Hello lutenetters, Last week I got new basses from Mimmo for my baroque lute: it is gut , copper wound I think the official name is demi-filé and very flexible. Of course I still have to tune a lot these days, but I like the sound very much, a bit sustain but not too much. Luckily the holes at the bridge were big enough, only one peg I had to enlarge a bit. There are also some problems: as these new strings are much thicker than the metal wound strings, they tend to buzz. My lute by Michael Lowe, has a bass rider but from the C string (11the course) all strings go into the peg box. I've seen other solutions, leading some of these basses to the pegs outside the peg box, but then the nut has to be replaced and also the strings going to the bass rider are an obstruction for this solution. Mimmo sent me 8 of those basses (6th to 13nd), but I still kept the original metal and nylgut octave strings, I suppose it's better to change this to gut too of course, but then the problem of buzzing will increase. The price of those new strings is not cheap, I payed 104 EURO plus postage but I think it's worth that price. Who can give me some more suggestions? Benjamin Narvey wrote:
>Hello Lutenetters! > >After about one year of experimenting with gut, I've come to realise that, >actually, I know precious little detail about the historical types of strings >mentioned above, and just how they relate (and indeed, if they do!) to the >modern gut strings with the same titles. Does anybody out there know? (ahem, >ahem, Mimmo, are you still out there? Martin???) > >I realise the question of stringing really is the $64,000 question (if indeed, >I have the sum right - the game show offered some significant remuneration at >any rate), and that the poverty of knowledge about such historical types is >perhaps the most pressing lacuna concerning historical performance on the lute >to date. I have read Mace and Varietie, amongst other historical sources, that >deal with stringing in order to better understand what was going on then - but >I find the information I have been able to glean lacking in precision. What >soures are today's stringmakers reading? Am I missing something? I have also >visited various stringmaking sites such as Gamut and Aquila - but here too I >find the description of historical string types to be lacking, as too is the >clarity between the historical types and their modern appellative heirs. > >So, if anyone could tell me (that is, if it is known/or at least what is >known) about these historical types and their modern equivalents I'd be well >pleased! I'm sure that if anyone knows, anyone will be on this list! > >All best! > >Benjamin > > > >To get on or off this list see list information at >http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > > > >
