Robert Scott writes: When a bridge pin is loose, it does not resist right-and-left motion as well as the bridge cap resists up-and-down motion. Therefore the right-and-left vibration effective speaking length is slightly longer than the up-and-down effective speaking length. This is consistent with the observations of performing the screwdriver test for loose pins. ----------- Except for the fact that you can insert a loose pin into a false beating strings pin hole and the false beating can dissapear. Or except for the fact that you can tighten the same false beating strings pin and not get an improvement. Then too is the fact that if sideways pin motion was the case one would not notice the false beat until after that intial phase of string vibration. But that is not the case. Further... given the amount of side bearing on the pin, and given that the pulse that hits the bridge will always put more pressure on that pin, I have to wonder about the speaking length being changed idea. Further... one can observe when the bridge pin is not in the same place as the notch that the string also has a thusly undefined termination without any consistent occurance of falsness. There are other problems with this concept as well. If there was a conextion between pin loosness / sideways motion / and false beats then one would expect there to be a correlation between the speed of the false beat and the degree of looseness. Clearly there is none. I dunno... just doesnt add up to me really this loose pin thingy. I think there must be another mechanism at work here. JMHO Cheers RicB
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