Mechanical Pegs Now Available at Gamut Music

April 19, 2022 – Due to manufacturing and supply constraints mechanical pegs are currently unavailable.

It is rare for there to be a technological advance in historical instruments but there is a great advance now available from the Peghed Company in the form of a geared lute peg.

Mechanical pegs represent a revolution is lute tuning. Each peg shaft is constructed with a planetary-gear mechanism that allows very fine tuning of the string. The gear has a 4:1 ratio which means that the peg head needs to be turned four times for the shaft to complete one revolution around. The peg also has a break mechanism so the string will tension not turn the peg and each has variable friction so you can push the peg into the peg box to increase the resistance or pull it out to decrease the resistance.

These pegs are exactly the same weight as an ebony peg, so they don’t make the instrument heavy and unbalanced and they fit into the same holes as a standard lute peg. You can only tell the difference between the mechanical peg and a friction peg if you look very closely.

These pegs offer several advantages over traditional, friction pegs: primarily, they don’t slip and allow a string to go slack and require re-settling. They also allow for tuning in extremely fine increments allowing for more accurate and easier tuning. All of these features are good; but the biggest advantage is that they require little effort to turn and your hand does not become strained while tuning. This can make your left hand more relaxed for playing and that can make the difference between a good performance and a bad performance.

If the old story, that a musician that has played the lute for thirty years has spent fifteen of them tuning is true, then using the mechanical peg could reduce that to a few years and provide you many more years of actually playing during your career with the lute.

These pegs are expensive but they will save you many hours of frustration in tuning your instrument.

Compared with other types of pegs, the Peghed is a little heavier, and the relative weights of different types of pegs are below. These are average weights taken from pegs with 9cm shafts.

• Rosewood - 3.7g

• Ebony - 4.1g

• Boxwood - 3.3g

• Peghed - 7.2g

When making an instrument that will utilize the mechanical pegs it is easy to lighten other parts of the head so that there is no resulting net gain in the weight or balance of the instrument when gears are used.

Peghed geared lute pegs are now available as an option for all Gamut Music guitars and vihuelas. Please consult the instrument pages in the catalog for pricing.

Aquila Stops Gut Production

Much of the Early Music world is buzzing about the recently announced closing of gut string production at the Aquila String company in Italy, and several musicians have contacted Gamut Music with concerns about the supply, quality and availability of gut strings. I would therefore like to reassure our customers with this explanation of the situation as I understand it.

Aquila posted a notice on their web site stating two reasons for the decision to stop gut string production: the first is the bad quality of raw material, and the second is European — and specifically Italian — regulations concerning the transport and use of gut. In this posting they specifically mention beef gut and no mention is made of sheep gut, leaving us with no understanding how of these issues effect that material.

As to the first issue: It is always a struggle to find quality materials for making gut strings. The fact is that gut supply is limited at the moment. Due to general worldwide economic conditions, droughts, low agricultural prices and increased demand, there is greater pressure on the supply of raw materials, but good gut is still available. Here at Gamut Music, we work and invest constantly to find the best material for strings and I can assure you that fine quality material is in our workshop at the moment. It is more expensive and might become more limited, but among our suppliers it is still available. I would also like to stress that markets ebb and flow and I am confident that, as conditions change, the price and availability of materials will become easier. We are just experiencing a tough time at this moment.

As to the second issue: I don’t know the specific rules that control the regulations of animal casings in Italy, but I have a general understanding of the regulations concerning the production and use of casings and serosa in the European Union and I have discussed these issue with other European string makers and gut suppliers and here is what they have told me.

In Europe there is no restriction on the trade and use of sheep gut. 

There are, however, some regulations on the use of beef serosa, but if you have a licensed Technical Plant you can transport and use beef serosa under that license without restrictions.

My understanding from talking to others is that there may be trade restrictions in Italy because the Italian authorities want production materials to come from domestic sources rather than abroad and the regulations have more to do with Italian domestic protection than anything concerning gut specifically.

Gamut Music has plenty of quality gut in stock and we are working every day to make sure you have a reliable supply of high quality gut strings.

If you have any questions about the quality and availability of gut, please contact support@gamutmusic.com.

String Economics 101

Regular customers to the Gamut String Store will notice that the prices of strings have recently changed. The prices of the sheep-gut strings have gone up while the prices of the beef-gut strings have gone down. This price change is not due to any quality difference between the two strings, but rather it is because of the different ways in which the raw material is traded and a short explanation might help clear up some confusion about the price structure.

Sheep-gut is traded on an international market as a commodity like oil, precious metals, etc. The material originates in some country like New Zealand or Australia and sold to brokers who have contracts with the producers. The material is then offered on the international market where it is bid upon by other companies who wish to purchase it for import into their local market. The price of the winning bid is dependent on the strict rules of supply and demand and thus, the price of the material can swing widely to the end buyer as the market ebbs and flows.

As we have been told by our supplier, two events have conspired recently to drive up the cost of sheep-gut. One has been a drought in Australia that has reduced the available supply of material. The other has been the popularity of a small, spicy sausage in Japan and China. When we first started making strings we chose as our preferred material a size of casing that was not used and valued by the sausage industry and therefore we could purchase this size material for much less than other sizes of casings that were used for sausage. It is unfortunate that this spicy sausage uses the same size that we do and now we have to compete with that industry for material, which drives up the cost and reduces the available supply.

