me of a piano, too.
Love the walnut harp the best but all are fantastic
Absolutely fascinating! Thank you! Would love your doing this with more of the incredible dusty strings harps….love this!
I wanted to like the Cherry wood best because I like the color. But for sound, I liked the Sapele and the Walnut. I found the Maple too bight. I prefer the warmer tone of the Sapele and Walnut. This has nothing to do with sound, but I like the two-tone colors of the Sapele.
Clearly the maple instrument had the biggest sound….but one wonders how much the microphone placement and the room acoustics played a part in that decision. Are the soundboards the same as the neck and pillar. Spruce is the best material for soundboards in all other stringed instruments of course.
I was hoping to hear the bubinga model compared to the others; do you ever carry that?
Thank you for your nice comments. Chris Frost Music asked also for the bubinga harp. You can find my answer above.
While I don’t support the use of endangered woods for any purpose, there is a DS comparison video by Sylvia Woods on RUclips, the last harp she‘s playing is the FH36 in bubinga if you’re interested in the sound
I noticed that the walnut harp is placed further from the microphone than the others in the part of the video where you played the song. Perhaps that is why it seemed to be softer. Our perception of timbre does change with volume. The soundboards also appear to be different. Are they all the same material but stained differently? What is the composition of the soundboards?
The Dusty Strings website has a page about the woods they use for the different parts of the harp. For their higher-end large harps, they use a two-part soundboard--spruce in the bottom third of the range and mahogany in the top two thirds. Their webpage about it explains why. There's also a page about the various soundboard veneer options.
In addition, I've copied-and-pasted the following from their page about veneers:
"For most of our cherry and walnut harps, we use a figured cherry veneer, and we pair our other woods with a curly maple veneer (also called flamed maple). For those interested in something a little bit fancier, we offer two other options for custom soundboard veneers on any of our FH harps."
@@organist1982 Thanks very much for your reply, MusicGuy.The soundboard composition is so crucial to the timbre of the instrument that I suspect that even a difference in veneers will result in some change in the instrument's voice. I find the video helpful, and I will also check out the Dusty Strings website, but I think a true comparison of effects of the woods used for the neck, pillar and soundbox would need to have identical harps made in each wood with identical soundboards, and identical recording conditions. In the end, though, perhaps it doesn't matter. Maybe the selection is more like the difference in fine wines, and it's really just a matter of personal preference. If you love the wine, drink it. If you love the sound of the harp, play it.
@@itsbobfoster Well said!
Cherry - most sweet:) walnut- most elegant
Wow! l love low tones so I guess the Walnut. But they are all beautiful, A Cherry is definitely more spring.
So for me, the sapele wood model has the most powerful and resonant sound among them. The both in the middle are quite soft in their sounds especially the second one with the white wood but sapele is more powerful and rounding sound.
Cherry is my favorite!
Wunderful video and comparison! Thank you so much. Greetings Nicole
We have the Babinga wood
I really liked the Mahogany and the Walnut the best. And if I had to pick between the two it would be the Mahogany. But the Walnut has a softness that I really loved.
I like the first harp best.
Mahogany please for me😍😍😍💫🙌💫🙌
Definitely the sapele because of the beautiful bass.
all nylon strings??
They do all have their own voices, but I was surprised by the maple.
Make mine a walnut or maple please!
Beautiful video and such an incredible harp - every single one - I have been a long time dusty strings fan - no other harp on the market like yours ( and mine ❤️)
The walnut has the best sound. The mahogany is a bit short and the maple has too much resonance, which is a little distracting. The cherry is nice, but I love the walnut the best!
I honestly can't draw anything from this test, because the sound of each harp was more affected by their placement in relation to the microphone than any other factor including the difference in instrument. It would be much more effective to run a test where each harp has the same relationship with the recording situation.
These videos are so helpful
Walnut 😍
The walnut. Overall it seems to have greater resonance. The high notes are clear and defined but don't sound as if coming from a piano.
Unfortunately this video is not helpful at all… I really can‘t decide and now I think I need all of them 😂 No, seriously, each one is special in their own way. I currently play a Camac Excalibur but wanted to give DS a try since I heard so many positive things about them. Unfortunately they are extremely expensive here in Australia but if I win the lottery I‘d like to buy all of them, one harp for every season. I‘d play the cherry in spring, maple in summer, walnut in autumn and sapele in winter. Thanks a lot for the video, all of your videos are incredibly helpful for people like me who can’t try many different harps before deciding to buy one 💕
The cherry. Mellow, and will only get better with age.
I am surprised that the maple keeps speaking to me even though I love cherry wood.
Just curious - which of these harps is FH36S and which are FH36H?
The sapele is the FH36H model. the others are the FH36S harps
Does Dusty Strings Make A Bad Harp?... of course not, All were good, but I'm a maple gal myself. :)
There is RED DIVA over there!
Ha if you search just a little bit further in our video's, you will find a recording of that stunning Red Diva ;-)
I would go for wood that doesn't cause problems in the long run.
Better not 🍒
I like the cherry and the walnut, I found them to be warmer.
I think Maple is the best
This was a false comparison and a waste of time because the harps are in different positions in the room and in relation to the mic. You need to learn about the importance of room acoustics and mic placement.
Maple ❤ > Cherry > walnut> mahogany