Indian Music Forums

why wooden tuners? MELODIC INSTRUMENTS
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205 posts chefothefuture 205 posts
chefothefuture
Sitarfixer wrote:
My Ric blonde V63 had the horse shoe pickup. Loved the look and all but for growl sound, I didn't notice much difference compared to my '82 Ric. It worked fine but I think a scaled down version of that design would be needed for sitar use - clearances, proximity and all that.

Depending on when your V63 was made, the horseshoe pup either had magnetic shoes('84 to mid '85) or non magnetized shoes with
magnetic pole slugs. The pup got way more powerful in the later '80s.....
'Nother thing is, starting in 80 or 81, the standard High Gain pup got more powerful.
Very different from the 70s ones...

Oops, this isn't the Rickenbacker forum....
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Lars Senior Member 1,683 posts
Lars
chefothefuture wrote:
As I said, I'll stick with traditional pegs.
I had mentioned in another thread on the same topic that
I just have an "acceptable level of wrong" with the sitar.
Part of the instruments beauty and appeal lies in it's quirks.
This is a great quote, chefo. An acceptable level of wrong really sums it up!

Lars
Rain City Music
http://www.raincitymusic.com
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nicneufeld Senior Member 1,566 posts
nicneufeld
From my brief time with this RA studio sitar, I love geared tuners for the main strings. This thing stays in better tune than my Les Paul! Certainly not as pretty as delicately fluted pegs but I'm amazed at the tuning stability and how easy it is to tweak. The swan/egg fine tuners look pretty but I'm not sure I'll ever need them...just a quick reach up to the tuners and any sour notes are easily corrected, and your right hand can cover during on the chikaris. Like I said not traditionally beautiful but a great practical design, on this sitar at least.

Seems a good compromise for me because as mentioned, taraf gear tuners would likely be too heavy and expensive.
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nicneufeld Senior Member 1,566 posts
nicneufeld
I was thinking about this again. While the taraf strings look like they would be much more problematic to convert...if someone is like me, not especially romantically involved in the idea of peg tuners, it strikes me that to convert a traditional sitar to geared tuners might be a fairly simple operation.

For the 5 main strings, really it should just be a matter of removing the old pegs, and drilling tuner holes. The shaft of the tuner would have to be long enough to get through the "headstock", so some carefully measuring and selection there is warranted. And the existing pegholes might be considered a cosmetic blemish, but so, for that matter, could geared tuners! This is not the path to a beautiful instrument...

To convert the chikari, what I would need to do is measure and dimension the small chunk of wood that attaches to the side of the neck that has two geared tuners on my current studio sitar. This would be easy to fabricate out of any hardwood. Carefully attach via screws into the neck.

If I had a cheap student sitar and was so inclined this might be a neat little project, especially for guitarists that like geared tuners.
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chefothefuture 205 posts
chefothefuture
The use of 5th string banjo pegs might work for the chikaris; it depends on the solidity of Tun (unless your dhandi is Teak...).
Here again, the Waverly planet geared pegs would work, as the strings leave pretty much the same way they leave a wood peg.
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OM GUY 841 posts
OM GUY
Sharma in the forest says: Dis is da vay vee always haff done it. No need to change. Vee dunt like dremel tools, string drills are better."
Let's hope 2016 is less violent and that people discover the soothing influence of ICM. Hari OM!
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7Fives Member 59 posts
7Fives
From my point of view, the real question should be, "Why don't my tuning pegs work?" For that answer, we must turn to the Indian instrument makers. If you ask them about it, they will just look at you with that "you are an idiot" expression. Everyone assumes that traditional tuning pegs are naturally inferior to something mechanical - completely untrue. Personally, I don't find slipping/sloppy tuning pegs to be acceptable at any level, because the instrument cannot be played if it cannot be tuned. Make friends with your local luthier.

Don't make the mistake of grouping all tapered tuning peg systems together. Just because Indian instruments use this method doesn't mean that the pegs are equal to those on a well-made violin or cello: far from it in fact. The issue is really in the proper fitting of the pegs and the peg holes, not that tapered tuning pegs have never and will never work. Think of all the traditional instruments that have used tapered pegs before the advent of mechanical gears - guitar, lute, saz, oud, violin family..the list goes on and on.

