Martyn, I've actually had the opposite experience with the durability of double frets. Their practical lifespan isn't as long as single frets precisely because the side closest to the bridge takes the wear, leaving an uneven relation to the bridge side. This means they start buzzing very soon after being put on. (I used double frets on one of my albums. The track running order differed from the order in which they were recorded, but you can tell in exactly what sequence the pieces were done by the sound of the frets. By the end of the session, the fingered bass notes started growling like a fretless bass. And that was only over a few days of heavy playing!) Single frets, by comparison, can theoretically last until the "bridge side" is the fret above it.
Another obvious disadvantage to double frets - they of course take up twice the fret gut. I'm not so deep in the pockets that I can afford to fret twice the number of instruments I actually own! I suspect double frets may have made more sense with historical gut, which was obviously more pliable and probably softer and more elastic than what we have available today. Chris [1]Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone On Friday, March 9, 2018, 7:10 AM, Martyn Hodgson <[email protected]> wrote: I'm pleased to hear it. Another advantage of double frets is that, being twice the length, the their elastic deformation and recovery is physically superior to a single: in short, you can move them around more (if you're that way inclined) without them becoming as loose as a single loop would. A yet further advantage is that the loop closer to the nut takes most of the wear leaving the fret loop closer to the bridge with a cleaner take-off for a longer period than a wholly single loop. rgds MH __________________________________________________________________ From: Matthew Daillie <[2][email protected]> To: "[3][email protected]" <[4][email protected]> Sent: Friday, 9 March 2018, 11:33 Subject: [LUTE] Re: Loose frets I've never had issues with single knots. Best, Matthew On 09/03/2018 11:39, Martyn Hodgson wrote: > Indeed. And it also depends whether single fret loops are employed > (something of a modern fad) rather than the better, and easier to tie > firmly, historical double fret loops To get on or off this list see list information at [1][5]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html -- References 1. [6]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html -- References 1. https://overview.mail.yahoo.com/?.src=iOS 2. mailto:[email protected] 3. mailto:[email protected] 4. mailto:[email protected] 5. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html 6. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
