Protek against string falseness

[Mark Schecter]

Ric,

I am instinctively cautious about the idea of putting any kind of 
lubricant into bass string windings. However, I could conceive that the 
teflon lubricant molecules are small enough to do something different 
than petroleum molecules might do, so now I'll ask you: do you have any 
idea what is happening that you are perceiving as improvement? What are 
the types of falseness that are cleared up by adding a few drops to 
bridge pins? And I would imagine that a temporary deadening that goes 
away quickly is the mass of the lubricant's carrier weighing down the 
string, then evaporating. But how, in your creatively imagined 
understanding, is any lasting clarity and sustain imparted to these 
upper strings? Since you are there observing, perhaps you could 
enlighten? Thanks.

-Mark Schecter

Richard Brekne wrote:
> Hi
> 
> The last few months I've been experimenting a bit with using Protek on 
> some old beaters I have around town to minimize the amount of falseness 
> in strings.  Adding Protek to the windings of wound strings most 
> definitely can affect the para inharmonicity of bass strings to the 
> positive at least in the short run... that is to say at least over a 
> period of some few days. Adding a few drops to the bridge pins cleans up 
> several types of falseness to a very significant degree. If one adds 
> liberally then at first, and especially in the 4th to 5th registers then 
> a temporary and slight deadening effect to the string is experienced... 
> but this quickly disappears and the end result is a cleaner and slightly 
> less bright sound. Curiously in the highest notes it seems to add very 
> significant amounts of clarity and apparent sustain.
> 
> None of this has been measured or subjected to any good scientific 
> method or experiments... just some informal checking spurred by the use 
> of other chemical additives to bridge pins that has been discussed... 
> looking for convenient alternatives as it were.
> 
> Questions tho... does anyone know or care to speculate on what exactly a 
> few drops of Proteck does long term to the wood of the bridge ?  And for 
> that matter what longer term affects adding Protek to bass string 
> windings would have on bass strings ?
> 
> Cheers and thanks
> RicB
> 
>