Hello Leonard and others, This is a topic of great interest to me, as I have played mostly gut strings for 30 + years. There is nothing as beautiful as the sound of a gut strung lute tuned well. Some have tried oils, resins, even crazy glue with mixed effectiveness of making trebles last long.
Of the few who responded, what they did not say is what pitch and string length they are using. In my experience that is the utmost important factor. If you want a g treble at a=440, you cannot exceed 59 cm in length. If you do, you can only expect short strong life. It does not help to use a smaller diameter treble, as lowering the tension does not help either. If you want a baroque lute treble of f a = 415, if you exceed 68 cm, you will experience failure and short string life. We certainly can use any synthetic string, nylon, carbon, nylgut, etc., but the properties of gut are that we must stay in the formula or we have treble string short life. Some argue that we “should” be able to string gut trebles at higher pitches than what gut is capable of, but experience has shown otherwise. Although we can get a synthetic treble at g = 440 at let’s say 63 cm, we cannot with gut and that lute for instance should be at f, not g. My 67 cm. 11-course baroque lute is at f 415 at 67.5 , and a usual treble lasts me 3 months. Once, I had one that lasted 10 months with heavy playing!! On my 70.5 cm baroque lute, it only lasts a day or so unless I lower the pitch to e. Then if I do that, it lasts as long as the other lute. So, if you have a 63 cm lute and insist on a gut treble, the pitch should be f, not g at 440. Staying within the upper limits is the only way to use a gut treble. Some people record in gut in that configuration, but they can stop and change trebles as they fail! Another factor is what kind of gut. Gamut now has beef gut trebles and they seem much stronger than sheep gut; some say beef is not as sweet in sound, but I cannot tell the difference in appearance, sound, playability, or texture. For me, beef is my personal choice. Ed Sent from my iPhone > On Jan 19, 2018, at 11:45 AM, Leonard Williams <arc...@verizon.net> wrote: > > Has anyone come up with a technique to increase the life of gut trebles? > (besides switching to synthetics!) I get stray fibers very shortly after > installing one—still playable but the tone and intonation suffer. > > Thanks! > Leonard Williams > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