Trying to live with crude off-the-assembly-line pegs is maddening. But installation of mechanical tuners is not guaranteed to improve your life either. Concepts to keep in mind on the subject of peghead mechanical tuners:
- the headstock must be permanently modified to install them
- they will add weight to the headstock
- their reliability has been rather poor
- they operate on a one-way clutch system
- changing strings is more difficult
- fine tuning of strings is more difficult due to play in the clutch

7Fives
Cosi Sia
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theprosperone 437 posts
theprosperone
I agree with the last post. To anyone who that thinks friction pegs are not very functional, have Tony Sitarfixer do a complete peg job for ya and then check it out! I've only seen one or two other instruments that have had pegs done as well as all of the instruments I've seen him do. They turn like butter but hold fast, without having to jam them in either. I don't even think most of my pegs need chalk...
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nicneufeld Senior Member 1,566 posts
nicneufeld
I think there's a modicum of strawmannery here, I and assumedly noone here would ever say that "that tapered tuning pegs have never and will never work". As in all things, traditional designs that have the finest worksmanship and are given the appropriate care and maintenance can work exceedingly well! But comparing the cream of all peg tuners that have had the best worksmanship and care put into them to what must assumedly be some of the worst quality geared tuners around (from your description of their defects) is a bit unfair of a comparison.
7Fives wrote:
- they will add weight to the headstock
Six tuners from Stew Mac of the economy sort you're likely to find on a sitar will weigh about 4 ounces. For kharaj pancham, let's say 4.7 ounces for that extra tuner. How much does your average main tuning peg weigh, and how many would six or seven weigh? This website:
http://www.amazon.com/Sitar-Main-Tuning-Peg-Floral/dp/B0009V9QXM
..lists a shipping weight of 1lb and an item weight of 4.8 ounces. That sounds a little high for me, but if it is even close to true you'd be looking at 1 peg weighing the same as all 7 geared tuners, so quite a weight REDUCTION if anything! However, I don't trust that figure necessarily, it seems a bit high, but the size of a wooden tuner is fairly decent and is assumedly of a modestly dense wood. If someone can weigh a loose main string kunti in ounces, I'd appreciate it! With all this in mind, even if the above is not correct and geared tuners do add weight, at 4 ounces minus the total weight of all the main kuntis, it is unlikely to be very much to speak of. Pt. Ravi Shankar is playing a studio model now primarily due to his frailty, and if geared tuners were such an ergonomic nightmare by adding large amounts of weight to the headstock, I think they would've designed it with peg tuners.

Anyway I think it would be helpful if someone can take weights of a few main string kuntis and let us know what a rough average weight for these are...this "adds weight" thing is a popular wisdom, and so it would be nice to quantify it with some facts on just how much weight it would add (or reduce!).
7Fives wrote:
- their reliability has been rather poor
I have never found this to be the case. The exact opposite seems to be true...mechanical gear tuners of even low quality have never required any maintenance or repair. Whereas it is an understandable and expected given with peg tuners that they need fairly regular maintenance and poor implementation results in bad performance. It takes a special kind of incompetence to put in a gear tuner improperly where it won't work. I've built 6-10 guitars and basses over the last decade as a hobbyist without a great deal of training. Were I to have tried to install peg tuners in these guitars/basses, since I lack the skill of somebody like, say, Tony, I can pretty much assure you that they would be hopeless instruments. So, sure, I imagine the "Rolls Royces" that have the best tuning peg fittings around and are well cared for and maintained never slip and turn with the ease of a metal geared tuner.
7Fives wrote:
- changing strings is more difficult
- fine tuning of strings is more difficult due to play in the clutch
This sounds like a familiarity issue. This may be the case for a person who is primarily a sitarist and I grant it...but for Western musicians from a guitar background, neither of these have been the case for me. Geared tuners are exceedingly quick and easy to change strings on (perhaps because I've changed enough of them over the years)...slip through the hole and wind, basically. And likewise for play in the fine tuning, unless you are dealing with very poor quality gear tuners, which I've not found to be the case even among the "economy" tuners sold by luthier supply outfits like Stewart MacDonald, geared tuners make the fine adjustments so much easier. This is why many violins incorporate a fine tuner in the bridge, and sitars have the backup tuning beads...reaching up and grabbing a potentially sticky peg to make a very slight tuning shift must take a bit more skill to do without overshooting the pitch quite easily. Peg tuners require some inward force while turning generally, which is a lot more difficult to apply while playing, for example, than an almost effortless twist of a geared knob with the fingers. But then playing guitar as long as I have makes that second nature.

