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SMALL OUDS

Edward Powell - 6-15-2010 at 01:28 AM

Can anyone relate their experience with SMALL OUDS?
Photos, history, scale length, tuning, string types, tonic notes used, famous players using, youtube clips. . . . etc etc

I know that YORGO BACANOS used to play very very high - like, using NEVA (NAWA), G, as tonic for Bayati/Hicaz etc. He had an extra nylon (tiz cargah) and then played Bayati comfortably from NEVA (3rd nylon) as tonic. Was his oud smaller than normal?

Anouar Brahem also rarely plays in the lower register - I wonder if his oud is smaller than normal?

- - -

Why do I ask this? [the following is my personal experience and research, and might be boring and/or confusing for some of you]

In building my "ragmakamtar" (which is something like an oud and a sarod in one instrument)... I went thru several versions, and my latest version (#6) is really the closest I have managed to get to the "true" sound of an oud.

http://www.edwardpowell.com/rmtar.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXprk1b2uRw

On version #6 I made the soundboard quite huge because I realised that the deep tone of an original oud comes from having a very large soundboard surface area (as well as being very thin and lightly braced). But what I experience is that the bridge for the upper neck puts a huge amount of tension on the soundboard, and this tension effectively tightens to soundboard so much that that area of soundboard (around the upper bridge) will not respond to the delicate vibrations of the oud's nylon strings - - - therefore, although the soundboard seems HUGE, actually the area available for resonance for the "oud" bridge is smaller than what is available on a normal sized oud.

Hence my interest in small ouds, because this ragmakamtar #6 has a soundboard about as big as it possibly can get without starting to look absurd. So my thinking now is to try to get some inspiration for what can sound great as a small oud - and perhaps adjust version #6 to a particular type of small oud?

Concretely: I noticed something very important yesterday, and that is that the wound strings on an oud (the mid and low register) sound good full and rich because an oud's "MAIN BODY RESONANCE TONE" is very low. . . . somewhere around "C" (the usual starting note of Rast).

You might be confused by what I mean by "MAIN BODY RESONANCE TONE"...... what I mean is that when you play around these notes, you will notice that "MAIN BODY RESONANCE TONE", and the nearby notes will really sort of jump out at you. . . especially the bass frequencies associated with those notes. So, those notes are strong, and more than that, those notes have a loud, punchy deep bass response.

So, on my oud at home, the "MAIN BODY RESONANCE TONE" is C, so when I play anything on any of the wound strings there is an accompanying deep bass response, and THIS I am realising is what really makes it an OUD.

On my ragmakamtar version #6, although much more oud-like than any other version, and in fact the wound strings are sounding rather sweet - still, those mid and deep notes are lacking punch, volume, and depth... NO WONDER, because that "MAIN BODY RESONANCE TONE" is up at NEVA (G, which is one 5th higher than the "MAIN BODY RESONANCE TONE" on my oud!).

Of course, this does not necessarily mean a "bad" thing - but it means that on version #6, with "MAIN BODY RESONANCE TONE" around NEVA, then all the high register sound very rich and brilliant - much more rich than on my oud which has a much lower "MAIN BODY RESONANCE TONE".

Unfortunately I don't have many ouds here right now, and I am not in Istanbul or Cairo - but I am very very curious what are examples of other oud's "MAIN BODY RESONANCE TONE". If any of you would mind checking your ouds for this and reporting here, I would be very grateful. Particularly with very good high end ouds, I would like to discover if there is any serious consistency amound great sounding oud perhaps having similar or the same "MAIN BODY RESONANCE TONE".

thanks...

Edward Powell - 6-15-2010 at 02:20 AM

....another interesting thing I just noticed on my oud on the topic of "main body resonance tone(S)":

and this directly relates back to my experience with sitar sound, and how I first "got into" body resonance tones.
On a sitar, there are TWO "body resonance tones". The strongest one corresponds to the SOUNDBOARD RESONANCE, and the 2nd (weaker, less obvious) body resonance tone corresponds to the PUMPKIN (back - bowl) of the sitar's body. The soundboard resonance should be around the note TIVRA MA in the middle register, and the pumpkin resonance note should be around KOMAL RE also in the sitar's middle octave.

This is NOT my fantacy, this is something my teachers Budhaditya and Bimalendu Mukherjee figured out (I don't know if they were the first), and in fact the great sitar makers RIKHI RAM build sitars according to these resonances, and you can actually order sitars from them with exact resonances where you want them.

