No subject

>Just curious here. Explain please, how does the soundboard cause
false beats that can be >cured by tapping strings down?

	The soundboard breathes, ie expands and contracts from conditions of
the environment. Some bridges have too little front bearing.  The
grooves  are a good indication of this. With inadequate f b and the
soundboard entering a dry period,  a reasonable explanation is that
the strings can 'ride' up from the seating and cause beats, and thus
tapping down eliminates them. It should also be reasonable to assume
this "cure"  might not be lasting.
Also tapping might not cure the beat at all.   Some times it does,
some times it doesn't.  Why? Some  causes can only take an educated
guess.

The cause of false beats is one thing, but the remedy is what we get
paid for.  If a string is wild and it is tapped down  and it is no
longer wild, you got the job done, and  you know a little more.   If
it comes back from a fff blow, and it goes away again from tapping
down, you can suspect the seating is being distrubed. There can be
many causes of this. Loose bridge pin? Fan shaped seat? Not enough
front bearing? Notch a little off? because ... Did someone  hammer
down the string instead of tapping it?  Or "tap" it in the wrong
spot? In leveling the strings was
too much  pressure put on the bridge?  Did the builder or rebuilder
use a string "stretcher" to hurry things along?  The causes can be
infinite.  How much concern  if you can "tune it out"?
 When listening to individual strings how much
difference can you hear from one string to another?  Are you now
hearing beats you never heard before? ; )  How will they sound
tomorrow, next week, next month, next year?
Richard Moody