Dear All, In fact, what I "thought" I normally found was that gut strings get settled in faster, but are more prone to movement than synthetics on a day to day basis, where synthetics can take weeks to settle down (gut minutes/hours), but once they do they can be settled for ages. I thought (and for nylon still do think) that all things considered one tunes around 10% more with gut strings than synthetics (considerable, but manageable).
While I do find that the nylgut is pretty stable, as is nylon, I have had horrible experiences with carbon strings (when touring in NYC, Roman!) which kept on climbing in hot stage conditions (sometimes by nearly a semitone). This was on an excellent theorbo by Klaus Jacobsen. The gut and nylon strings on the same theorbo/conditions were vastly more stable. On the theorbo I am currently playing (which is admittedly a rubbish instrument by a certain French luthier who will remain anonymous) I find it is the overwound strings that are moving around the most. As I said, I brought the lute 'round to a good luthier, who reworked the pegs to minimise slippage, and this had helped enormously. That said, the three overwound strings continue to go wildly out of tune - much, much more than the nylgut, nylon, and much more than the GUT on the same instrument with the same pegs. In this case, it must be the metal windings that so contribute to the utter lack of stability. I have toured in the tropics (Ile de la Reunion, a French territory in the south Indian Ocean) with a 100% humidity index. It took several days for my theorbo, gut strings (and myself!) to adjust, but once this happened, the instrument was remarkably stable: at 100% humidity there was nowhere left for the strings/instrument to move! Funnily enough, the theorbo was noticeably heavier by several hundred grams due to the water weight. Sam: I get my plain gut from Nick Baldock. To be honest, I am not sure if it is varnished or not. Following historical sources, I tune my top string to just below breaking point, and the rest a tad lower. This means I use very high gauges (normally nothing thinner than .46, often much thicker, for chanterelles). These tops last weeks, if not months, with heavy playing. There is no problem in humid conditions, as anyone who heard my concert last year at the Marin Marais Festival in Paris can attest (aside from the normal 10% extra tuning that gut requires over nylon). So, I suppose what I am saying is that while nylon/nylgut are more stable than gut (once they settle in; gut is much more stable right away) I see no advantage with carbon or overwound strings with regards to gut when it comes to tuning. They are at least as difficult to tune as gut, with the added disadvantage of sounding (in my view) utterly rubbish. My 392 cents. Best, Benjamin Sent from my iPhone On 5 oct. 2012, at 10:18, Benjamin Narvey <luthi...@gmail.com> wrote: > Dear Luters, > > I know that much has been made about tuning issues pertaining to gut strings, > but it strikes me now how little has been said about the same difficulty with > synthetics/modern strings. > > For the first time in ages I am playing on a modern-strung theorbo belonging > to a student of mine for rehearsals of a "Fairy Queen" while I impatiently > await the arrival of my new "double luth" in some weeks (more on this giraffe > anon). I am simply aghast at how badly carbon strings go out of tune, even > though they are "not supposed to". (Nylon/nylgut fares better.) Indeed, the > (ugh) overwound Savarez "guitar" bass strings are the worst offenders of all, > going madly out of tune sometimes: not surprising they are so sensitive given > how metal is such a superb conducting material. The tuning got so sticky I > actually took the instrument to a lutemaker since I thought it had to be peg > slippage, but no. And of course, with all these different modern materials, > the different string types are going out if tune differently. Superb. > > I just can't believe I forgot about how difficult tuning synthetics can be. > But more importantly, it leads me to question what the point of playing on > synthetics is: after all, the reason why players use them is since they are > supposed to bally well stay in tune... and I am really not so sure given my > current experience that they do this better than gut. > > Thoughts? > > Benjamin > > Sent from my iPhone > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