I myself have opened and altered the soundboards and pumpkins of about ten sitars and "played" with this - discovering time and again that thinning either the pumpkin or soundboard will lower that respective resonance tone.

- - -

How does this apply to oud?

Just now, I realised that my oud also has TWO main resonance tones! One is at C (rast note), and the second is at G (neva note). This means that, similar to a sitar, there are two resonance tones - each placed at different spot in the octave - - and the result is that when you play near C, it is the C resonance tone which give the richness to the sound.... then when you play more around G, you are too far from the C resonance so that the C resonance tone will not add richness to the sound, BUT since there is this second resonance tone at G, then IT takes over and give the sound it's fullness.

I well know that on a sitar when the two resonance tones or NOT equally space in the octave - meaning, instead they are two notes very close to eachother (C and C# for example), then the result will be an ugly, unpleasant OVER REACTION - over resonance when you play around C and C#, and then the other areas in the octave (around F and G) will sound extremely thin and totally lack depth of tone.

So I am now just wondering if it can be true that the oud operates very similar to the sitar in that there are two resonance notes, and one is related to the soundboard, and the other to the BACK?

This, I am realising is another problem with my ragmakamtar, in that I for sure have one body resonance tone, which is obviously from the soundboard - - - but the rest of the body is so heavy (to provide a stable structure for all those necks, strings, and tension) that the resonance tone for the back (which MUST also exist) is surely EXTREMELY high. And this is most likely the reason that on all the ragmakamtars, the very very high register sounds great... (but the low and mid registers seem to 'lack something').

Danielo - 6-15-2010 at 09:14 AM

Hi Edward,

My Hanna Nahat has a small soundboard (by arabic standards) but stills a very bassy resonnance. I think that part of it is due to (i) a bowl deeper than usual (given the soundboard size) and (ii) the soundboard wood has a quite wide grain.

As an aside, I know nothing about luthiery, but why don't you put a stiff, vertical brace in order to decouple the oud and sarod parts of the soundboard ?

Dan

Edward Powell - 6-15-2010 at 09:22 AM

Quote: Originally posted by Danielo

but why don't you put a stiff, vertical brace in order to decouple the oud and sarod parts of the soundboard ?

yes, many people suggest this, but when you think of it, a "divider" brace will simply add a lot of stiffness to the entire soundboard, thereby actually killing all bass (unless the soundboard would be made absolutely enormous). For sure the best way is to let the instrument act as "one" instrument (even though it is really two in one).

one thing I noticed recently is that if the upper bridge would be moved forward towards the neck 10cm or so, then suddenly the resonance drops dramatically! So this proves that having the upper bridge quite close to the lower bridge - causes an extra amount of tension.... this works well for the upper bridge because it has steel strings and "likes" the extra tension, but it is very harmful for the nylon sound.

Edward Powell - 6-16-2010 at 12:44 AM

Quote: Originally posted by Danielo

Hi Edward,

My Hanna Nahat has a small soundboard (by arabic standards) but stills a very bassy resonnance.

Hi Dan

How wide is the soundboard of this oud at it's widest? I would like to hear this oud - have you any clips?

maxidelanian - 6-18-2010 at 10:45 AM

Hi Edward,

I hope this info would at least be interesting for you.
My small oud
http://www.mikeouds.com/messageboard/viewthread.php?tid=10823

Good job! :applause:

The best for you :wavey:

Danielo - 6-20-2010 at 04:13 AM

Hi Edward,

the bowl is 35.2 cm wide and 21.2 cm deep - so far from being symmetrical !

here is a video clip, played by Adel Salameh..

fernandraynaud - 6-21-2010 at 06:07 AM

Edward,

What has surprised me is that the strongest resonant node measured on all ouds I have tried so far is around 210-240 Hz. From Sukars to Ghadbans, they all seem to have it. That's around G# to B right below the top C Kardan. Try this when you have an oud in hand: on an Arabic tuning, if you finger the 3rd course around the 7th "fret", and right above that, it rings like heck. That's where ouds seem to "ring" and feed back most. When you record the oud, the problem notes will be those, the player hits a loud Bb and BAM it pegs the meter.

