Bridge Seating (another footnote)

[Ric Brekne]

Hi David

Not really sure what you want. I gave a rough description in the first 
posting.  I was looking at mass additions to see what affect they had 
(if any) on false beats.  The root cause for the false beat we debate 
back and forth here so often seems to be that the string sees more mass 
in one vibrational direction then another.  Its been taken more or less 
for granted by some that a loose pin coupled with a recessed notch edge 
will cause a false beat by allowing the horizontal direction to become 
springy in relation to the vertical. It has looked to me for quite some 
time to be a bit more complicated then that... and this just is one more 
piece of evidence.

That 330 grams of vice grips attached to a rear bridge pin can eliminate 
or nearly so... (or for that matter affect at all) a false beating 
string one or two unisons away suggests that it is the bridge as a whole 
that in the end is the terminating support. The bridge pin then, is just 
a part of that support the bridge assembly is to the string, albeit an 
important player to be sure... but just still.  The string vibrates in 
many directions at once at the bridge/pin.  To what degree the 
massyness/springiness of the bridge as a whole is equal in all these 
directions seen by any given string determines the amount and degree of 
false beating that string will have.

This would all suggest to me that a bridge with higher mass then typical 
bridges are given the same kind of bridge pin (with all its 
vulnerabilities and weaknesses) would be markedly less afflicted by 
false beating strings.

RicB

------------------
 > I also tried attaching the vice grips to the bridge itself at the  
 > break between the treble and highest treble and at the end of the  
 > bridge at C88. In both cases the results were quite similar.
 >
 > No fancy measuring devices used... just ears... but the results  
 > were quite noticeable.

Please describe the above results, please....

thanx, Ric....

DA