Taco
I think Mimmo Peruffo may not reply because he may not want to appear to be advertising his wares on this list. It is a difficult situation for string makers and lute makers whenever they communicate, it could be considered that indirectly they are trying to sell their wares. Also, there is a limit to what they can say without giving away their trade-secrets. One problem in researching historic strings, is that string makers have always kept their recipes secret. Thus, only indirect evidence can often be used to rediscover these processes. And yet, string makers would be by far the best persons to speak about their own strings.
However, you will notice that very few do.

I gave you an answer because, I did see and hear those strings, however, I am far from being a competent person in this field. I can but use my imagination to think what may be going on in the discovery of these old strings, and metaphors about wine-making are my weak attempts at imagining the sort of difficulties involved.

My reply may, anyway, seem a little strange, because I say that the loaded strings seemed quite good, but may not be available. If I heard them why aren't they available?

The problem I think is that when you research into old techniques, you may or may not rediscover them; but it is different rediscovering the technique, and using it efficiently to produce the strings in sufficient numbers and in a controlled way to be able to commercialize them.

I suppose we can remake glass for the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles using the original technique, but they only use old ones from that time, as the original ones used mercury fumes, which are quite lethal, (and also I suppose new ones would look too new, but that is not relevant to the question, here)

I am not suggesting that it is exactly the same for a loaded string, but working conditions at the time of historic string making would take little notice of the time spent, or the wastage, or the danger of chemicals. It may have been that most strings were thrown away. Some techniques cannot even be considered today, such as loading with Mercury salts.

I imagine that once you have found the original technique, you need to find a modern substitute method that allows you to speed up the production, and control it so that you don't lose most of it.

The original loaded strings, on an ordinary hightwist base, were quite good according to Jakob Lindberg. He says about the Rauwolf, "I had it all gut strung, with Dan Larson's gimped strings in the basses, except the last two, (...) where I had one of Mimmo Peruffo's early corde appesantite". He used them on his early Dowland recording, but later the quality was not so good. Perhaps the ones he had first, were the result of a long process of careful "hand-picked" experimental production, the later ones may have been, perhaps, an attempt at making them by a quicker controlled method. If so they may not have been so good. Lindberg says so in his article for the LSA journal.

I am not entirely inventing this explanation. Actually, I thought of it, and then I found my thoughts were more or less confirmed by what I found in the FAQ at Aquila's site.

I will quote from this : http://www.aquilacorde.com/faqi.htm

"46) Why did you suspend the production of loaded (C type) gut strings?
(...)
The production of loaded gut has been suspended on several important grounds: 1) the manufacturing process was extremely elaborate and difficult to standardize
2) the waste was very high (up to 70%)
3) the selling price could never cover the expenses
4) even after passing our quality control the risk the strings would still develop serious problems (like early breakage or becoming false) and cause justified customers complaints remained high. Seeking new technical solutions for the loading of gut has never been given up, though; we still aim at developing a different procedure that will allow us to produce loaded strings in a less costly, less wasteful and completely reliable way."

If the new Venice loaded strings are still the result of a slow experimental research process. MP may not want to begin selling them, until he has perfected the next stage, finding a way of producing them more quickly and with a controlled method.

Thus, at the Greenwich early music festival, he could be showing the results of his research experimentation, like any body else reading an article on some aspect of their research into lutemaking or interpretation. Mimmo has possibly not yet perfected the production stage, and may be, he does not know whether he will be able to do so. (I have no idea about that, perhaps on the other hand he is completely ready to produce them).

He may nevertheless consider he has gathered enough proof to show that loaded strings did exist and he is now able to show that they can be made, and also sound better than the previous ones that he made.

I apologize to Mimmo Peruffo, if what I have said is too wide of the mark.
Regards
Anthony

Le 3 nov. 07 à 20:29, Anthony Hind a écrit :

Taco
It would be better, if Mimmo Peruffo would answer this, and perhaps he will.

However, I heard them and saw them on Mimmo Peruffo's bass lute, through Skype, and as far as I could hear and see in such a context they did seem good. I have an M-Audio Transit plus JBL on Tour speakers connected to my computer, which is not hifi by any means, but with a decent MP3 Stream such as the examples on Aquila's site, or Dan Larson's recordings of his lutes, it is quite reasonable.

The previous type of loaded strings were easily damaged, being on a treble type string base. Now they are loaded Venice, which are a sort of twine. In particular they can be screwed up into a little ball and still come out looking like an unbroken string, which was not the case with the original ones. Mimmo demonstated that to me infront of the computer. He also did that trick of having the string vibrate between both hands, so that you can see that the vibration is even and regular.

I understand that as they are almost "tanned", they are more immune from the effect of humidity than a normal string. I think MP will be introducing them to the lute world at the Greenwich early music festival this month, November 2007

However, that does not mean they are about to be commercialized. As I understand it, the method for producing them is highly complex and rather long (and there will have been many hours/days/years? research). It may then be, that only a small number in the production will be up to standard. Thus how do you commercialize such a product? It is a little like those wines made with a few of the grapes in each bunch, hand chosen at the end of November when the grapes have almost dried out, and then laid down in casks for 10 years.

I tasted such a wine recently, at £90 a bottle. I did not actually buy it, but was allowed to taste it as a favour by the wine producer, because he knew I would appreciate it.

It was an extraordinarily complex taste, but if I did not buy the wine (although I was sorely tempted) who is going to buy a string at £90 a go, and yet, when you think about it, that bottle of wine was only 375 ml, and would not have lasted an evening. A lute bass lute string will last several years. I am not saying that would be the price of such a string, but I can easily imagine that the production might take the same pains taking work and time as that wine.
Regards
Anthony

Le 3 nov. 07 à 18:53, Taco Walstra a écrit :

Dear all,
just a new work on the lute historical stringings:
http://www.aquilacorde.com/lutes.htm
Maybe  it help to open some new excange of ideas...
Ciao
Mimmo


Interesting article and I'm very much interested in the new production of the loaded gut strings even after yesterdays experience with a small concert with a soprano in amsterdam: after a walk through drizzling rain, tuning in a relative warm room which was filled later with people wearing wet clothes and temperature rising to a hot and super humid level. I think that not many people understood my frustration when I answered a question from a listener
why I had to tune after every song.
When are these loaded gut string available? Anybody already experience with
these strings from Aquila. (especially: How do they stay?)
Taco



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