After sending the previous post, it occurred to me to concur with Brent Fischer in the idea that it is the process of restringing (or originally stringing) that helps create the problem of sizzle and zing. In restringing the upper treble to achieve better clarity/sustain and so forth, I consider that care in spacing strings (doing it before pulling to pitch, when there is just enough tension to hold them in place) is as important as resurfacing the capo and duplex, resurfacing and renotching the bridge, and replacing the bridge pins (assuming the bearing side is worn). Oh, and not "tapping" the strings down, but rather stretching them into conformity with the bridge pins, duplex bars, and capo. If the front duplex and capo are nicely shaped to begin with, it is the shoving the strings back and forth to space that "planes" up little curls of metal and creates zings, or at least that is how I conceptualize it. Fred S. Sturm, RPT University of New Mexico
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