Mike's Oud Forums

Experience with Leonida oud strings

yozhik - 2-10-2018 at 03:21 AM

I am new to the oud and recently bought an Egyptian oud and put on a set of Kürschner strings. After playing for a week the strings seem to be broken in and hold their tuning well.

Then I went to my first lesson with an oud teacher from Syria and he suggested I change the strings to Leonida oud strings because "they are the best" and "Marcel Khalife uses them".

Since I just put on a new set of Kürschners I am hesitant to change all the strings again, so I am wondering if anybody has any experience with these strings? Do they have any characteristic sound that differs from Kürschner or Pyramid stirngs? Would it be worth it to change to them now?

I've seen references to Savarez "lute" strings on this forum, but these seem to be different than the Savarez oud strings?

I am playing on a 60 cm scale Egyptian oud in Arabic (CC GG AA DD gg cc) tuning. Thanks for any advice :)

alaaraj - 2-10-2018 at 11:37 AM

Personally I found them awful, took them off my Oud after two days!

charlie oud - 2-15-2018 at 01:38 AM

Personally I do not find them awful. They are for Turkish or Arabic oud. This makes them low tension on Arabic oud. They are mellow and dry in tone and on one of my ouds they sound better than any other make. I think most people may agree with alaaraj, the Leonida set are not popular but they are very well made and very true in pitch, they are of good quality. They usually come in double lengths so you cut them in half to make the 2 strings for each course.

Alfaraby - 2-15-2018 at 11:04 AM

These are made by Savarez as far as I recall.
Savarez copper wound Lute string set is awsome for mellow warm full round Arabic sound, but this Leonida thing is not. I have tried one set, and it was one set more than enough for my taste.
Though, this does not have to be true for everyone.

Good luck

Yours indeed
Alfaraby

Jody Stecher - 2-15-2018 at 05:08 PM

According to the description on the Strings By Mail website, the Leonida third course (dd) is unwound plain nylon. As Brian Prunka recently pointed out in another recent thread, this is not likely to produce felicitous results on a short scale oud. Tuned a step higher in Turkish tuning, maybe OK. Or not.

yozhik - 2-17-2018 at 07:46 AM

Quote: Originally posted by Jody Stecher  
According to the description on the Strings By Mail website, the Leonida third course (dd) is unwound plain nylon. As Brian Prunka recently pointed out in another recent thread, this is not likely to produce felicitous results on a short scale oud. Tuned a step higher in Turkish tuning, maybe OK. Or not.


Perhaps there are different Leonida sets? In the set I have, the third course (dd) is wound nylon, not unwound plain nylon (see the picture on the original post).

Khalil_Oud - 2-17-2018 at 08:14 AM

Hi all,
I've been using leonida strings for many years in Morocco before coming to Canada... Yes, they are made by Savarez as Alfaraby said. But having using Leonida for a long time, everything reported before is true: soft sound (but for me it means no projection). Mellow, yes they are... but the problem is with the DD nylon string (no power, no sustain, and not stable: you should always tune them because not accurate...). Of courses, I'm talking about Arabic tuning, not Turkish. To be clear, these strings are those that I never by now because for the same range of price, I prefer going with labella, for example, if not Kurshner, and the best for my ouds are Pyramid premium by changing tensions... depending on the sound that I’m expecting to have.