Duplex

[John Delacour]

At 10:10 PM +0100 11/17/01, Richard Brekne wrote:

>how are we to ascertain when the tensions
>are really equal ?? If we were to go by sound then we would have to know in
>advance just exactly what pitch these segments were supposed to sound at. And
>there seemed to be a lot of reasonable argumentation made as to why this would
>not be possible.


I must have missed that reasonable argumentation.  Of course we know 
in advance exactly what pitch these sections are supposed to sound 
at.  The positioning of the supports at distances from the main 
bridges that give string lengths in simple mumerical proportions to 
the speaking length makes it inevitable that when the whole length is 
brought to uniform tension, the front and back sections will sound 
the required partials.  All that is needed is skilful manipulation of 
the tuning lever and a little encouragement from a hardwood stick or 
something to equalize the tensions in the three lengths.  I don't do 
outside tuning work but I do a lot of restringing and have never had 
any problem quickly getting the partials in tune, though I admit the 
circumstances of a restring do facilitate the task, since you are 
working with smooth surfaces and unstretched wire.  How easy or 
difficult people may find it is not the point though; in my view 
tuned partials are there to be tuned and I tune them.  If subsequent 
tuners pay no heed to them (and very few do) then that's not my 
lookout -- I just pass comments such as "Oh, you don't tune the 
partials, I see.  Interesting!".

JD