Asger - 7-12-2009 at 11:53 AM
Hello everyone and thanks for reading.
My brother-in-law who is an Egyptian, recently bought me an Oud and transported it from Cairo to Denmark for me as a present. Now he cannot play any
instrument himself and have been unable to test it out in the shop as he bought it.
It is a beautyful Oud and looks like very good quality, so i'm very disheartened to find out how it sounds as i finally arrive home and tune it to a
"F A d g c" tuning.
All strings sound good stroked open.
The F string presents no problems.
The A strings sounds ok but gets slightly "buzzy" as i slide my finger towards the soundboard and then it gets a clear tone again before i reach where
the neck meets the body.
The D strings follows the same pattern as the A string, only on this string it does not only buzz, but it becomes as if i'm muting the string, no tone
at all, but the sound of me picking the string. Sounds awful.
The G strings does like the A string completely.
The C strings are like the F string, completely clear tone everywhere on the board.
I've read around on the internet to find a solution and i can't find any.
I've checked that the strings are 1mm from the board at the nut and around 3 mm where the neck joins the body.
So i'm guessing there's some warping going on with the wood although it all looks nice and plain with the naked eye. I just hope maybe you guys know
exactly what is wrong and hopefully i can fix it easily instead of having to take it to an (expensive) repair guy.
Every comment you might have is greatly apreciated.
- Asger
MatthewW - 7-12-2009 at 01:19 PM
from FAQs section on string buzz-
http://www.mikeouds.com/messageboard/viewthread.php?tid=6684#pid407...
http://www.mikeouds.com/messageboard/viewthread.php?tid=3407#pid224...
http://www.mikeouds.com/messageboard/viewthread.php?tid=822#pid5720
Hatem_Afandi - 7-12-2009 at 01:42 PM
Hi Asger,
I am sorry you are going thru this bad experience. However, the problem sounds very simple.
Usually, new ouds sold in Cairo, especially in Mahammad Ali Street come with a very poor quality strings.
I do suggest that you buy a good quality set. I use LaBella in all my instruments. You can order LaBella from:
http://www.khalafoud.com/labellastrings.htm
PLEASE GET THE ARABIC TUNING SET.
Give the strings 3 -5 days to settle to the right tension, then try again.
Good luck,
Hatem
Asger - 7-12-2009 at 02:02 PM
Thanks alot for the quick responses.
I see these are not new questions so i'm sorry for the rerun 
But i'm glad you answered because although i had searched before asking, i did not stumble upon the trick with putting the piece of wood beneath the
strings at the bridge. I tested it out with the best piece of material i could find and low and behold, seems like my Oud is gonna sing with the birds
as soon as i cut out some wood and glue it onthere 
I'll also be changing the strings, because yes infact they don't sound like quality strings.
But the buzz should be fixed with the woodtrick.
Thanks again
Marina - 7-13-2009 at 11:13 AM
The neck is not strait.
Take it to the luthier...I bought 2 egyptian ouds for students, nice looking...
costed me more to fix them that I paid to buy them.