Spreadsheet info / Jason Kanter

[Thomas Cole]

A number of times I've rescaled for a stringing job and found that to 
keep the tension even across the tenor/treble break, I would have to 
make the low treble strings a half size larger than the upper tenor - 
caused by the bridge lacking a dogleg going under the strut.

We tend to think of speaking lengths as following a smooth curve, 
because it's pleasing to the eye. If the bridge is being replaced, 
though, why not let the speaking lengths float if you really wanted to 
iron out the tensions? It would be fun to experiment to see if it would 
be noticeable.

Tom Cole

RicB wrote:

> Hi folks
>
> As you know Jason and a few friends are working on a spreadsheet for 
> designing scales to share with the entire list.  He / we are trying to 
> include a few specialized automation features and one of them is 
> proving a bit challenging.  The idea is to try to provide some kind of 
> way of automatically evening out tension as much as possible while 
> maintaining a resonable string length curve and string diameters.  
> Interestingly... the first attempts which floated diameters only when 
> tension was all alligneed to an exact value....  resulted in a really 
> weird (by usual standards) set of string diameters... with hops up and 
> down in size all over the place.  Inharmonicity was not looked at (yet).
>
> Questions that arise have to do with what kind of range for variance 
> in tension to scale designers typically operate with, and ... then I 
> was wondering what really would be so bad about a scale that had 
> diameters not necessarilly decreasing in size evenly up the scale... 
> what would be wrong with a more ... jagged curve ?
>
> Jason is putting a lot of effort into this so any feedback would be 
> greatly appreciated.  Any old scales you have stored for studying 
> should be sent along to him.
>
> Cheers
> RicB
>
>