I presume that the cotton is even and evenly tight?
As the drones tend to hold more cotton, it's easy to get it "lumpy" (ie
harder in some parts) although it looks fine. It plays on the "harder/lumpy"
parts but the sound fades on the looser parts.
Sorry if you know this but, as a newbie, it's something I found out when I
couldn't get them to sound properly in the way you describe. I think it was
the very last bit of the cotton which I insisted was going on regardless.
Either that or the uneven bit gets covered over so you can't see it but you
can hear it is there.
Lots of rosin on the string first may help if it slips at all (that can
flatten the cotton and make it bigger one side than the other and, when it
finally "catches", same sound problems)...
Colin Hill
----- Original Message -----
From: "Leonard Williams" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Hurdy-Gurdy List" <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, December 23, 2007 10:49 PM
Subject: [HG] Uneven sound
I've finally gotten the right cotton (wonderful stuff!), and I'm
working at getting the best out of my humble machine.
I'm working with rosining, cotton quantity, and shimming. So far,
so good with one exception: one drone produces a slight uneveness in its
tone, a kind of pulsing lub-Dub, lub-Dub (for lack of a better
description).
I thought it might be the wheel, but only one out of my four strings does
it. Any clues?
Thanks and best regards for the holidays!
Leonard Williams
