Hi folks. I have been spending a lot of time lately playing with various ideas in relation to the back duplex length. I know there is a lot of back and forth discussion about the viability of this idea... but the following thoughts have prompted me to start looking closer at this whole thing. It has been stated time and time again here that the friction levels needed to be overcome for a change in tension to occur for this length are great enough that if true, one can assume that this length would remain quite stable during play, perhaps more so by a good deal then the speaking length. This would mean that any (reasonable) pitch adjustment to of these lengths could easily be done during the course of a usual tuning. I find routinely that the pitch of these lengths for unisons vary quite a bit and these variant pitches remain stable from tuning to tuning. This allows for quite a large window for which to tune these lengths to. It strikes me as intuitively obvious that lengths of the same length should have as identical pitches as possible. In fact, it is quite easy to accomplish this with an ETD on the fly as a part of a regular tuning. If you need to increase tension, just use a string hook and pull on the speaking length close to the bridge pin in a direction away from the pin.... or simply tune the string quite high until the back length rises in tension enough. To go the other way simply do the same on the duplex length. Fine adjustment is easier then you might think. In fact the whole process doesnt add all that much time to a regular tuning, and can be expected to hold pretty darn solidly at least as long as the next seasonal change. Climatic changes affect the whole darned instrument so this is not a reason IMHO to not tune this section. Now... just what is the most optimal frequency relationship to the speaking length to tune these lengths too is another question. I'm getting the feeling that if one assures that the tension is higher in the back length then the speaking length.... that you end up with a cleaner sounding instrument.... but I am still experimenting. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated Cheers RicB
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