Hi lutelisters! So a student of mine picked up a set of La Bella lute strings w octaves and we strung up her Turkish-made 8-course lute (59cm string length) with them.
Then I noticed something very odd - the higher octaves were far too loose at the correct pitch as they were flabby and flopped about. Checking the diameters, I realised were basically the appropriate diameters for tuning at TWO octaves above the fundamental. For example, the nylon octave D on the 8th course was the same diameter as the nylon D on the 2nd course. Next, the tension on the bass courses seems far too low - they also flop about and buzz annoyingly. This is quite perplexing - the tensions listed in the pdf on the La Bella website already seem quite low, but when strung up, the strings feel far looser than what is listed. Also, when I use Arto Wikla's string calculator and feed in the density + string length + diameter, the resulting tensions is significantly lower than what La Bella indicates. I haven't used La Bella in nearly two decades. Can anyone advise if I'm imagining things? Edward Chrysogonus Yong [email protected] To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
