strings and things

[Donald Mitchell]

Dear list,

Something that I have experienced for a long time is new bass strings,
usuallly in the top of the bass, that loose there tone as they approach
their correct pitch when tuning up the first time.  They have nice clear
tone and good sustain until they get about 200 cents below desired pitch.
As they get closer to desired pitch they become more and more dull.  What
might be the trouble?  This has happined on both single wire replacements
with in a unison and on entire sets of bass strings.

On a related question.  If it is desired to decrease the tention on a
piano wire would a smaller or larger gauge wire be used?

Last of all when attempting to use universal bass string replacements for
brroken bass strings what kind of compensation should be made to
compensate for the fact that universal strings have a hexoginal shaped
core and normal wire has a round core.  Is this difference significent? If
it is is there a simple rule of thumb to make the adjustment in wire size
when changeing from regular to universal string

Don Director of Instruction Emil Fries Piano Hospital and Training Center