string termination

[Ron Nossaman]

> A lot of things about string terminations have bugged me for some time.

Me too.


> Stuart of Australia claims that their bridge termination increases the 
> vertical vibration of the string.   Hmmmm?  How does that effect the 
> sustain????

I don't think the termination has anything to do with sustain in 
this case. The kilo of brass mounted on the bridge in the form of 
agraffes, however, will help sustain substantially.


> My esteemed colleuge from one of the fly over states suggests that a 
> string starts out vibrating vertically, slowly starts to drift 
> horizontally but never gets to true horizontal.  He also suggests that a 
> string tends to vibrate at 90 degrees of its termination.  I want to 
> find out if that is true.

"Flyover" sounds like I might qualify for comment here. I'd like to 
find out if it's true too, but a string stretched across the garage 
isn't going to be the real thing. I'd like to hear what you observe 
anyway, as at least a beginning of understanding what cause and 
effect relationships are at work. Part of the question here for me 
is what affect the moving bridge has on string excursion direction. 
In Stuart's setup, both terminations are horizontal so a vertically 
cycling bridge shouldn't disturb much. Both the "standard" pin 
configuration and Wapin have a horizontal termination at the agraffe 
(etc), and a vertical or near vertical termination at the bridge. I 
would expect a vertically cycling bridge to have a greater effect on 
these. Then too, the bridges are all these systems are rocking fore 
and aft, only the rocking motion won't be exactly along the string 
line because the bridge isn't perpendicular to the string. The 
motion will instead be left-forward, right-back in a grand.


> Here's my question:  A vibrating string has two terminations.  It is 
> excited in the northern direction.  (Ignore the strike point)  What 
> effect on tone will be the termination of the two ends of the 
> string????? Both north, one north and the other south, east or 
> west????   Or no big difference??

Too general. Define termination. Are you talking mass, rigidity, 
hardness, shape, direction, or all of the above. There are a lot of 
variables here.


  > If some of you deep thinkers have an answer to my question that 
makes
> common sense, I won't have to do this.  Give me your feedback.  Thanks

Come on Carl, you know "common sense" is an oxymoron.

Ron N