string termination

Ron Nossaman rnossaman@cox.net
Mon, 15 Aug 2005 14:10:41 -0500


> You wrote: "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."
> So I thought you mean that the agraffe doesn't provide a better 
> termination (and thus sustain) other than by means of its weight, which 
> I think is not the _only_ way it works.

I wasn't addressing termination, but impedance. Given a minimal 
mechanical coupling between string and bridge, which I am assuming, 
sustain is primarily an impedance thing. The mass of the bridge 
agraffes raises the impedance at the bridge, slowing the assembly's 
absorption of energy from the string, and increasing sustain. The 
discussion was on how the agraffe termination steered string 
excursion in a specific direction that increased sustain and I 
disagreed, offering that the added mass of the agraffes was the 
reason for the increased sustain.

Ron N

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