That's like the loudest bell in the tower. Maybe it's coming from some structure common to all ouds, like the soundboard and default braces. But it's not necessarily what we notice most. You are right that the most noticeable oud resonances are below that. In accordance with standard physics, resonances work in multiples, so maybe the area between Usheiran and Rast resonates because it's exactly one octave down from that "main ringing" node. Or, conversely that big bell is the sum of several nodes starting with the octave harmonic of Rast? And, regardless of whether other sources exist (like in your pumpkin), if there's a node at C Rast, there has to be a strong harmonic node at G Neva, and along all the standard pythagorean points (that Western harmony is based on).

Yet the "character" resonances of a specific oud seem to be different still. For instance what seems to make a "deep Arabic" timbre is that there is a very wide peak down there, maybe centered around Rast, or around Usheiran. Sukars on the other hand have many sharper peaks scattered around the spectrum, and different Sukars have different ratios, like above and beyond the basic Sukar sound, the Model 14 has an very active set of resonances that bring out the bass, it just has that "character", while a Model 212 has something that makes it sparkle, very happy with a high tuning.

BTW, how the "character" of an oud affects us is maybe least noticeable to US, like we THINK we are stronger but in fact it is leading us by the nose. It was funny that while I was sitting around and "noodling", my wife said, out of the blue, "when you play that oud (M212), you play what you never play on any other oud." Not play "like" that, but it's "what" I play. It was only after she said that, that I realized it was true, and I was fighting that realization. I'm not playing the oud, the %$#%@ oud is playing ME!

Anyway, for what it's worth, if I'm right about the "big bell" being right below Kurdan, it should be possible to build an instrument that is Oud-like but grounded higher than the default Usheran-Rast region.

Danielo - 6-21-2010 at 01:41 PM

Hi,

to illustrate your message, here is a taptone analysis of the small Hanna Nahat (recorded with a zoom H2 at about 10cm in front of the bridge).

Indeed the strongest resonance is around the A#3 at around 239Hz.

There is also a quite strong resonance one octave below, for the A#2 (117 Hz), which may be responsible for the bassy sound?

It would be interesting to compare to other ouds...

Dan

fernandraynaud - 6-22-2010 at 01:15 AM

Now we're getting somewhere, Danielo! What setup and software was used to generate this graph? Is it just a standard FFT spectrum analysis or is a special program used? If it's a special program, does it exist for the PC as well?

Nice to know we both get the same results ;-) but now it would be great to have the same graph for different ouds! Can you describe how the soundboard was excited and how it was mic'ed, at what time the spectrum was captured, that we can duplicate it exactly for other ouds? Is there a write-up on the technique? A standard?

I wonder if we could use something like this free edition program below and standardize on an inexpensive setup (like a commonly available cheap microphone) and procedure? Or is there a way to zero out the characteristics of the mic? Or has someone already done all this? I would think all this would be VERY useful for Edward in his experiments.

http://www.sygyt.com/en/overtone-analyzer-editions

It would be SO interesting if we could build a meaningful library of oud timbres!!! It would be such a useful supplement to the customary and ever-requested "sound file" that in reality is overly dependent on the microphone, the exact position of the mic, the acoustic environment, the way the oud is played, the strings. The "sound file" is a useful thing, but without very precise standards, it's far too easy to skew the impression, deliberately or not.

I had observed these same resonant nodes as on the graph very simply by playing the instruments and noticing where the resonance is greatest, where the instrument is most live. In playing different ouds it seemed that the "mother node" shifts around from oud to oud, maybe as much as down to and Neva G and up to B (what is that note called?), but since I wasn't using instrumentation, maybe that's just my imprecise recollection.

Of course exactly one octave below the "mother node" we have that "bassy peak", that maybe is the "oud's normal bassy sound" that Edward was talking about. Does this Hanna Nahat have that very "typical Arabic" timbre?

It would be lovely to capture a snapshot at a specific standardized time later, to quantify the tendency to sustain (or not). Or maybe a short time sequence. The spectrum is not everything. My impression is that one aspect of the "typical deep Arabic timbre" is that the primary is followed by something like a reflection, an echo of sorts, followed by a relatively fast decay -- all in all a rather percussive "bark", no? Whereas, say, a Turkish, in addition to a richer spectrum, has a longer sustain without a well-defined reflection? Anybody agree, or am I "hearing things"?

