Dear fellow lutenutters, I can think of a good reason for synthetics. I live in the tropics, Singapore, to be precise, where the temperature is usually in the 70% - 85% range, and on rainy days it goes up to 100%. gut trebles don't last more than a few days here. 0.75 and larger seem to be ok though, and i have gut basses on my archlute. Our temperature goes between the 16-24 deg air-conditioned indoors to the 27-36 deg outdoors. I couldn't possibly play any sort of lute or early guitars here if not for synthetics.
Regards, Edward Chrysogonus Yong ky...@pacific.net.sg On 5 Oct, 2012, at 4:18 PM, Benjamin Narvey <luthi...@gmail.com> wrote: > Dear Luters, > > I know that much has been made about tuning issues pertaining to gut strings, > but it strikes me now how little has been said about the same difficulty with > synthetics/modern strings. > > For the first time in ages I am playing on a modern-strung theorbo belonging > to a student of mine for rehearsals of a "Fairy Queen" while I impatiently > await the arrival of my new "double luth" in some weeks (more on this giraffe > anon). I am simply aghast at how badly carbon strings go out of tune, even > though they are "not supposed to". (Nylon/nylgut fares better.) Indeed, the > (ugh) overwound Savarez "guitar" bass strings are the worst offenders of all, > going madly out of tune sometimes: not surprising they are so sensitive given > how metal is such a superb conducting material. The tuning got so sticky I > actually took the instrument to a lutemaker since I thought it had to be peg > slippage, but no. And of course, with all these different modern materials, > the different string types are going out if tune differently. Superb. > > I just can't believe I forgot about how difficult tuning synthetics can be. > But more importantly, it leads me to question what the point of playing on > synthetics is: after all, the reason why players use them is since they are > supposed to bally well stay in tune... and I am really not so sure given my > current experience that they do this better than gut. > > Thoughts? > > Benjamin > > Sent from my iPhone > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
