Strings riding up (was Tuning stability)

[Richard Brekne]

Hi David..

The test I gave is of course only an indicator... and unless you can get 
the string to follow the groove perfectly (which you cant without the 
bridge pins  of course) then you can only treat it as an indicator.  
However... if the grooves in the bridge are very slight, then this 
becomes more dependable.   In anycase you can get a decent enough idea 
of the bearing condition this way. For tapping to be a totally useless 
proceedure the amount of real negative bearing has to be fairly 
significant. If the bridge pins are strong enough clamps to force the 
bridge to indent agains the string... they certainly are strong enough 
to keep the string seated for reasonble lengths of time unless negative 
bearing is relatively severe.




David Skolnik wrote:

> Ric -
> I've tried your procedure before, and again just now, just to remind 
> myself why it doesn't entirely work.  First, if the downbearing is 
> positive but slight, the difference in height between the string 
> groove and the surface the string would rest upon in its modified 
> position could be enough to cause an error.  Also, at least when I did 
> it just now, by shifting the string to the opposite side of the rear 
> bridge pin, it crosses the planed surface of the adjacent string, 
> towards the bass, which could further alter your reading.  In other 
> words, if it's really close, you can get a false positive, or maybe 
> even a false negative.  If, on the other hand, you are of the opinion 
> that less than a certain amount of downbearing showing is about as bad 
> as none at all, the method can be useful.  It's just that so much of 
> what I see falls into the close range.
>
> One of my concerns, stemming from the original (recent) discussion, 
> begun by Jeff Stickney (3/25/04 Tuning Stability) was what appeared to 
> me to be an unwarranted shifting of responsibility for negative front 
> bearing onto the process of string seating.  I think some of the 
> alternative culprits
> that have come up in my discussion with Ron have been quite 
> illuminating, for me at least.


I like a lot of Rons thoughts on this matter... I just dont see that he 
covers all bases as he seems to think.  Most importantly his only 
alternative is to replace the bridge surface in one sense or another.  
This is clearly not an option in the vast majority of situations. On the 
other hand, string seating properly done can have an easily observable 
positive affect in many many instances, and can in some percentage of 
these again have a fairly long lasting affect.  Also... I really dont 
think we fully understand everything about why strings find themselves 
in this situation to begin with.  I dont personally believe that its 
just a matter of the string being clamped hard enough to force an 
indentation in the bridge top, and I dont think that the indentations 
formed there are strictly ( or even most significantly  ) caused because 
of this clamping.  And just because we dont have a clear cut description 
of what other physical properties / processes can be involved here by no 
means gives justification for ruling out that there are other 
significant factors at work... so I keep an open mind.

>
> With regard to your observation that tapping can have a beneficial, if 
> temporary effect, what do you think is happening to initially cause 
> the distortion and how do you think  tapping solve it?


Oh that gets into several things... but its not about the kind of 
clearly defined false beats that are so easily confused with real 
beating between strings. I dont have time tonite to get into this 
discussion much... but suffice to say that solid contact with the 
termination points generally speaking always yeilds a cleaner sound.  
Tapping can under the right conditions and executed carefully enough, 
achieve an improvement (however temporary) in that condition.

>
> Regards,
>
> David Skolnik
>
Cheers

RicB