> Has anyone had frets that have a bad tone? I have (maybe two)
> frets that I put on my lute recently that make the
> strings "thunk" rather than ring. They don't seem
> to buzz as low frets would on a guitar. Any ideas?
My two cents. Sorry for the know-it-all tone, but it's
easier to type that way.
A fret causes a thunky sound by dissipating (wasting)
the string's kinetic energy, which
a. prevents the energy from getting to the soundboard
b. preferentially degrades the upper (acoustic) harmonics
A fret could do this two ways:
a. being soft, in which case the energy is dissipated
(as heat) within the body of the fret itself
b. being flat, so that the string rubs the top of the
fret, in which case the energy is dissipated
(again as heat) in string-fret friction
As others have said, you want a round hard fret.
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