In case anyone involved with building 'em considers the neck and fingerboard mostly "what you grab the oud by", this article might give you ulcers:

http://www.dalemfg.com/violin_009.htm

Danielo - 6-22-2010 at 01:50 AM

Well, I'm sure there are standard techniques to do this but I did not document myself so I just tried

The procedure was as follows:
I use the Zoom H2, which has a decent mic built in, of course in uncompressed mode (.wav), taking care of not saturating. It is placed in front of the bridge area, about 10cm from the face. While I was muting strings with the left hand, I gently taped the sounboard with the flesh of a finger, to the right of the pickguard. To be sure I get repeatable results, I did it several times, moving slightly the tap position.

For the analysis, yes it is a standard FFT. I tried to make the spectrum of any of the taps, or several together, it gives consistent results.. I'm using a very good freeware, Audacity (for Linux and Windows or Mac):
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Indeed it's a very good idea to build a library of oud soundboard responses ! I think it is very hard to remove the microphone response so it would be better to use the same equipment (which is very common so not a problem..)

And yes the Hanna Nahat has a typical deep Arabic timbre (but with slightly less 'sharpness' than those of his brother Abdo !), lot of bass and quite short sustain. One should not forget that the player somehow adapt to the instrument, so on a shorter sustain oud one has probably the tendency to hit harder, hence enhancing the percussive sound... (on the Shehata that I owned I noticed that I played naturally softer than on Hanna's oud).

Dan

PS: I think B3 is called Mahur....

Edward Powell - 6-22-2010 at 02:36 AM

ok guys.... NOW we are getting somewhere!

So, I have also checked my one arab oud here and sure enough, yes, there is a strong "peak note" around A#3
...but this oud also, as I said before, has a very strong (equally strong or almost) exactly one 5th below on D (3rd string open). [so this would give a perfect 5th ratio with the "D" as the fundamental. But I don't believe that a peak note will generate a second peak note on 5th higher - I think the 5th will be a resonance point but not so dominant as to manifest as an obvious peak note]

So now, this is the interesting point for me:
- we have determined that this A#3 peak note is common to all ouds. And I think we also agree that there is a second peak note around C/D (below this A).
-NOW I CHECKED MY RAGMAKAMTAR#6 AGAIN AND NOTICED (again) that it in fact has ONLY ONE "PEAK NOTE" and this peak note is "A#3"! BUT THERE IS NO SECOND PEAK NOTE! And this is the reason why the instrument sounds thin in the low end.

SO CAN WE NOT FIGURE OUT FROM THIS PUZZLE EXACTLY WHERE THESE PEAK NOTES ARE COMING FROM?

Let me try. . . . . . .

So, the A#3 is common to both ouds and ragmakamtar. Then structurally what is also common to both?
I would say that there are 3 main structural features that can be causing these peak notes:
1- main soundboard resonance
2- main resonance of the back
3- the air space resonance.

...but we are finding only two very strong peak notes. . .
HOW TO FIGURE OUT WHICH ELEMENT IS RESONSIBLE FOR WHICH PEAK NOTE?

Ok....... For Sure the soundboard has a mega resonance so we can simply assume this to be one peak note.

So this simplifies our question:
does the 2nd peak note come from the back resonance or the airspace?

Now, I just took my Arab oud which has A#3 and D below this. When I sing into the soundhole I get a VERY strong resonance at D (exact same spot as the D peak note). So this means that the D peak note is somehow connected with the resonance I get when I sing D into the soundhole.

NEXT QUESTION: When you sing into the soundhole and find that resonance, WHAT STRUCTURAL ELEMENT IS ACTUALLY PRODUCING THIS RESONANCE TONE, air space, back, or soundboard? ----obviously it has SOMETHING to so with the airspace, but is it actually the actual airspace that causes the peak, or is it the air itself which DRIVES either the back or soundboard to peakout?

[when you blow into a bottle, is it the bottle that makes the sound, or the vibration of the glass??]

- - -

getting back to comparing the oud to the ragmakamtar.... the ragmakamtar's resonance when you sing into it is F#.... this is very different than the oud's "air tone". I don't know if this F# is lower or higher than the D air tone of the oud... it is hard to tell.... I think it is higher. The amount of air-space in each is similar, maybe a bit less in the ragmakamtar (but for sure the oud is deeper - the ragmakamtar back is more shallow and wider - - - so I don't know how much importance the SHAPE of the airspace makes??? -- I have an gut feeling that the symetrical round/oval shape of the oud "helps" the air space generate it's STRONG peak tone - - - and I have a feeling that this actually might be one of the main points which give and oud it's oud-like sound - - - - has anyone every heard of an oud with a guitar back that still really sounded like an oud with these characteristic peak tones?)

