Dear Anthony and All, Well I was away, in the Vendee, where the weather was not much better than in the UK. The local paper kept referring to it as "ce vilain d'ete" (sorry I can't do accents on the laptop) and I can only agree - we spent a week in Provence in May and it wasn't that good there either.
I found the Purr'll strings sound fine. I haven't tried a Kuerschner top string for a long time, but the thicker strings are very stiff and hard, so I would not be surprised if the very thin strings were the same. I think all gut trebles have the advantage of longer sustain than other materials, so niceties of "warmth" etc. seem a bit secondary. The point that was raised about different techniques for playing on nylon/gut/nylgut I found interesting. The tendency is for too light an attack on overspun strings (because if you hit them hard this emphasizes their "twanginess" and also gives a long sustain) and too strong an attack on gut strings (because you feel if you hit them harder they might sustain longer). In fact you can pluck the gut strings harder, and this is good, but too hard has the effect of maximising the transient at the beginning of a note and (by contrast) deemphasizing the subsequent sound of the note, which is not good. The main focus, with all kinds of strings, should be to achieve a full sound (absolutely full contact with both strings of a course and perfect blend of octaves on an octave course) rather than a loud sound. Quality is everything - crude attempts to achieve quantity are no substitute. One of the nice things about gut basses is their "vocal" quality, not a question of sustain but a function of how the note starts. In fact, let's face it, playing a plucked instrument is all about how the note starts - a consideration which affects all aspects of playing polyphony on the lute - but that's another story.... Best wishes, Martin Anthony Hind wrote: > Glad to see you are back, Martin (perhaps you weren't away). > > The Purr'll strings are strong, but how do they sound? > > Regards > Anthony > > Le 25 août 07 à 16:44, Martin Shepherd a écrit : > >> Dear All, >> >> My experiences with Sofracob gut are much the same as David's - fine >> for >> everything except a top string. I recently tried to order some fret >> gut >> from them and they wrote back to say that they no longer supply fret >> gut >> - dommage! Anyone know of a good source of fret gut? >> >> By the way, I found the banjo strings quite strong and very cheap when >> you get two out of a length. I wonder who manufactures them? >> >> The issue about single gut is interesting. I always thought that the >> thinnest string had to be made out of two whole guts laid thick end to >> thin end, because of the taper. Even then, the finished string might >> taper somewhat. But the really interesting thing about this is just >> how >> thin could the old guys have made their strings? If two guts are >> needed, the answer is supposedly in the region of .43mm, and that >> places >> some interesting constraints on just how high a pitch you can tune to >> for a given string length - not because the string might break but >> because of the uncomfortably high tension involved. >> >> Can anyone (Mimmo? Dan?) shed more light on this? And while we're at >> it, I thought the old guys had to use whole guts as the basis for their >> strings, because the splitting horn wasn't invented until the 18th C. >> True or false? >> >> Best wishes, >> >> Martin >> >> LGS-Europe wrote: >> >>>> I'm also interested in the responses that Universale's strings are >>>> particularly strong - I wonder if they wholesale supply some >>>> better known >>>> companies who may not actually make their own gut from scratch (eg >>>> Kurschner)? >>>> >>>> >>> >>> I always understood, but I do not know, mind you, that Sofracob >>> supplies >>> some (?) smaller string makers. Sofracob's main product is >>> wholesale gut for >>> the medical industrie (10.000.000 meters of catgut yearly, they >>> boast on >>> their website). Their musical strings are a later by-product and >>> they only >>> supply treble gut and double twist, no bass strings like Mimmo or >>> Dan make. >>> They have varnished and non-varnished and they have fret-gut. And >>> as I said >>> before, they are very cheap. No wonder, with such a high volume >>> output. >>> >>> David >>> >>> >>> **************************** >>> David van Ooijen >>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] >>> www.davidvanooijen.nl >>> **************************** >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> To get on or off this list see list information at >>> http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html >>> >>> >>> >> >> > >
