I think there could be some tonal effect from making the top of the agraffe more rigid, but the weak points in agraffes are usually at the sides, next to the holes, or at the top of the stem where it meets the agraffe head. So I don't think this design was done for any strength benefit by having a steel rod in the top. I am pretty sure it is done for a brighter tone and more sustain by having the string contact a hard straight rod instead of being trapped in a round hole of a (relatively) softer material. The steel rod is much harder than a capo bar, so there is no comparison tonally. I agree with an earlier post that it does no good for the strings to bear against hard steel - flattening / deformation of the wire is generally not desirable imho. Agraffes are made (or should be) with enough precision that one can drill a hole from the side that just intersects the top of the string holes. And of course this will create room for the string to be moved side to side, plus I can see how it could easily create burrs. The widened contact area could be seen as a benefit, especially if you have poor felt cutters working on your damper wedge felt :). I don't mind having a little more fudge room for string spacing, as even normal agraffes allow a little side to side scootching. This change of the shape of the string termination, along with the hard material, is what leads to the tone change I think. I certainly agree, after having tried them out here and there, that the affect is not something I personally like. The tonal change is not dissimilar to doing Wapin bridge pinning, at least to my ear - brighter and thinner tone with a little more sustain. If that's what you are looking for then it's fine, so those companies that use them are undoubtedly getting what they want from them. Finally, a treatise could be written discussing all the different ways to terminate the speaking length and how each would affect the tone. The combination of materials and termination styles can be chosen to end up with the tone (and price of the piano) wanted. Tone will be affected by the bridge cap material; bridge pin size, material and angle; distance of the bridge pin from the edge of the bridge; capo bar shape, material and hardness (alloy and hardening processes both affect tone); agraffe material, shape and thickness; material and distance of counter bearings, angle of string deflection, etc. etc. So I wouldn't agree it's right to look at one design feature like this agraffe and say it's 'bad,' just "I don't like it." Don Mannino -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut.php/attachments/20101116/1a06ea05/attachment.htm>
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