Hi folks. Been a very long summer with lots of great experiences. Among them a week long seminar at Oberlin where I got to see first hand how well some of the criticisms about NY S&S hold up.... but thats another discussion entirely. Just before the summer I decided to start testing some of the claims about how useless the idea of the back duplex ala S&S stood up to reality. One of the major beefs is that the back length once tuned wont stay tuned. I found this an interesting claim when put aside other comments in other threads about the amounts of friction the bridge pins present. In any case... after the summer I've had a chance too look pretty closely at 4 instruments (3 D's and a C) that I'd tuned the back lengths in the late spring. Seen as unisons.... the back lengths hold their tuning far better then the speaking lengths do thats for sure. I didn't measure pitch on back lengths, but I did tune them so that their unisons were very clean and just sharp of the <theoretical> correct. (I just had this hunch for some reason that slightly more tension on the back lengths then front lengths was a good idea to start with). After tuning all four this fall I can observe that the back lengths are all pretty much where I left them this spring. Slightly sharp of their theoreticals and nearly all the back length unisons are still very clean. Seems to me that tho this is a very limited test... the claim that the back lengths wont stay tuned is well overstated. Of course they will become out of tune in time... but then the speaking lengths do too and that doesn't seem to bother anyone. They are not too awfully time consuming to tune to any given spec either. So I come up with the following three points about the back duplex scale 1... it is easy to tune really. 2... it is remarkably stable compared to the speaking lengths. 3... when they do go out of tune.... then hey... just like the speaking lengths one should just re-tune. I wont get into weather there is some acoustic benefit to doing so just yet. I suspect in the end there is, but thats another discussion as well. Cheers RicB
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