The oud and the rmtar have the same note peak tone (A#3)... but we don't know for sure what commone feature is causing this.

The oud has a second peak tone lower, around D, but the rmtar is totally missing this peak note.

WHAT IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS LOWER PEAK NOTE, AND WHY IS IT MISSING ON THE RMATAR??

I would greatly appreciate thoughtful help figuring out this question.

My guess is that it is working like this:

1- the common A#3 peak tone is coming from the soundboards. The soundboard is the most obvious place to generate the strongest peak tone on an oud (A#3), and also the soundboard is the most similar feature between an oud and an rmtar.

2- The low peak tone (D/C) on an oud is coming from the air and/or back. This is indicated when singing into my oud it produces the D peak.

3- The rmtar's air/back peak is much more high and also not very strong at all! It actually hardly exists! THIS IS THE PROBLEM! The Rmtar has both a very very high, and very very weak air/back tone. Therefore there is no LOW PEAK NOTES.

So this leads to the next question:
HOW TO BRING IN A STRONG DEEP PEAK TONE ON THE RMTAR?

first we must answer this question:
IS THE STRONG DEEP AIR/BACK TONE COMING FROM THE AIR OR THE BACK?? ...and... WHAT INFLUENCE THIS TONE DOES THE "SHAPE" OF THE AIRSPACE HAVE???

---------so, from what I have heard, the important feature of the airspace SHAPE, which influences the sound, is the maximum LENGTH of the cavity. Hense the oud's LONG air space. My rmtar has the same VOLUME of air, but it is not as LONG as an oud's... is it shorter but wider, and has a much higher resonance.

-------------the next point is that the rmtar's back is made of paper mache and a bit of bondo - and I really don't think it has much resonance at all (HENSE THE WIMPY NATURE OF THE AIR/BACK TONE)

- - -

- - -

- - -

sorry for this long winded post, but at the end of it all, I just had a flash of insight, and think I figured it out :-)

1) the A#3 peak note is the main strongest resonant tone coming directly from the soundboard

2) the low D peak tone, which corresponds to the tone we get from singing into the soundhole - this in fact must correspond to the RESONANCE TONE PRODUCED FROM THE ENTIRE INSTRUMENT, ALL IT'S PARTS (AIR, BACK, SOUNDBOARD, also necks affecting this).

After all this thinking I am pretty sure it must be like this. I know that when we play the lowest tones on an oud, these bass tones are not produced only on the soundboard -- they are so low that absolutely the entire soundboard is resonating - and much more than that- in fact those frequencies require such large vibrational circles that they "spill over" to the back, the air, neck, and everything. The whole bloody thing this shaking.

- - -

So my conclusion is that in order to get my neck rmtar to include a deep resonance I need to do the following:

1- make back and entire struction AS LIGHT AND RESONANT AS POSSIBLE. Absolute minimum wood and size of all non-soundboard parts.

2- lengthen air space

3- redesign soundboard so bridges are further apart and the oud side has more resonance space.

Danielo - 6-22-2010 at 02:50 AM

Hi Edward,

I'm glad that it helps !

but, from the spectrum, I got that the second peak is not around D3 but rather around A#2.....Maybe it was because the mic was in front of the bridge area and not in front of the soundhole.. If your theory is correct then I missed the resonance of the cavity !

I think that the natural resonance frequencies are mostly due to the shape and dimensions of the cavity... the back's material will only have an effect of enhancing or dampening some of the frequencies produced by the cavity...

I can make further experiments tonight:
-mic in front of soundhole
-try to inhibit the back vibration with some dampening material
....

other ideas?

Edward Powell - 6-22-2010 at 02:59 AM

Quote: Originally posted by Danielo

Hi Edward,

I'm glad that it helps !

but, from the spectrum, I got that the second peak is not around D3 but rather around A#2.....Maybe it was because the mic was in front of the bridge area and not in front of the soundhole.. If your theory is correct then I missed the resonance of the cavity !

I think that the natural resonance frequencies are mostly due to the shape and dimensions of the cavity... the back's material will only have an effect of enhancing or dampening some of the frequencies produced by the cavity...

