A new use for Goose's String level tool

Richard Brekne ricb at pianostemmer.no
Sun Sep 23 14:24:57 MDT 2007


Hi folks

For a while now I've been pondering a little experiment Terry Farrell
did a couple years back to try and look at how well / if  a string could
stay in a position of <<unseatedness>>.  We've all been through the
seating discussion many times... so I wont really go into it beyond
asking as many of you who will take a few minutes to do the following ...

Take Gooses tool and place it on unisons right close to the bridge.
Check the level of the three strings.  Now take a small punch and tap a
couple times down on the bridge pin itself... not the string.  Notice
how (dramatically) actually the change in the string plane (using Gooses
tool) really is.  Play the unison hard.. retune it.. whatever and see
that the new string plane does not noticeably change.  Now take a string
hook and pull the same string upwards along the bridge pin and recheck
with the level tool.  Again.. play hard.. retune.. etc and check the
plane again to see how well the string holds itself in whatever place
you leave it...within reason of course.

Within reason for my 10 minutes of dinking around with this today was on
the order of a window of over a half a millimeter a string could easily
be moved vertically and would stay in place despite standard tuning
movement and hard play.

As a side... I also noticed that there seemed to be a slight improvement
in sound... a  more clear definition of pitch when all three strings
were on exactly the same level plane.  Perhaps this was a subjective
<<wishfull thinking>> thing on my part projected on the real
situation... but I really did get the feeling that flimmering of pitch
was significantly reduced when I got all strings nicely seated and on
the same plane.... Why this might have an effect... ??.. more stuff for
ponderment.

Cheers
RicB



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