Dear Anthony, I understood from MP's website that one of the strong arguments for loaded basses is iconography which quite consistently shows red or brown-red bass strings, which are supposed to had been loaded using oxides of lead, copper, iron etc. We know from pictures that mainly basses were red or reddish and if they were only dyed (as Mace described), how can one discern them from loaded strings, and how one can take iconography as an evidence of loading if there is no difference between 2 types of strings on paintings? From Mace's description I get an impression that he talks about ordinary red dyed guts: "There is another sort of strings, which they call Pistoy basses, which I conceive are none other then thick Venice-catlines, which are commonly dyed, with a deep dark red color" The same person writes on the same page that red colored strings are commonly rotten. For me it signifies that they were rather normally dyed, but not loaded. Obviously there is an argument about bridge holes etc, but I wouldn't like to return to our old discussion which in my opinion is quite difficult to solve at the moment without any new data. Meanwhile (returning to our topic), I don't think one needs to prove superiority of one string material over another. Everything has its advantages and disadvantages. Nice to hear from you too. Best wishes
Jaroslaw P.S. I am not against loaded bass theory, I'm just trying to asses all information objectively. Wiadomość napisana przez Anthony Hind w dniu 6 paź 2012, o godz. 22:13: > Oh I was only speaking about modern loaded strings, that at present are > covered in the copper loading. > I don't know what would happen with loading by saturation of an oxide, > although presumably that > should also prevent rotting. Oxide loading, however, could result in > various colours. > But according to Charles Besnainou thick untreated gut can also be > reddish or yellowish in hue. > I don't think colour is necessarilly always a sign of loading. Aren't > Georges Stoppani's strings rather red. > I am not of course suggesting tht they are prone to rot, but nor are > they loaded (although he may have made a few in experiments). > Nice to hear from you again > Best wishes > Anthony > __________________________________________________________________ > > De : JarosAA'aw Lipski <[email protected]> > AEUR : [email protected] > EnvoyA(c) le : Samedi 6 octobre 2012 21h45 > Objet : [LUTE] Re: the point of synthetics - Rather the movement of the > whole lute > Maybe, but then how will you explain a quote from Mace p.66: > "I have sometimes seen strings of a yellowish color very good; yet but > seldom; for that color is a general sign of rottenness, or of the decay > of the string. There are several sorts of colored strings, very good; > but the best was always the clear blue; the red commonly rotten." > As far as I understand red color is a most popular color of loaded > string. If this is so, how then they could be commonly rotten? > All best > Jaroslaw > WiadomoAA>Ae/= napisana przez Anthony Hind w dniu 6 paAA-o 2012, o > godz. 21:12: >> Loading, to a certain extent does protect against humidity changes. >> Perhaps there may have been other treatments that we don't know > about. >> Anthony >> __________________________________________________________________ >> >> De : Sam Chapman <[1][email protected]> >> A : alexander <[2][email protected]> >> Cc : Mark Probert <[3][email protected]>; lute-cs. edu >> <[4][email protected]> >> Envoye le : Samedi 6 octobre 2012 18h03 >> Objet : [LUTE] Re: the point of synthetics - Rather the movement of > the >> whole lute >> Interesting. Weren't strings sometimes also treated with certain > oils >> - >> almond oil I think? I hadn't realised that this could potentially >> protect against humidity changes. >> Sam >> On 6 October 2012 15:05, alexander <[1][1][5][email protected]> > wrote: >> It needs to be understood, i think, that there are clearly two >> elements in the pitch (in)stability. The string material and > design >> is, of course one. But for the light and breathing, as it is, > lute, >> the movement of the whole structure, most likely influences the >> tuning much, much more. So, in this case, chasing the string > mole >> while disregarding the body movement monster, is not going to > solve >> anything. Especially with the synthetics, - the differences >> observed >> here are the result of a different stretch - flexibility of the >> materials, rather then some radical reaction from the material > to >> the temperature - humidity change. (Of course the wound strings, >> consisting of two conflicting materials are a problem of its' > own). >> Just one brief look at the size of a single string and comparing > it >> with the size of the whole instrument should make one to realize >> something here, right? >> I do not have an information on the early lutes in this regard, > but >> early - baroque - bowed instruments as well as some later > violins, >> especially those built and used in bad climes, had the inner > wood >> surfaces treated with the mixture of hide glue and linseed oil. >> (There were actually some arguing this might have improved the >> instrument sound - to some tastes, that is, just off the top of > my >> head - look up Frederick Castle's "Violin tone peculiarities"). >> Some >> other varnishes on the inner wood surface were observed as well. > I >> have seen them on museum instruments. And some varnishes > penetrated >> the wood deeply enough to create more wood stability. Think > Cremona >> here. >> Protecting the inner wood surface of the lute would do much more > to >> stabilize its' tuning in the case of rapid weather changes. But >> this >> will never happen, i would hazard to guess. Chasing a perfect >> string >> - there is the solution, of course. >> alexander r. >> On Sat, 06 Oct 2012 12:17:41 +1000 >> Mark Probert <[2][2][6][email protected]> wrote: >>> >>> My $0.02, living in Sydney Australia, is that nylgut mitigates >> some >>> of he effect of fairly extreme weather changes. We can have a >> thunder >>> storm roll in and have the temperature drop by 10+C in the space >> of as >>> many minutes. Gut just gives up in those circumstances. >>> >>> Part B of this is the effect of the weather on the wood of the >>> instrument. One of my lutes is more stable than the other in the >>> pegbox department. When we are in a changing time, I am forced >> not to >>> play this instrument for days at a time (I really don't enjoy the >> tune, >>> tune, tune aspect). >>> >>> Then, isn't there the old adage of lute players spending half >> their >>> time tuning and the other half playing out of tune? This is not >> a >> new >>> problem, though I do believe that synthetics help. >>> >>> Kind regards >>> >>> -- >>> mark. >>> >>> >>> >>> To get on or off this list see list information at >>> [3][3][7]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html >> -- >> Sam Chapman >> Oetlingerstrasse 65 >> 4057 Basel >> (0041) 79 530 39 91 >> -- >> References >> 1. mailto:[4][8][email protected] >> 2. mailto:[5][9][email protected] >> 3. [6][10]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html >> >> -- >> >> References >> >> 1. mailto:[11][email protected] >> 2. mailto:[12][email protected] >> 3. [13]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html >> 4. mailto:[14][email protected] >> 5. mailto:[15][email protected] >> 6. [16]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html >> >> > > -- > > References > > 1. mailto:[email protected] > 2. mailto:[email protected] > 3. mailto:[email protected] > 4. mailto:[email protected] > 5. mailto:[email protected] > 6. mailto:[email protected] > 7. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > 8. mailto:[email protected] > 9. mailto:[email protected] > 10. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > 11. mailto:[email protected] > 12. mailto:[email protected] > 13. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > 14. mailto:[email protected] > 15. mailto:[email protected] > 16. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > >
