I think there is room for confusion here- Savarez has had two very
different sorts of "KF" string. Up to about .85 mm, it is the clear
stuff that looks virtually identical to plain, polished nylon- only much
denser, & denser than plain gut as well. Don't recall the ratios off
hand, but this KF would need to be roughly about .36 mm to be equivalent
to a .40 gut, or a .43-.44 nylon. At .95 mm, it changes to a string that
used to be called KFG (Karbon Fiber gut?). Cloudy, gut-like appearance,
but lighter in color than most gut. I think the "G" has been eliminated
from the name, resulting in potential confusion. I have been using it
for years, but now only on my archlute from 6-G down to the 11 course
BB-flat, at which point Larson Gimps take over for low AA & GG. On my 13
course Baroque lute the KF(G) start at 6-A and continue down to 9-E, and
from 10-D old 1st generation Peruffo loaded gut fundamentals take over.
I no longer use them on my Renaissance lutes. They are a great "poor
man's gut", also hold tuning much better than gut. Not quite as good a
sound as real gut, but close enough for many applications.
I have a new archlute student, a professional harpist, and he has
confirmed the use of these strings. Also, from earlier in the thread,
from Chris Wilke:
"Another option is to play the 13th course with a typical rest stroke
onto the 12th course, bend the tip joint forward, and then lean back on
13th with the side of the thumb. "
-A part of the harp player's technique, less clumsy to execute on the
harp than the lute, apparently.
Dan
On 2/23/2013 6:46 AM, Karl L. Eggert wrote:
Hello Lex,
If one doesn't feel like using gut strings, I find the KF harp
strings of
Savarez a pretty good substitute.
That´s interesting. Nigel North uses in concert KF basses on his 11c
Baroque lute , and
it sounds good. He plucks the strings at the rose, so they sound
softer. I couldn´t play there.
Where do you pluck the KF bass strings?
I used a 1,27 mm KF string for the F (87,3 Hz) on a 64 cm lute (-->
28,2 N)
with a NewNylgut octave, and it sounded good to me.
In my experience these bass strings work best at a tension of 21 to 24N.
That´s pretty low. What are the bass tones? What is your string length?
What density did you use for calculating the tensions?
Comment:
Savarez sells KF strings for lute also, see
http://www.savarez.fr/anglais/instanci-pince.html
The diameters are the same as for harps, so I guess it´s the same kind of
strings. Savarez informs there (the same informations are given for
the KF harp
strings): " ...and the density is very close to gut."
This is fantastic! By a number of people I have learnt that KF
composite has a density
somewhere between 1700 and 1800 kg/m3, whereas gut has 1300-1350. Arto
Wikla determined the KF density by weighing to be 1791 kg/m3.
You get to the conversion table via the menu item "chart comparatif"
Caution! The Harp string conversion tables at
http://www.savarez.fr/p-tb-compa-ref-harp.html
obviously use a density ratio KF/gut of ca. 1,12. (1750/1300 = 1,35!).
Best wishes
Karl L. Eggert
--------------------------------------------------
From: "Lex van Sante" <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2013 9:42 AM
To: "lute mailing list list" <[email protected]>
Subject: [english 100%] [LUTE] Re: Damping overspun strings.
Hi,
Overspun strings get dull when they get old but the sustain stays about
the same.
A player who uses a damping technique on overspuns in stead of foam
rubber
or other such contraptions is Hoppy.
If one doesn't feel like using gut strings, I find the KF harpstrings of
Savarez a pretty good substitute.
There is a conversion table on their website to make life easier.
Check out http://www.savarez.fr/anglais/harpe.html
You get to the conversion table via the menu item "chart comparatif"
In my experience these bass strings work best at a tension of 21 to 24N.
My 2pence
Lex
Op 21 feb 2013, om 08:31 heeft Ed Durbrow het volgende geschreven:
Or you can just use them for about 20 years. They get pretty dull by
then.
On Feb 21, 2013, at 1:59 PM, Herbert Ward <[email protected]>
wrote:
One often hears that overspun strings
sustains too long, compared with gut strings.
Thus it seems strange that I've never
seen anyone damp overspun strings with
foam rubber.
Is is easy to control the amount
of damping by using dampers of different sizes,
or by sliding dampers farther or closer
to the bridge.
Strings damped this way don't sound like gut,
but for some pieces I find them a significant
improvement.
If you're lucky enough to have yellow
foam rubber instead of pink, the dampers
will match the soundboard rather well.
Alternatively, there are also opportune times,
notably at the end of pieces, when you can damp
a string with your thumb to good effect.
To get on or off this list see list information at
http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
Ed Durbrow
Saitama, Japan
http://www.youtube.com/user/edurbrow?feature=watch
http://www9.plala.or.jp/edurbrow/
