theodoropoulos - 12-24-2008 at 11:44 AM
hallo to everybody and merry christmas!!!!
i would like to ask every luthier if is he familiar with tap tuning.Does anyone "tune" the braces of the oud,and if yes in witch tone every single
brace???....is there any combination??
i am physist and try to find a safe way to tune the braces and keep the tuning after gluing the soundboard.
if anyone has any information ,please give me your lights...
jdowning - 12-24-2008 at 12:46 PM
A merry Christmas to you too theodoropoulos.
I am not convinced that there is a standard "tap tuning method" - a procedure that will guarantee the building of acoustically superb instruments
every time - even by a first time builder. Tap tuning might help an individual luthier to determine if a particular soundboard responds like those on
other more successful instruments that the luthier has built. That is, tapping the sound board might be a personal guide to the luthier that his sound
board is 'right' based on previous experience in making many instruments of the same design.
As you observe the sound of a soundboard, unrestrained at the edges, cannot be the same as a soundboard glued to the bowl.
William Cumpiano discusses the pros and cons of tap tuning - among many other luthier related topics - on his excellent and informative web site
at:
http://www.cumpiano.com/Home/Newsletters/archive.html
also
http://dolcecano.blogspot.com/
Very interesting and worth a visit. Guitar related but applicable to the oud, lute and other plucked instruments.
theodoropoulos - 12-24-2008 at 12:58 PM
this is a really rich site....i will read it in great detail
i don t know if you know about Roger Siminoff and his book "Tap tuning".
he follows some ways of tuning,which in my opinion are not 100% safe for keeping the tuning after gluing....
If you have read it i would like to discuss it...
in my opinion the soundboard has its own "frequecy ares" and if you dont fix them,the distribution of the frequencies will be in a mess...
corridoio - 12-24-2008 at 01:11 PM
hi theodoropoulos
maybe this is of some interest
http://www.oudmaster.com/php/modules.php?name=News&file=article...
theodoropoulos - 12-24-2008 at 01:26 PM
thank you very very much!!!
in have studied Faruk's types and i know all of them.The problem is from theory to practise there is big divergence.
The main problem is in which conditions is the soundboard tuned...under string load or not???glued or not.???
you know every small change of string load for example changes the frequency in a noticable way....
my question is: which is the target tuning of every single brace ,if all conditions could not change the final result of tuning...
thank you!
jdowning - 12-26-2008 at 04:23 AM
So many variables to consider!
I am not familiar with Roger Siminoff's book 'Tap Tuning'. Do you have more details about the book, publisher etc?
Another luthier who details his method of "tuning the belly" is the late Robert Lundberg. He devotes a whole chapter to the subject in his book
"Historical Lute Construction" available from the Guild of American Luthiers at
http://www.luth.org
Lute related so perhaps more applicable to the oud as well.
theodoropoulos - 12-26-2008 at 06:12 AM
check this book at Stew mac:
http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Books,_plans/Building_and_repair:_Guita...
as far as i can understand most of the luthier work by experiece and not by scientific means such as spectrum analysis etc...
most of luthiers work also by making the same dimensions in a brace,but no brace is exactly the same with another.So, the result differs in 2
"same"ouds...But if we could tune the braces we could have a more precise sound.....
think :if a brace by its own dimensions responds in A (440 Hz) and another in A# ,the result could be not harmonical in our ears.....So,we must turn
the second brace's dimensions in a more harmonical tone such as B or C.
jdowning - 12-27-2008 at 05:46 AM
Many professional luthiers apparently do make fine adjustments to the braces and sound boards in order to compensate for the variable nature of wood
and produce the optimum response, tone colour etc. from individual instruments - using whatever method works for them by sound or feel. The advantage
that the successful professional luthiers have is that they are making dozens if not hundreds of instruments each year so have immediate 'feedback'
about the best way to handle a particular batch of instruments made from a particular batch of woods to a particular design. They are in a good
position to know where to make the necessary fine adjustments. For those of us who make instruments from time to time, we can only start by following,
as best we can, what are considered to be successful instruments made by other luthiers.