I can make further experiments tonight:
-mic in front of soundhole
-try to inhibit the back vibration with some dampening material
....

other ideas?

Yes, I think if you recorded you taptone 10cm (very close) to the bridge, then you will simply get the soundboard's resonance, and miss the whole instrument. In order to get the whole instrument you need to be 1 meter away - - - but then you will be ROOM SOUND, so you need to do that in a "dead room".

Perhaps you are right that the lower peak tone is primarily the size and shape of the air space, but the soundboard, and back (material and thickness), and even the necks will do a lot to inhibit or enhance this AIR TONE.

In the rmtar's case, the air tone is F# (much higher than an oud's), and it is very weak (most likely not getting healthy enhancing from a resonant back, and also the 3 necks are adding weight and further blocking resonance.

Edward Powell - 6-22-2010 at 03:19 AM

Quote: Originally posted by fernandraynaud

http://www.dalemfg.com/violin_009.htm

excellent article, thanks for sharing this!!

Edward Powell - 6-22-2010 at 03:40 AM

I think to summarize my last long post, and to simplify into one simple question, I would ask like this:

-HOW DO CHANGE THE CURRENT RAGMAKAMTAR DESIGN TO INTRODUCE A STRONG LOW HEALTHY AIR/BODY TONE RESONANCE - SUCH THAT WHEN THE INSTRUMENT WOULD BE SUNG INTO, WE WOULD GET A PUNCH TONE AROUND D (dugah)??

---
current thoughts:
I have a very shallow body acoustic guitar (9cm thick body only), which has an EXCELLENT air/body resonance. This leave me to suspect that it is not so much the volume of air, or the depth of the body, but the LENGTH of the air space that matters. Like, a longer didgeridoo has a much deeper tone even though only the length changed, - the actually amount of airspace did not increase SO much.

- other factors which I think help the air tone is HAVING THE MAIN SOUNDHOLE RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE INSTRUMENT. (?)

fernandraynaud - 6-23-2010 at 05:16 AM

I have been experimenting with the free Overtone Analyzer, and it's quite a useful program.

The program shows a time line and the spectrum at each time point is plotted as follows: vertically we have frequency, and the color represents the intensity, with white being the loudest. It takes a little time to get used to it.

Here we see the soundboard of two ouds being tapped in different spots with the strings muted. If you study the graph what emerges is that the Sukar (first) shows more nodes being excited at different frequencies, different frequencies have the most white, as the soundboard is tapped in different spots, while the Egyptian tends to ring in the same frequencies regardless of where you tap, they cluster around the magic 240 Hz and 150 Hz. It's as if the bracing on the Sukar created a number of different resonant sub-areas. But it's not a simple yes/no affair.

I think it's very risky to attribute specific aspects of an instrument's timbre to specific spectra or physical structures, like bracing, until after a lot of trail and error testing.

It's quite complex. To build a library of instruments and be able to correlate a timbre with specific features in the spectrograph will take a lot of work, but at least a basic program like this is available to everyone to experiment with and think.

Peyman - 6-23-2010 at 01:00 PM

Ed,
Have you thought about using skin on the Sarod side?

Edward Powell - 6-23-2010 at 01:14 PM

hahahaha!

funny thing is that to be honest I think I am very very close to getting the oud sounding really like a real oud. I am pretty convinced that I have the soundboard working the way it should..... but now what is missing is this air resonance. I have just now started building a new ragmakamtar, and I expect the oud to be much more full sounding. . .

but your question haunts me a little bit because it seems that as time goes on. . . and this weird obsession that I have with combining a sarod and an oud... I mean, so far I have been satisfied with the sarod sound, because it has for sure been much more full than the oud's sound. And so far I have not been bothered to try to improve it. . . .

. . . .but one day, when the oud is sounding as I want, I'll bet I'll hear a little voice in my head urging me to work on the sarod side more too.

but so far I am just not thinking at all past just solving the oud's problems. If I can do that, I will be really HAPPY!

- - -

but anyway, I am not sure how it could work with skin on the sarod side because that would mean having to build a solid frame around the skin, and that would dramatically cut into the oud's side of the soundboard - killing the oud.

sure I could make the instrument BIGGER to accommodated this but I think one of the problems I have with the air resonance is that the instrument is now TOO BIG, and therefore the air thing is not working well. I think the instrument can not be made TOO big.

