Remember Emily Hopkins? She's the intrepid YouTube harpist who put her beloved instrument through an Electrofoods Nepenthes distortion pedal and made sounds that almost certainly – somewhere in this world or another – summoned demons.
Now, she's back with another unorthodox combination, one even she describes in the name of the accompanying demo video as "ridiculous."
In the video below, Hopkins runs her harp through a series of wah pedals, from your simple stalwarts of the category to increasingly complex stompboxes that take her harp from predictably '70s territory to galaxies far, far away.
First up on Hopkins' demo list was the JAM Pedals Wahcko, which she uses to add some waves to a heavenly picked progression. She's an immediate fan of the pedal, citing the depth it adds to both her more typical harp plucking and her surprisingly sharp imitation of scratchy funk rhythm guitar work.
Of course though, no wah run-through is complete without a Cry Baby, and that's where Hopkins goes next. Hopkins finds the (significantly cheaper, mind you) Cry Baby a tad clunkier than the Wahcko, but prefers it for funkier applications.
After returning to the Wahcko, Hopkins moves on to some more out-there filter units, starting with the Beetronics Zzombee Filtremulator and EarthQuaker Devices Spatial Delivery, both of which she uses to create relaxing psychedelic soundscapes that'll have you believing that chillwave never really died.
Also on tap are the Spaceman Artemis, the GFI System Rossie – which Hopkins uses to evocative effect in tandem with GFI's Orca delay pedal – the Vongon Paragraphs, and, finally, the recently-unveiled Old Blood Noise Endeavors Float Dual Moving Filter.
As a grand finale, the harpist then runs the bass pickup of her harp through the Zzombee, the treble pickup through the Spatial Delivery and the general pickup through the Wahcko simultaneously, a combo that elicits some beautifully celestial tones that have us temporarily contemplating ditching six strings for 47...
For more of Hopkins' unique harp-powered guitar pedal demos, visit her YouTube channel.
