I, too have had issues with octaves on the 5th course of my 8
course lute. I tried it several years ago, using an octave half the
diameter of the bass (all in gut). But, whereas the octave g on 6th
blended well with its bass, the octave c stood out, sounding jangly,
almost as though I had a metal string on there. Perhaps it was poor
(thumb-in in this case) technique? At any rate, I switched back to
unison.
I'm trying octaves again as a result of this discussion, same
stringing. One thing I paid careful attention to was the height of the
octave: it stood a mere half millimeter above the bass at the bridge,
but enough that I was striking the pair of strings unevenly, with the
octave ringing out quite plainly. I adjusted the bridge knot, what
little I could, and the sound improved somewhat. Perhaps further work
with RH technique will further improve the sound. Or--any other
suggestions??
Regards to all, and Happy (US) Thanksgiving!
Leonard Williams
On 23 nov. 2019, at 13:17, Jurgen Frenz
<[1]eye-and-ear-cont...@protonmail.com> wrote:
> Hello there,
>
> I have an 8c lute now since 10 months and from the beginning I'm
> "unhappy" with the sound of the unison C strings on it. I changed
the
> plain Aquila strings to round-wound Aquilas but to me it sounds
quite
> the same. What I'm missing is the high frequencies that we have on
6c
> instruments with the octave string. In my mind I call the current
sound
> "plastic-y". The maker of the instrument suggested to try out the
> Savarez early music strings but I do not think I would recover high
> frequencies with them.
>
> Any remedies that you have tried out with success other than "just
get
> used to it"? An octave string shouldn't be a good idea because it
would
> confuse voices.
>
> Hoping for some suggestions,
> Jurgen
>
> ----------------------------------
> "Close your eyes. Fall in love. Stay there."
>
> JalÃl ad-Dà «n Muhammad Rumi
>
>
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References
1. mailto:eye-and-ear-cont...@protonmail.com
2. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
