That's a good trick, Leonard, and a real dollar saver. And the strobe
could be useful. On a good string in natural light it *should* be
difficult to pick out the wavy line of a false string. Still I wonder
if the strobe might give you the 'false positive' of a bad string.
Obviously I should do the check myself.
Another trick is to never cut the bass fundamental whatever its length
and wrap the remainder around the pegbox (I saw Jacob H. do this years
ago on his 6-c). Be sure that most of the peg grip comes from a few
wraps and not the knot/fold/kink through the peghole. When it comes
time to reposition the string hang it w/ a slight weight to undo the
fold (it's inevitable) for a few days taking care not to let it unwind.
I do this w/ the 5th and 6th courses and can get years out of a good
bass string.
I have to admit, I've always admired the lute world for all its little
tricks that we lutenists always get to learn. We can imagine many of
them were commonplace but we'll never know for sure which ones ;^)
Sean
On Jul 16, 2009, at 4:03 PM, Leonard Williams wrote:
Here's another 8 course (all gut) with the out-of-tune
fretted 5th
(and, once, 6th) course. Took the advice of reversing the string
(in this
case, the fundamental), and -- presto! no problem. Saved me $20 on
a pistoy
gut string. The old one had gone false, but in away that reversal
eliminated, or at least reduced, the problem.
I used a trick I learned from Ed Martin to determine
falsity: pluck
the string under strobe lighting conditions (he thought a tv would
do it,
but I used a fluorescent tube light with a sheet of dark colored
paper under
the strings). The true strings will had a very regular wave form to
them,
while the false rascal had a lot of smaller wavies that shimmied up
and down
the string--it looked snaky (hard to explain, best to see it happen).
Thanks to ?? for the tip on reversing the string!!
Regards,
Leonard Williams
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On Jul 16, 2009, at 10:11 AM, David van Ooijen wrote:
Different take on the issue.
If you're using a metal-wound (rich in harmonics) on the 5th
course of
an 8-course lute, there is no reason whatsoever to pair that with an
octave string (there only to enrich a dull (gut) bass string with
extra harmonics).
So, how about replacing the octave string with another metal-wound?
When still using metal-wounds on my 8-course, this was my set-up. No
octave string on the 6th course either, btw.
David
have got 8-course lute, G-tuning, 572 mm bridge to nut. My fifth
course (C)
consists of Nylgut 56 and wounded NG 112D (octave difference).
After fine
tuning the "untouched" course (both in tune, c+C), the problem
appears when
playing the course on 2nd, 3rd etc fret. The unwounded string
remains in
--
*******************************
David van Ooijen
[email protected]
www.davidvanooijen.nl
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