Oud Strings in Romania

Thank you very much guys, I wont put guitar strings on my oud

I can see no reason to believe that guitar strings are definitely unusable. What I'm saying here is based on the physics and not on extensive experience, though I have tried a few strings on occasion without anything contradicting what I'm saying below. See if my reasoning makes sense to you, and come to your own conclusions. If someone has categorical knowledge that contradicts what I say here, not "so and so said", please speak up; I gladly stand to be corrected. Let's see if we can figure this out for real, not hearsay.

The actual construction of SPANISH (not Western steel) guitar strings is almost identical to oud strings, maybe identical. The nylons are just nylon, basically fish-line. Equivalent gauges will work. You have to work by gauges, like 0.022", not by note tuned to, or contents of guitar sets. If you need to work in millimeters, convert. A gauge in inches should be multiplied by 25.4 to get millimeters. Like 0.022" is 0.559 mm.

Spanish guitar uses heavier strings for given pitches, on a longer scale, pulled tighter.

But if you take oud and Spanish Guitar wound strings apart, you find they are made the same: a silver plated copper wire wound on a bundle of nylon filaments. For the same gauges, they look identical. In the photo are (as i recall) 0.033" or 0.034" wound strings: A Spanish generic guitar string, a Daniel Mari oud string, and a raw copper factory Sukar oud string. The silver plating is very thin, mostly cosmetic, no significant effect on mass. The naked copper string looks a little different, the winding wire is maybe a hair thinner, or a hair flatter? In reality it's likely equivalent. The two silvered strings are so similar that I'm not even sure now which was the Spanish guitar string and which was the Mari oud string. Do you see a difference?



If you run this string type in Arto's String Calculator, and give it an approximate density of 5200 Kg/Cubic Meter, it will correctly give you the D"Addario supplied tension of 6.3 Kg at a scale of 650 mm tuned to A (110 hz). That's the guitar situation. If you now enter a scale of 610 mm as on an Arabic oud, and tune this string down to what you would tune it to, namely F (87hz), you get a plausible tension of 3.5 Kg. This certainly agrees with the notion that it's the same sort of string.

BTW, the D'Addario J95 set has Turkish NOTATION used to specify the tuning, it's completely confusing, and the tensions they spec for that set are bizarre. It's impossible that a 0.033" on 610 mm or 585 mm (shorter scale than guitar) tuned to F or F# (lower than the guitar's A) can yield 6.5 kg, MORE than what they spec at A on a 650 mm guitar scale. Also an oud would rip apart on the tensions they claim, like 10 kg for the third course !? There are apparently gross errors in their J95 oud set data. These do not at all agree with their own more scientific complete tables, as downloaded from Matthias' site, which show a credible 3.70 kg for the 0.033" tuned to F on 610 mm.

There may be some more specialized oud strings manufacturers, and some special sets, but I think it's quite likely that average oud strings are made by the same factories on the same machines as Spanish Guitar strings and they are just packaged differently. Maybe they are polished differently? They sure look the same, one of these days I'll try to weigh them on a lab scale and check it once and for all. It's very very hard to get straight answers from the big string makers. They all claim to have deep secrets, which all too often means they don't.

The main reason I believe people say guitar strings are not usable on an oud is because of the obvious much heavier tensions that a Spanish guitar operates at, around 6-8 kg being common. The oud strings are thinner, the tensions are closer to 3.5 kg. But if you look closely, it's all due to the normal factors, namely thickness, scale length, note tuned to, and the density. If you calculate and check published data, the strings themselves turn out to appear the same. It's just that e.g. for an A string on a guitar you use a thicker string and pull it tighter. So the oud's A string will be thinner and operate around 3.5 Kg tension, the Spanish guitar A will be a thicker string, hence will provide greater tension once pulled up to A, say over 6 kg. Completely different feels. And yet the strings themselves appear identical.

Here is what i would do if I could find no oud strings, if I had cheap and plentiful Spanish guitar strings on hand, and needed to figure this out safely.

Start from a typical oud set that is meant to be tuned Turkish on a 585mm scale (or Arabic on a 615 mm scale). Write down the gauges. Here is the rather typical LaBella O80 set:

Plain Nylon (2 each) .022
Plain Nylon (2 each) .028
Silver-Plated Wound on Nylon (2 each) .025
Silver-Plated Wound on Nylon (2 each) .030
Silver-Plated Wound on Nylon (2 each) .034
Silver-Plated Wound on Nylon (1 each) .042

Buy Spanish/Flamenco Guitar singles in the same gauges in both plain nylon and wound strings as the oud set above. Where you can't match a gauge exactly, go a little thinner rather than a little thicker. Better safe than sorry. The length as I recall is OK, after all the scale is longer, but measure an oud string and then make sure you have enough length in the Spanish guitar strings.

Now start hopefully with a strung oud. Your 580mm short scale oud can be tuned Turkish or Arabic with no harm, using the same strings. I assume you accurately measured your scale length, nut to bridge. If you have a thickness gauge, or micrometer, verify that the original strings match a generic set, and are thus OK for a standard tuning. If you got 5 courses, you need to figure out how those courses should be tuned before you go any further.

Tune it how you want to play it. An Arabic tuning will feel looser. Spend some time developing a feel for the tension on your original oud strings. Play them. stretch them, see how far down a course will go if you put a weight on it. Once you really know what the oud feels like it's not that difficult matching the tensions with other strings, within say half a kg, which is good enough as long as you don't go too far over 4 kg. The ideal on many ouds is around 3.5 kg. The nylons are often under 3 kg. But 5 kg on an oud is definitely too much. You won't know the tension in Kg, but your hands will know the feel you had with the old strings, and that's your reference.

Now start replacing an old oud string with a similar gauge Spanish guitar string, maybe one at at time rather than a course at a time, and see if it's about the same tension/feel. If it is, there is no technical reason why this shouldn't work. If they feel a bit tighter, that means they have more metal at a given gauge, and you can either give up or go a little lighter on the gauges.

See how they sound. You want that specific light buzz from the strings. Maybe oud strings are dipped in some magical buzz substance. Not very likely.

If the tension feels out of the question, much tighter at any point, stop and see if you made a mistake. If you didn't, then take them off and don't do this again. If it feels about right, see if the tone is good and come to your own conclusions.

Hopefully you will get both a safe tension and a good tone. If using guitar strings is economically much better for you, then after doing the above, come to your own conclusions.

Otherwise:

You can order oud strings from Bill Ostrie in California. He can be paid by PayPal.

http://www.ostriemusicsupplies.com/oud-strings.htm

He is very kind and helpful. He will ship them to you wherever you are. They only cost $7.99 a set and a little postage, and they are very nice strings. I have tried both the Turkish and Arabic sets, and they seem the same, except that Mari has been experimenting and sometimes one set will have a string or two insignificantly thicker than on the other, I don't think he really has a clear idea of two distinct sets. Maybe the intent is for the Arabic strings to be a little longer. But I have stocked up with several sets of each and they have been interchangeable.

Pezo mono bouzouki kai tora matheno outi outi eine pio diskolo...

Mia kali mera ! kai euxareisto poli !

Salut! Eu folosesc La Bella, le poti comanda de pe Amazon, eBay, etc....

Si ou pa kapab li, men tou senpleman itilize yon zouti tradiksyon. Ou pral sezi sa ki ap vini nan li epi konprann kijan bon li ye.

Quote: Originally posted by tudorrogoz

Hy everyone, I just bought an egyptian oud, but I live in Romania and here it will be difficult finding oud strings, I was wondering if classical alto guitar strings would work or maby normall classical strings... Nice day to all of you !