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fernandraynaud
Oud Junkie
Posts: 1865
Registered: 7-25-2009
Location: San Francisco, California
Member Is Offline
Mood: m'Oudy
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Not to beat this point to death, but one of the things that a slow economy has done is brought out inexpensive instruments out of storage. And reset
prices, with Asian goods in the lead.
I just got a Spanish style guitar in large measure because of the price. I was looking for a guitar with low tension, and at $109 I couldn't resist.
It is a surprisingly good instrument, made in Indonesia, the action is 3 mm, everything is fine on it, the finish is good (not very thick), the
pickup is not very fancy but it works, even has a volume and tone control. It may not have the most incredible Sitka Spruce on the soundboard, but
it's some kind of fir, the guitar sounds great. The fingerboard is very well done, lightly contoured, plays well enough. Even the factory strings
were OK. Oh yes, I had to run a file along a few of the fret edges and adjust the truss rod. Labor: 30 minutes for now.
I disagree that someone would be "very frustrated" learning on this guitar. This is not a "luthier's" guitar, but the bar gets reset higher with more
workers making better goods. The difference in an oud is that guitars benefit from an economy of scale, so that ready-made machine tuners for such a
guitar are available to the makers very cheaply, and work well enough for now. One reviewer had it for 4 years before he changed the gears. The pegs
on a cheap oud are poorly made and you cannot buy direct replacements; you would have to buy good Viola or Violin pegs (no problem: $15 total) but
also ream new holes (cost of reamer (~$90), skill, time required). OK, learn, and save reamer for next cheap oud ;-) ?
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Christian1095
Oud Junkie
Posts: 454
Registered: 4-29-2008
Location: North Carolina, USA
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
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Hey Diane, my first oud was a cheepo turist oud from Amazon... It sucked when I pulled it out of the box, but it was pretty, and I ended up giving it
to my folks as a decoration and reminder of thier weirdo son who's into middle eastern music 
That being said, there are good instruments out there... but one thing that hurts us as a new player is the ability to distinguish good from bad.
For very general advice...
make sure the neck and soundboard are both straight and level.... a little on the soudboard isn't the end of the world... but why buy a potential
problem...
Then tap gently around the face of the oud where the face meets the body... any sort of rattle will be bad (indicates loose braces or other weird
stuff)
I'd also suggest looking at the general construction of the oud... if the pegs and string holes on the bridge aren't drilled nicely or they look off
(don't worry so much about the top string - it's sometimes drilled differently cause of the fat string) then I might look for something different.
Also, check out the label... if it has none, then you're probably looking for a "diamond in the rough" vs. if it does have one... maybe not a HUGE
factor... but it does show pride in one's workmanship.
Finally, play the thing a bit.. bring a cheap electronic tuner and make sure it sounds pretty when tuned... Also, make sure to buy new strings... I
know the Sukar ouds come with the worst strings in the world (usable only for arts and crafts projects) But if you tune it up and hit the string and
you get a ton of rattle and almost no good sound, then it might be a lemon...
I'm with Chris from Germany though.... Living in the Southeastern United States, there are almost no Oudis around me... and no store carries them...
so I had to order... After wasting money on an amazon.com oud, I settled on a Sukar and was extremely happy.
Cheers from the Colonies 
Chris Walters
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fernandraynaud
Oud Junkie
Posts: 1865
Registered: 7-25-2009
Location: San Francisco, California
Member Is Offline
Mood: m'Oudy
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Diane (and other new oudomaniacs)!
This whole topic (of how to buy a first oud) I believe is THE root of the oud experience, as few of us can start out spending on a very fine
instrument, yet many members here don't even want to talk about the low end. This is why Sukars are so important, being the best at a moderate price,
from $400-900. I know that if I hadn't been advised on buying a Model 1 Sukar, my life would have been different. I thank you on my knees, Marina!
Yes, Luttgutt you are right, the higher level Sukars are an even better deal -- once you accept spending over $600.
But what of those ouds cheaper than a Sukar Model 1? What if the applicant oudmaniac insists that even $350 is too much, and $600 is out of the
question? Let's see if we can help you, without getting into details of "enhancements", or commenting on specific models we might see on e-bay or
Amazon, but know nothing about.
To add to what Chris is saying, if you have previous experience with string instruments, the rough finish on low to mid-range ouds may surprise you.
They are hand-made with simple tools. But this also warns you that you are entering"fixer-upper" territory. We're talking rough edges in the pegbox,
uneven varnish, a bridge that seems made of driftwood, that sort of thing. You have to lay down some money to enter the "well-finished by industrial
standards" category, especially for Arabic type ouds. Turkish ouds tend to be a bit better finished. So when you see "pretty rough" you have to assess
the situation and decide if you are up to the challenge. If you are, you CAN extract a playable oud inexpensively. But you can also waste time and
money. A non-returnable auction oud usually makes for a fern planter -- not advisable.
I have examined and played a lot of low cost ouds in the last few months, and the majority would be so discouraging to a learner as to kill their
interest in a couple of weeks. It's not as simple as "you get what you pay for". There are specifically two very common problems, assuming the
instrument is not falling apart and rattling, and setting aside the junk "factory" strings. Amazingly the typical softwood nut works much better than
it looks.
