Mike's Oud Forums

Muddy, overly resonant sound: strings or oud itself?

Knafeh - 4-28-2017 at 08:00 AM

I recently bought a used oud which came with D'addario strings. The resonance on it is so extreme that anything I play on it just sounds too muddy. I can cough two meters away and it would resonate just from that.

Does anybody know if this is a problem with the strings or the bowl/oud itself?

The oud is a floating bridge model built by Baker Dagher, but it has been damaged and repaired by a previous owner. The peg box seems to have been broken off and glued back on, and the pegs are a a mess of two different sets that have been manually shaved down to fit the box.

I'm not sure whether replacing the strings with my Aquilas would solve the problem or should I just sell the oud and buy an Ali Khalife I've had my eyes on instead.

Jody Stecher - 4-28-2017 at 08:20 AM

Try this: put your hand on the strings between the bridge and tailpiece. Now make some sound and see if the exaggerated response is less. If so you can weave a light ribbon of cloth or leather through the strings between the bridge and tailpiece and that will dampen the response there. Alternately you can place rubber grommets between the strings in each double course. In any case D'Addario strings are unlikely to be the cause of the problem.

If the problem is caused by the bowl, and not by strings, then of course this won't help.

Brian Prunka - 4-28-2017 at 10:38 AM

Quote: Originally posted by Jody Stecher  
Try this: put your hand on the strings between the bridge and tailpiece. Now make some sound and see if the exaggerated response is less. If so you can weave a light ribbon of cloth or leather through the strings between the bridge and tailpiece and that will dampen the response there. Alternately you can place rubber grommets between the strings in each double course. In any case D'Addario strings are unlikely to be the cause of the problem.

If the problem is caused by the bowl, and not by strings, then of course this won't help.


Good advice, Jody. Floating bridge ouds often have this problem of extra resonance in the (supposedly) non-vibrating length of string.
Resonance generally isn't a problem per se but may not be the desired sound. In general, floating bridge ouds have more resonance than Arabic fixed-bridge ouds. Turkish ouds are usually pretty resonant. Traditional Arabic ouds go for a more "dry" sound.


Knafeh - 4-28-2017 at 12:13 PM

It made a very small difference, but I'm not sure if the sound is alright. I made two 6 second recordings, one with and one without the muting you suggested? Can I ask for your opinion?

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0KyxVT71dJ5VDg3c09EOE9XQ3M

It's not as loud in the recording but if you turn it up you can hear the resonance at the end.

Jody Stecher - 4-28-2017 at 05:50 PM

Quote: Originally posted by Knafeh  
It made a very small difference, but I'm not sure if the sound is alright. I made two 6 second recordings, one with and one without the muting you suggested? Can I ask for your opinion?

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0KyxVT71dJ5VDg3c09EOE9XQ3M

It's not as loud in the recording but if you turn it up you can hear the resonance at the end.


I think it's better muted. Part of the problem of the string resonance between bridge and tailpiece is that it seems to be very much out of tune with *anything* so it's not a musically supportive resonance.

OudExpert3000 - 4-28-2017 at 10:40 PM

Hi Knafeh

The Ali Khalife is an excellent oud, I bought one in Lebanon a couple of years ago for $275 and would recommend buying one if you get the chance and have the cash.

I had a similar problem to you and after taking it to a repair shop in Lebanon, they informed me it was a problem with the bowl and the hyper-resonate microstructure tracheids causing too many Feinman oscillations and making it sound "muddy" as you describe. This is sometimes a problem that cannot be tested for by the manufacturers as it only becomes apparent when strings are attached and the whole instrument is assembled.

I would recommend buying the Ali Khalife you have described and not bothering to fix this as replacing the entire bowl to fix this integral problem can become costly and more effort than it is worth.

Hope this helps!

MattOud - 4-29-2017 at 04:56 AM

Hi Knafeh,
I was recently watching this video by faruk tarunz on oud making:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpPk5SncHIw

What i found interesting is his comments starting at the 7:20 mark, here he talks about how he discovered, through trial and error, that the sound of the oud mostly was affected by how he put support beams(french:poutres). These beams, when placed correctly using mathematics causes the inside frequencies to change, as oudexpert says above^

As for the Ali Khalife...I own a Zaher Khalife and it is AMAZING sounding to me. I love it. This is Ali's grandson, and I am sure Ali's works was obviously excellent to pass down such skills...
ps: I wish i could find an oud for 275$ here :) I pay more than that just for customs fees- he hee.