voicing - was Convention musings

[Ron Nossaman]

>Since we tune all notes to partials and then do some voicing to change
>inharmonicity and sustain time. Two things have happened. 1. By changing
>the the inharmonicity of the second partial by as much as 1.5cents in the
>mid octave, the octave will now have to be tuned less wide. 2. In the
>absence of the 2nd partial your ear goes on auto pilot and reverts to the
>fundamental, or what ever it fixes on, that is why the bass/tenor
>transition causes so many problems.


Sorry old stump, but a line's been crossed and I'm going to have to take
exception to this one. The bass/tenor break is, last (read LAST, *L* *A* *S*
*T*) of all, a voicing problem. It is (maybe) a roughly equal split between
a soundboard impedance, and/or a scaling problem, but it is rarely a voicing
problem. Any hammer voicing that is even necessary across this break is a
result of a design and/or construction deficiency. If the soundboard and
string scale is designed and built correctly, no hammer voicing magic is
required to disguise the problems because the problems aren't there in the
first place. It usually ain't the hammers' fault, and most likely isn't
going to be cured by hammer voicing. Voicing can effectively disguise
fundamental design and production deficiencies to some degree, but it needs
to be understood that it isn't a correction or a fix of these deficiencies.
The problems are still there, and will likely come back at you at a later
date. One can only take post disaster "Band Aid" patches so far, and a free
lunch or a silver bullet is still a myth.  

 Ron N