At the end of the day, the assessment of the acoustic 'goodness' of an instrument is as much a subjective judgement as it is objective - and the
result is very much dependant upon the skill and experience of the luthier.
If the results of scientific acoustic analyses of (thousands?) of instruments - taking into account all of the variables - could be condensed into a
basic set of guidelines for a luthier to follow in order to make consistently 'good' instruments (with the minimum of scientific apparatus), that
would be great.
This happy situation has been achieved (to some degree) for the violin family of instruments so perhaps there may be some hope for ouds, lutes and
guitars as well?
theodoropoulos - 12-27-2008 at 06:59 AM
so,for us the common amateur luthiers with 1or 2 instruments per year would be very helpfull if anyone could share his experiece about the tonality
of a soundboard and any of his examples....
i know that here in Greece nobody talks about his "Art",and i guess its everywhere the same...
i would like to be surprised .....here in Mike's Oud
jdowning - 12-27-2008 at 08:26 AM
There is quite a lot written about tap tuning methods, philosophies etc. on the Web so it might be possible to glean some helpful information from
these various sources.
One site, which is concerned with tuning of violin plates using scientific methods, has some information about using a PC with free software to
analyse tap tones. Not directly relevant to ouds but the methods might be of interest to luthiers in general
http://www.platetuning.org
under "how to tune plates"
This site also has a link to:
http://nerds-central.blogspot.com/2006/12/strobe-tuning-instruments...
describing a similar approach but which may be more relevant to ouds as it deals with tuning the sound boards and bowls of mandolins. I haven't had
time to read it yet but it looks interesting.
theodoropoulos - 12-27-2008 at 09:23 AM
God bless you!
i use this Audacity in my audio tuning ,so it will be very very helpfull for me !!!
thank you,thank you!
jdowning - 12-27-2008 at 12:38 PM
If the more sophisticated tools required for a scientific (measurable) approach are now available to everyone with a home computer, this might be an
opportunity for all luthier members of the forum to participate in taking acoustic measurements of ouds that they are constructing or repairing in
order to establish a statistically meaningful data base that eventually might be very useful in providing some basic guidelines for luthiers.
To achieve this, some standard testing procedure would need to be established to be followed by everyone participating - so some thought and
preparation would need to go into this before it can become a reality.
This could be a very interesting and constructive project.
theodoropoulos - 12-27-2008 at 02:02 PM
you know here in Greece it is one of my dreams to create a team of those luthiers of scientific interest...
you are wright..if all those data could be restored through experiments(thousand of them),we could be more certain about the exact frequecy spectrum
of every our oud,without having stringed it ...
all parameters play a rolle....
for example :every bowl has a unique shape which leads the ''cone'' of the sound in a certain area.In physics we have the optics and the idols.If we
place an object in a distance from a bowl like mirror ,then the reflection appears in a certain distance....so,in lutherie this area must be the hole
we cut in order to get the full volume of the sound..and i ask....
do we know where we do this circle cut or we copy from another oud with a probable different bowl shape??
there are software programs we place the "equation "that te bowl has and we find this area...
this was an exaple...there are many many things as far accoustic concerns ,we must know...
the tuning of every part of an oud is a not just a project but a life .....
I believe that the best oud maker ever,Faruk,belongs to those people i refer and i wanted so much to cooperate with such personalities ....
theodoropoulos - 12-27-2008 at 02:09 PM
and something else ,here in Greece almost every luthier things himslef being the best .He has an eperience,yes ,but he things he is the best of the
bests....without knowing what is tap tuning for example....all from experience...and does not want to be mixted in science...
i hate this....
he is not a luthier ..he is lumberjack
my tuning
theodoropoulos - 12-28-2008 at 05:39 AM
this is how i tune my soundboard....
i put my soundboard in this way,upside down ,and i tap with my hammer.so,itake my signal in the pc and analyse it with audiocity...