I am convinced that the instrument must be ONE INSTRUMENT, and not internally divided into two. It must work as ONE. It must somehow "share" it's parts and not isolate from it's other half... it must work as a single unit sharing each half.

However, perhaps the entire soundboard could be from skin??? In Iran they sometimes make ouds with skin soundboards. . . . .

Peyman - 6-23-2010 at 07:32 PM

Quote: Originally posted by Edward Powell

However, perhaps the entire soundboard could be from skin??? In Iran they sometimes make ouds with skin soundboards. . . . .

That would be a giant sheet of skin. I think most of the charm of an oud is from the wooden soundboard. Those skin top Persian barbats use a piece of wood underneath the bridge. So it's not entirely skin. But maybe you can do what Mr Sarikus did with his Ahenk creation. I gave it a "photoshop" try. A little brain storming might make it work this way.

Edward Powell - 6-23-2010 at 11:54 PM

I agree that the sarod side would sound nice with skin... however, although I always refer to the 'ragmakamtar' as a combination of a sarod and an oud, in fact my goal is not to try to get exactly an oud sound and exactly a sarod sound out of it. Truly I would rather that the sound would find it's own unique voice - rather than be a copy of another instrument's.

The steal string side ("sarod" side) has always sounded good on all versions for far (except version #5 where I greatly shortchanged the sarod's soundboard surface size area - it DIDN'T like that), so I have not worked much to improve the sarod side.

The real problem I have had all along has been to get the "oud side" sounding good. I tried 'moving away' from an oud's tone, and it didn't really work. Therefore I feel that in order to get a satisfactory tone out of the nylon string side, I need to get it as close as possible to an oud.

With the 'sarod side', it is already working well.

......but my perception of this can easily change, and I could easily finding myself looking for ways to improve it. It all depends on my ow personal level of awareness of the specific sound characteristics. Amazing as it might seems it is only just a few days ago that I fully realised that the oud's bottom end tone is mostly coming from the AIR SPACE, and not the soundboard. I just didn't know this, and up til now I was always thinking the bottom end will HAPPEN as long as I get the soundboard right. So, as soon as I become AWARE of more things then I can't sleep until I have incorporated this new understanding into my latest design.

I am sure this process will continue, and also move over to the sarod side.

- - -

Now thinking more deeply on the skin question you have brought up - what first comes into my mind is the question:
- How stiff does the rim that the skin itself is glued to need to be??

If this rim only needs to be as stiff as a standard oud brace, then perhaps there can be a way that the skin can be incorporated into the vibrations net of the entire soundboard, as opposed to having to have a very stiff non-resonant skin rim holding the skin.

This might work very well.

Peyman - 6-24-2010 at 11:05 AM

I don't know how the rim would be built or how it would affect the soundboard quality. To me, it would be like punching a whole in a drum's skin head. It might have an adverse effect.
You'd need to carve a rim I guess or glue one on. It's important that the skin itself be pulled taut. I can think of a mechanism like that of a cumbus or even a mountain banjo that could allow one to adjust tautness. In that case, I don't think the skin itself is going to become part of the sounboard because of the thick rims and rings required for the adjustablitiy. In essence, you'd have two instruments.
Anyway, it's fun to think about all the possibilities...

Edward Powell - 6-24-2010 at 11:22 AM

yes... it is pretty addictive actually - once you let your mind enter the limitless realm of all possibilities. Afterall, anything IS possible.

Perhaps it might work if the skin is pulled taut on only 2 or 3 sides? Maybe that would be enough? That way the side which is not pulling so much on the skin would not need a majorly sturdy rim support. Like, the rim could be a bit like a triangle - two sides pulling the skin very tight, and the third side pulling just a little bit. This third side could be where it meets and meshs with the oud's wood soundboard - that way I could still act as ONE instrument - ONE soundboard.

Peyman - 6-24-2010 at 03:53 PM

Would pulling unevenly work? I think you need even tension for skin to work as a resonator. It won't be easy.

Edward Powell - 6-25-2010 at 12:56 AM

,,,like Faruk always told me "you won't know until you try it and experiment with it" :-)

Edward Powell - 6-25-2010 at 12:58 AM

Quote: Originally posted by fernandraynaud

...I was fighting that realization. I'm not playing the oud, the %$#%@ oud is playing ME!

this is an important insight! (among many others you have made)