Anyway, I think there's a time and place for both (as on my sitar...the taraf pegs are probably never going away, I can't really imagine a better style of tuner for that, though I have given it some thought!) and I do at least sympathize with the traditionalist aspect...perhaps because I didn't grow up with it, a sitar with geared tuners is not as horrible aesthetically to me, whereas an acoustic violin with hideous chrome guitar tuners stuck on the headstock somehow would look a little bit horrifying to me! Guess its just part of what you're used to.

Cheers!
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mayer141 202 posts
mayer141
I think we should just do away with sitar's completely and use the wonderful 'sitar' sound you can get on a modern synth. :wink:
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chris thill 87 posts
chris thill
Concerning mechanical tuners, one thing is for sure : generally, the made in Indian ones are not worth their weight in metal. If someone buys a studio sitar featuring them, I'd advise to just throw them away and replace them with good quality parts : Wilkinson if you don't want to spend too much, Grover or Gotoh or another similard brand if money's not a problem.

Certainly, no one is saying that wooden pegs should disappear, and that carved wooden roses are not a thing of beauty. I think the traditional technologies must absolutely be kept alive ; but at the same time, there's room for instruments using a more modern approach and hardware.
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theprosperone 437 posts
theprosperone
Geared tuners on an acoustic sitar looks about like putting giant spinner rims and LCD screens on a classic old muscle car, its tacky and unneeded. If people stopped buying all sitars with crappy pegs and other poor craftsmanship, maybe the market standard wouldn't be so low. Sadly people buy horrible sitars for $400 and think they have some quality worthwhile instrument. The sitar is a fairly complex acoustic instrument when it comes to build and its harder to maintain a quality level compared to guitars. I've played $100 chinese guitars that weren't bad at all but you just won't find that with the sitar. Even the playing style on the sitar demands a much more stable instrument. I'd just prefer to own a sitar with a good peg job than one with a monstrosity on the headstock. I love my PRS and I think its tuners are darn right sexy but on a sitar? Pfft! I got roses man, roses!!! 8) :mrgreen:
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ragamala Senior Member 1,744 posts
ragamala
mayer141 wrote:
I think we should just do away with sitar's completely and use the wonderful 'sitar' sound you can get on a modern synth. :wink:
Ah if only it were that easy. It's about as difficult a task as avoiding stumbling over grocers' apostrophes as you walk through life :twisted:
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mayer141 202 posts
mayer141
Ha! I like it! But me English is getting well better.
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nicneufeld Senior Member 1,566 posts
nicneufeld
chris wrote:
Concerning mechanical tuners, one thing is for sure : generally, the made in Indian ones are not worth their weight in metal. If someone buys a studio sitar featuring them, I'd advise to just throw them away and replace them with good quality parts : Wilkinson if you don't want to spend too much, Grover or Gotoh or another similard brand if money's not a problem.
So far, the ones on my RA Sitarmaker studio have been excellent (which probably is one reason why my defence of them has been this spirited). Open geared but fine quality so far! However, that said, I have seen some studio sitars that have tuners with pearloid or plastic knobs that look (by appearance at least, I haven't seen these in person) to be of extremely questionable quality. I doubt they're importing tuning machines for the RA Sitarmaker stuff (possible but I don't recall the brand stamp) although I could see it as totally possible for, say, the higher end ones, ie. Rikhi Rams.

If they are slipping or full of play, then yes, a replacement should be fairly simple...I would recommend taking good measurements before ordering, though, because there are a number of different hole sizes for various tuners. stewmac.com is a good resource. They might actually look rather nice if you bought matte black finished ones, on an ebony trimmed sitar (like the Bashir Studio that Lars had). At least nicer perhaps than the bling-y chrome ones! Which still are not as bad as the gold ones....
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ragamala Senior Member 1,744 posts
ragamala
mayer141 wrote:
Ha! I like it! But me English is getting well better.
Luv u lots
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