>Just curious here. Explain please, how does the soundboard cause false beats that can be >cured by tapping strings down? The soundboard breathes, ie expands and contracts from conditions of the environment. Some bridges have too little front bearing. The grooves are a good indication of this. With inadequate f b and the soundboard entering a dry period, a reasonable explanation is that the strings can 'ride' up from the seating and cause beats, and thus tapping down eliminates them. It should also be reasonable to assume this "cure" might not be lasting. Also tapping might not cure the beat at all. Some times it does, some times it doesn't. Why? Some causes can only take an educated guess. The cause of false beats is one thing, but the remedy is what we get paid for. If a string is wild and it is tapped down and it is no longer wild, you got the job done, and you know a little more. If it comes back from a fff blow, and it goes away again from tapping down, you can suspect the seating is being distrubed. There can be many causes of this. Loose bridge pin? Fan shaped seat? Not enough front bearing? Notch a little off? because ... Did someone hammer down the string instead of tapping it? Or "tap" it in the wrong spot? In leveling the strings was too much pressure put on the bridge? Did the builder or rebuilder use a string "stretcher" to hurry things along? The causes can be infinite. How much concern if you can "tune it out"? When listening to individual strings how much difference can you hear from one string to another? Are you now hearing beats you never heard before? ; ) How will they sound tomorrow, next week, next month, next year? Richard Moody
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