In the last year the cost of this material has more than doubled and left us no choice but to raise the price of the resulting strings. More than that, the supply has become restricted and uncertain. We get our material from only one supplier in New Zealand, which is the only source that meets our standards of quality. We have purchased up all of this material that is available and our supplier is not sure when more will be coming in, but it will certainly be many months. We have enough stock on hand for quite a while to insure the availability of quality strings and assume that the market conditions will correct themselves in due course, but you will notice that the price of sheep-gut strings has gone up. The prices of thicker strings have gone up more because the cost is dependent on how many gut ribbons go into the construction. Since the number of ribbons increases logarithmically as the diameter increases, the cost of the string increases proportionally.

Beef serosa, on the other hand, has a completely different pricing structure. We purchase the material directly from the producer so there are no middlemen involved in the transaction to drive up the cost. In addition, this material is used only for string making so we don't have to compete with other industries for the supply. The result is a much lower cost that is not subject to the whims of a temperamental market. Also, the beef serosa is available in different widths so we can purchase a wider material that has more mass that can build up the larger diameters of gut faster and thereby reduce the cost of labor, as well. All factors considered, beef serosa is a more economical material than sheep-gut and we have restructured the string prices to reflect this.

Sheep-gut is not the only string making material that has gone up in price. Since the economy of the USA and other countries has been fragile for so long now, many people have been purchasing precious metals as an investment and as a way to shelter money. This trend has caused the price of silver to almost double in the last year, resulting in our need to raise the price of silver-wound strings. Each time we have to purchase silver wire for strings we have to pay more for the material, as we have to purchase it on the open market and whatever the price of silver is that day is the price we have to pay.

At Gamut we are committed to offering strings to a wide range of clientele, so for those musicians who do not feel the need to make the expense of a sterling silver string we offer strings wound with nickel silver and copper wires as well as a string with one wire of silver and one wire of copper. There should be a wound string in our catalog for every price point.

New Beef Gut Strings

Gamut Music has been known as a maker of sheep-gut strings for many years. Historical sources often mention sheep gut as a material, but other sources were used for string making, as well. For the last eight months we have been working with beef serosa, learning how to use it and refine the processing for this material. The material we use comes from Ireland and is taken from the small intestine of the animal, (like the sheep material), but instead of the whole intestine being used as with sheep, ribbons are cut from only one side of the cattle material where the muscle fibers are the strongest and most pure.

The customer feedback we have received indicate that beef gut stabilizes more quickly and holds pitch a little better than sheep gut. The tone has been described as being clearer and brighter than sheep but of equal gauge.

Beef serosa has a higher tensile strength than does sheep gut, so strings from this material are useful for instruments that require extra durability. For example, if your instrument has a longer string length which puts beyond the comfortable range for gut strings, the beef gut would be a good choice for string material as it will stand the strain a little better.

Beef gut is available as standard length, (120cm, 48"), treble gut available with either a natural or varnish finish. Natural strings are hand-rubbed with a light oil. Varnished strings have three coats of finish before being hand polished with the oil. This gut is available only in the natural color which varies from white to a pale straw hue.

Gamut beef gut strings are available in diameters of .38mm to .80mm and are considered special-use strings for instruments that require a stronger gut.

Like the Treble gut, Beef gut is processed to be a little harder than the other kinds of gut and also has a lower twist of about 15 degrees to increase the strength and is an ideal string for: 

• Violin: e-1 and a-2

• Viola: a-1

• Bass viol: d-1

• Tenor viol: g-1

• Treble viol: d-1

• Lute: g-1, d-2, a-3, and octaves on bass courses

• Harp: treble strings

New Nickel Silver Strings

The cost of sterling silver has gone up quite a lot in the last year causing us to have to raise the price of this type of string. We understand how expensive strings can be and we are constantly looking for ways to bring you quality and value. In an effort to help you keep the cost of stringing your instrument down we now offer strings wound with nickel silver wire as a substitute for the sterling wire.

Nickel silver is similar to sterling silver, but there are some differences. Nickel has less density than sterling, and the speed of sound passing through the wire is a little faster. This means that the tone of the nickel string will be very much like a sterling string, but on some instruments the tone might be a little brighter and the nickel-wound string will also be a little lighter than the sterling-wound string. We have decided to use the same gut / wire formulations for the nickel strings as we use for the sterling strings so the gauges of the two types will be the same. However, because nickel is a lighter wire, you might find that you will want one or two gauges heavier. For example, if you are used to the tension and feel of a Medium gauged sterling string, you might prefer a Medium+ gauge nickel string.  Even though it is a little thicker, the tension will be more similar to the sterling string and you may have to try a couple of gauges to find the best compromise.  The good news is that, because the price of nickel is quite stable, there will not be frequent adjustments in the price like there is with sterling.

Nickel silver strings are available for:

• Violin standard gauges

• Viola standard gauges

• Cello standard gauges

• Bass Viol standard gauges

Because of the nature of equal tension strings needing as much density as possible, we have no plans to offer the nickel silver strings in this category for any of the instruments.