OK, Nancy asked me to jump in, so I will. The first experience with these pegheds was on Dan Winheld's 8-course lute. I really liked them, a lot.
Then, about a year ago, I took my first plunge with these gears (pegheds). I had them installed on my 6-course vihuela, and they immediately solved many, many problems. First off, baroque guitars and vihuelas (probably renaissance guitars) have problems, in that the traditional peg goes through only one hole, as opposed to two holes for a lute. Therefore, the vihuela has a greater tendency to slip. The pegheds remedied this problem, and I later decided, last early spring, to have them installed on my 11-course lute. My 11-course baroque lute partner, Tom Walker, also has a lute that is an exact match to mine, and he also has pegheds. So, I have experience with 4 instruments in pegheds, (very limited with Dan Winheld's 8-course, however). It improved my 11-course instrument dramatically, with better tuning. This is especially important when using gut, and all these instruments are entirely strung in gut. By the way, Tom'sa lute was just 5 days old (!!) when he received it, and we had a concert that night. The hall filled with people, and the heat and humidity went up. The gut strings were so stable with pegheds, that we had NO TUNING for the entire concert, with exception of tuning diapasons to a different key!! That in itself is remarkable. Plainly put, I love them. They are unbelievably smooth, as in a very expensive guitar machine. They are adjustable in tension - as with a traditional peg, push them in and they will be tighter, pull them out, and looser. Whether in a tight or loose setting, they are smooth. They never slip, never stick. This summer, with all the humidity, I had no problems with stuck or slipping pegs.... they stay, it pitch, where you put them. Speaking of tuning, they are geared at 25% as compared to a peg. For example, if one wanted to tune a half step sharp, one turns the gear 4 times further than when using a traditional peg. That makes for much more accurate tuning, as they will not skip too sharp, as compared to a traditional peg. I find myself tuning more, but very much faster than before, and yes, I tune sometimes while playing. Tuning with pegheds is actually a joy now, as I can tune more accurately, and much faster. No more sore fingers trying to turn stick pegs!! We all know what it is like to adjust to a certain pitch... we play around, get it where we want, let go, and it slips with traditional pegs! Now, I have trust, so I can quickly adjust, without fear of slipping; yes, I can no adjust tuning "on the fly" while playing. As for weight, Dan Larson has on his web site, comparisons of the weights of pegs vs. pegheds. Different types of wood make different weights in pegs. Pegheds are , if my memory serves me correctly, just 2 grams more, or so. I cannot distinguish any difference in the weight of the neck or instrument, and the pegheds made, in my opinion, no difference whatsoever in sound, other than sounding better because I can now tune more accurately, therefore sounding better. No, the 11-course lute does have any perception to added weight. There are 2 drawbacks: 1. When changing a string, because the pegheds do not slip, one has to un-wind the peghed to get the old string out. This is not a problem, as the added time (perhaps 7-8 seconds) lost is nothing, compared to the time saved in fast and accurate tuning. 2. For those that only want authenticity, pegheds were not used in old times. Neither was nylgut, nylon, carbon, or perhaps wound strings for that matter! Many people who saw them on my lute this summer were fooled, into thinking they were ebony (they are not). Thanks for asking..................I would put them on all my instruments, if I could afford to do so. At 12:45 PM 8/16/2012, Ken Brodkey wrote: >Has anyone tried the mechanical pegs made by Pegheds? I have a >customer who is interested in replacing his traditional pegs with >these. Any comments are much appreciated. > >Thanks. > >Ken > > > >To get on or off this list see list information at >http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html Edward Martin 2817 East 2nd Street Duluth, Minnesota 55812 e-mail: e...@gamutstrings.com voice: (218) 728-1202 http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1660298871&ref=name http://www.myspace.com/edslute http://magnatune.com/artists/edward_martin