1) The Pegs. Tuning is tricky when pegs are unevenly turned or the holes badly reamed. This is QUITE annoying but is in part correctable, or can be
lived with using simple remedies. High quality pegs are available cheaply ($15 a set); installation labor costs more. To do it yourself is not hard
but the specialized tools cost. I'm about to buy a reamer and a shaver, maybe just a reamer first, those bad pegs are so irritating -- and SO common.
2) The neck. This is a MAJOR problem. Oud necks, unlike guitar necks, tend to be straight, inflexible, and not adjustable. Although the neck is rigid,
the soundboard and body can distort in relation to it. If you sight down the neck and the fingerboard is flat, even and level, check with a ruler that
it leans back from the plane of the soundboard so that the nut end is a few millimeters "back". A better way is to take a piece of string and stretch
it tight between the top of the bridge and the top of the nut. A yardstick is even better. The string/ruler should ride 0.10" to 0.20" (2.5-5 mm)
above the fingerboard at the neck-body junction. Obviously it should not be contacting anywhere in between. This will give the pick enough clearance
above the soundboard to play loud, and it will make installed strings (which run a little lower through holes in the bridge), sit at a good height
above the fingerboard, say 2-4 mm at the neck-body junction. A height of 1/4" (6.3 mm) with the string test leads to an action over 4.5 mm, which is
too high for many players.
As long as the string in the above test is not so low as to touch the fingerboard, a low action can be compensated for by tying the strings higher at
the bridge. But if the action is too high, as it is on most cheap ouds, repairs are costly and/or difficult, so avoid that oud entirely. Sukar ouds
are the only readily available oud that offer a neck adjustment, though a few other luthiers have designed adjustable actions in the past. This is a
subject of debate. It is rejected by traditionalists, as it involves the luthier using some small metal parts, and "oud" means "wood". Tightening a
butterfly nut inside a Sukar allows the user to increase the neck angle to lower the action a little; loosening raises it.
If the inexpensive oud you are examining passes the nut to bridge string test, check the pegs. The pegs can jam and squeak and look rough and hairy
and need sanding as long as they seem to want to turn pretty evenly. The peg should sit in the hole so as to rub on both pegbox walls. It's a slow and
tricky repair if the peg is only contacting on one wall, as filing/sanding the fatter side tends to create uneven areas.
The nut should not be held in with gobs of glue, you should be able to gently pry it out with some moist heat. Bone is nice, but wood is more common,
and works OK. If the oud has bridge holes for 6 string courses but the nut only has 5 slots, you can add the slots for the top course with a little
file, or if the spacing needs to be redone, sand down the top and the existing slots, shim up the nut and scribe new slots, or get a $5 bone blank
from a guitar shop. The slots need not be anything more than scribed lines, just enough to keep the strings from slipping off. The strings should sit
a string's thickness above the fingerboard.
Tap the bridge and try drumming on the soundboard. If you get a specific tuned drum sound, that's the main resonant node. A lot of Arabic ouds seem to
work around a main bassy node. If there are strings installed and you can can tune it up and play it, play it loud and make sure nothing rattles
inside. The tone will "open up" over the first weeks of playing it. It's normal for new strings to stretch; it doesn't mean the pegs are junk. If
nothing is loose and you can live with the finish or know how to spiff it up, and everything so far is reasonably acceptable, you may have a gem, so
you have to weigh the total expenditure. If the pegs are awful but everything else is really great, and the oud costs $200, spending $100 to have a
violin shop install perfect rosewood pegs might still be worthwhile.
A Sukar Model 1 is vastly superior to the mass marketed ouds we find on the internet. Those are either decoration ouds made mostly for tourists, or
commodity instruments made for students or people who play on occasion. The former are useless, but there are some OK ouds among mid-levels,
including ones that aren't recognized for what they are. Around $300-$400 is the "agony zone", no point spending $350 total on a nondescript oud if
you can get a Sukar, albeit an entry-level one.
Hopefully we can together build up more guidelines to help first time oud buyers in evaluating ouds they run into, so they can avoid wasting money on
junk, but not reject a good opportunity just because it's being offered at a low price or has a stain, or some other non-problem. I remember one
person being convinced his pegs were garbage because his strings were stretching. Some members had started him off by criticizing low cost ouds, and
everything on his oud then became horrible junk.
It would be helpful to have detailed reports about the various easily recognizable Egyptian and Turkish models distributed by MidEast Manufacturing
and sold by countless shops (from Santa Cruz to Paris) and via amazon etc. Someone warned about their Pakistani ones that have an integral-look rose
in soundboard, like a lute, and come in a boxy hard case. I played one of their Turkish ones, I think model OUDTM, at Lark In The Morning,
and it was ruined by a very high action, and overpriced. But had the action and price been lower, it would have been more than acceptable,
cosmetically and sonically.
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diane
Oud Addict
Posts: 41
Registered: 3-22-2010
Member Is Offline
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I've learnt so much guys, thank you, all. I think my first step is to meet up with some oud players and their ouds.. Which may take me a little while
as it is hectic here right now. Glad that I will know what to be looking at and understanding better having already read the notes here.
Kindest regards, Diane
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