In case anyone is interested, I took a picture of the shamisen string I put on my Ren lute. I put up an MP3 audio comparison with a gut string too.
http://www9.plala.or.jp/edurbrow/shamisenstring.html On Feb 8, 2007, at 2:13 AM, Ed Durbrow wrote: > I tried a shamisen string on my Ren lute's 5th course. I was > pleasantly surprised. It is slightly twangy-er than the gut but > that could be due to lighter tension. It sounds close to a plain > gut to my ear so far. I left one gut on there at the same pitch. > > The 5th course is always the troublesome course for me. Metal wound > are just so intrusive, but gut is so thick and flabby that the > pitch drops noticeably after the initial attack. The shamisen > string seemed not to. We'll see about the tuning. Just having that > one course gut is a major pain. I spend all my time tuning that one > course. I have Nylgut and two overspuns for the rest. I'm hoping to > eliminate the overspuns. I must investigate more. Maybe I can find > a nice thick shamisen string. I don't know how I can find the > tension. These strings are made of silk, by the way, and are bright > yellow. > > I've been meaning to build a string tester/stretcher like I saw a > long time ago in Lyn Elder's workshop. It would be just one peg two > nut/bridges that the string would go over. One could move the > bridges to the appropriate mensuration, tie whatever weight you > want to the end of the string for the prescribed tension and see > what pitch it settles into. > cheers, > > Ed Durbrow > Saitama, Japan > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://www9.plala.or.jp/edurbrow/ > > Ed Durbrow Saitama, Japan [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www9.plala.or.jp/edurbrow/ To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
