I remember when these came out, and have read all the comments to follow on this thread. I'm not entirely certain of the practical usefulness of this product unless one would want to replace pegs on an existing instrument with minimal modification to the instrument.
I seem to recall geared tuners becoming available on cittern kin in the mid 18th c. The worm-gear arrangement typical to guitars was pretty commonplace by the late 1820s. Building lutes to accommodate guitar-style tuners would make for a pretty easy modification of most commonly used lute plans and the tuners in question, in most cases, could be had much more affordably. The almost universal application of pegs to lutes seems to have come about because 1) historic lutes were no longer in widespread use as geared tuners proliferated and 2) when the early music movement resurrected lutes, geared tuners were deliberately excluded to make deference to historic practices. So, other than replacing pegs without the necessity to substantially modify existing instruments, how are such tuners as applied to new instruments any more useful than those already widely used and cheaply available? Is the appeal strictly in the rather superficial appearance of not being geared? I am not at all opposed to geared tuners--using them on guitars from original 19th-c. pieces to quite modern--but I don't understand the appeal of so much expense on tuners simply for something that doesn't "look" geared. I'd just as soon deal with temperamental friction pegs. After all, many of us are willing to deal with the temperamental issues of at least partial stringing in gut when more stable materials are more cheaply available. Devil's advocate, Eugene > -----Original Message----- > From: lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu [mailto:lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu] On > Behalf Of David Tayler > Sent: Sunday, June 20, 2010 3:33 PM > To: lute-cs.dartmouth.edu > Subject: [LUTE] geared pegs and Dan Larson's lute > > At BFX 2010, I had the opportunity to play Dan Larson's Frey lute. > Well, first off, this was a really nice lute, and all gut strung with > some really cool strings. > This lute also had geared pegs, which look just like real pegs. I > mean, they are real pegs, not imaginary pegs, but hopefully you know > what I mean. > I have seen the pegs for some time now on Gambas, but this was my > first lute adventure. > The pegs work great! They turn like butter, but have an internal > braking system to stop them from "frapping" to use the historical term. > You can see very detailed photos of the lute on Flickr > http://www.flickr.com/photos/voicesofmusic/sets/72157624142677939/ > > I would love to have a cittern or orpharion with these pegs! > dt > > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
