High Treble Unisons - attack or sustain?

[Don Mannino]

John,

One more thing you might try the next time you are working with this 
- mute all 3 strings of the octave below, if they are undamped.  You 
might also be hearing the sympathetic ringing of the note an octave 
below, and this will cause the high note to sound (and measure) like 
it is drifting sharp or flat - depending on how the octave is tuned.

Don Mannino RPT

At 09:40 PM 11/16/2005, you wrote:
>Esteemed List,
>
>It seems I've noticed when setting unisons in the high treble area 
>that sometimes each string can seem to have its own direction it 
>wanders off into, independent of the frequency on its initial 
>strike.  One string may go flat during its sustain period even when 
>the "lights stand still" (I use an SAT) on attack.  Another of the 
>unisons may strike well but go MORE flat, or sharp first, then 
>flat... yadayada.  So I find myself trying to make a decision as to 
>whether to tune the strike or the sustain.  Has anybody else noticed 
>this phenomena?  (I think you'd hafta be deaf not to)
>
>My conclusion:  Whereas: those higher treble notes don't have very 
>much sustain, and the sustain is probably less listened to than the attack.
>
>AND, those notes oft-times are played very quickly, and with plenty 
>of other notes, high and low, going on in the music at the same time.
>
>Therefore, I resolve to tune the attack rather than the sustain, 
>compromising if need be by making the sustain as inoffensive as 
>possible while giving preference to the attack intonation.
>
>I realize I've made no reference to "wild" strings here.  Maybe 
>those are another topic.  I recognize them, too.
>
>Am I on the right track?  What are your thoughts?
>
>Thanks in advance,
>John Dorr
>
>
>
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