Roughly Polished

When I suggest roughly polished strings instead of smooth heavily polished ones, I often receive a squint like I am interfering with personal choices on musical taste, or with technical issues of an instrument which I have never seen, let alone played. 

It's always been difficult for me to explain why I am firm on this point. It has been difficult because it involves some production secrets which probably have not been shared before. They are not big secrets, but they need a bit of a technical explanation to become perfectly clear... 

In this report, I finally explain why I never recommend smooth strings, and why I think there is always a better solution than that, even when you think you are an exception.

Ps: the responsibility of all the drawings is entirely on my shoulders, including the Merry Bunny dancing in the equisetum field. 


Tags

baroque music, double-bass strings, early music, gut strings, gut strings history, gut strings maintenance, gut strings manufacture, viol strings, viola da gamba strings, viola strings, violin strings, violoncello strings


You may also like

The Conscious Polisher

That’s me , or at least this is what I was in Aquila from 2002 up to 2016… On gauge imposed on a string by the polishing process… why half polished are definitely better and why the quality control and the polishing must be done by the same person. Want to know more? There’s a

Read More

Polished or Rough Strings

What happens to a string while polishing. (one more way to save money) The difference between a slightly polished string and a perfectly smooth string and why it is definitely worth to choose the first One. Want to know more? There’s a downloadable report here, it’s free, no opt-in required!

Read More

issues to manage or to refuse?

Breaks are not unpredictable, they’re just one of the many things we have to learn how to avoid Short life of the string: unfortunately a common problem today. Let’s try to give it a definition so that we can understand when our strings are normally working, and we just have to accept there is a

Read More