Bob, At 12:24 AM 11/23/99 -0500, you wrote: >A client, who plays sitar, has requested "Sheffield wire." He expresses >dissatisfaction with Röslau wire, as well as Mapes, the only two we have >used. Anyone know a source? He needs #3. While Steve B., or Clark may have some better ideas, you might check with Kathy Smith at CSULB or Michael Kemper who is, I think, still at UCLA. Both these schools had multiple sitars in the not too distant past. The problem with the Mapes and Roslau wire is too much carbon. I was at CSULB in the '60s and early '70s when a protege of Ravi Shankar was on the faculty, and we ran into the same problem. We wound up getting some wire from England, and some from a Frank Hubbard. Taking advantage of working at a reasonably well-equipped university, we sent various samples down to the chem labs for analysis. Seems that, like the old Giese wire (and older Roslau, for that matter) these other wires had more nickel proportionately to the amount of carbon. The result was that the strings would produce a nice, clear fundamental in addition to the richly varied upper partials so idiosyncratic to the sitar (but related to the Chinese PiPa). If your client can hear the difference, nothing else will do. Remember that some of the less complex Indian Ragas contain 47 (or so) tones to the octave... If I can remember anything more, I will gladly pass it along. Best. Horace ************************************************************************* Horace Greeley, CNA, MCP RPT voice: 650.725.9062 Systems Analyst/Engineer, fax: 650.725.8014 Controller's Office, Stanford University hgreeley@stanford.edu 651 Serra St., RM 100, MC 6215 Stanford, CA 94305-6215 *************************************************************************
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