Hell is a Harp.

tl;dr. A new musical instrument for scoring horror films.

When I was approached by Tina and Damian from Deville’s Workshop with a request to help them create a new musical instrument, I jumped at the opportunity to work with them again.

They are the incredibly talented film prop makers that somehow managed to fit all my electronics into a hockey stick in this previous project for Team Canada. Having the opportunity to work with supremely talented people like this is what it’s all about.

My role was to build the initial prototype electronics to allow control over the reverb that the custom built string instrument they had created for Steve London, an award-winning composer that wanted a new musical instrument that would create sounds that would be unique to his horror film compositions.

As the physical form of the Hell Harp was still in flux, I started by designing an adjustable support for the pick-ups so we could keep them the optimal 3mm away from the strings even when the position of the strings changed after a redesign. It’s tasks like this that make having a 3D printer an essential part of my workshop.

Next I dove deep into the world of op-amps, bipolar power, and impedance matching. The world of audio electronics is very special, with AC audio signals providing so many wonderful rabbit holes of opportunity and complication.

The result is the initial prototype of this unique instrument. Ironically I’ve not heard much horror scores before as I’m a big scaredy cat who can’t watch anything even slightly scary.

But if you listen to the below video, I think you’ll agree it does sound hellish!

Hear the Hell Harp, fear the Hell Harp.

Fabricator:

Deville’s Workshop

Client:

Steve London