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> BTW, metal frets (aside from being fixed) do ruin the sound. On what do you base this statement ? I'm one of the few people (I think) who have actually done the experiment. A long time ago I bought a (non-battleship) lute that someone had inexplicably taken to a luthier for fretting with metal frets. I then paid the same luthier (a friend who spared me no ribbing about lunatic lute players) to remove those frets and fill the slots in the finger board. The difference between the instrument with metal frets and the same instrument with gut frets was... not audible. One might expect a slight difference since the gut is more compliant than metal and is thus a source of a bit of extra damping, but any such difference is tiny and much smaller than the difference in sound between different string types. You can check for yourself: take a small metal rod (the point of a cheap pencil compass will work) and slip it under the string near a fret. Hold it *FIRMLY* in place and, using a bit of contortion, hold it and fret the string with one hand and pluck with the other. (You may also use an assistant, preferably one with a dazzling smile and a sequined costume.) Remove it and pluck again. Repeat several times. Did you notice the sound being ruined ? Most lutes that you encounter with metal frets *do* sound terrible - but that's because they are most likely to be heavy, guitar-like, "battleship" lutes. The terrible sound is the fault of their design and construction not of the metal frets. I'm certainly not advocating metal frets - I like unequal temperament, being able to replace them myself and besides, metal one just plain look ugly. But I'm always amazed when people make sweeping generalizations based on little to no evidence. Bob -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
