Alaa
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La Bella strings sounding dull
Hello,
As i am completing the repair of a Syrian oud my first I usually work on electric guitars i tried some la Bella strings, the wound ones sounded fine
but the nylon ones, especially the g sounded quite dull with almost no sustain. Has anyone experienced the same? now i am trying aquila red they sound
much better...
Best
Alaa
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Jody Stecher
Oud Junkie
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Location: California
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Quote: Originally posted by Alaa  | Hello,
As i am completing the repair of a Syrian oud my first I usually work on electric guitars i tried some la Bella strings, the wound ones sounded fine
but the nylon ones, especially the g sounded quite dull with almost no sustain. Has anyone experienced the same? now i am trying aquila red they sound
much better...
Best
Alaa |
Did you select the individual LaBella gauges or did you use a packaged set? If the latter, which set? Also, for an older style if Arabic music, short
sustain on oud is desirable.
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Brian Prunka
Oud Junkie
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Location: Brooklyn, NY
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La Bella nylon is rectified, which renders a bit more percussive sound than clear nylon. La Bella's rectified nylon is good but not the best, in my
opinion. I think overall it's good quality and on many ouds there won't be much difference, but D'addario and Pyramid lute are better in certain
cases. Unfortunately, D'addario doesn't offer many gauges to choose from and the two most useful for high c' (.025 and .026) are not available
individually. Pyramid lute offer a wide selection of gauges in .025mm increments but they are more expensive. So in many cases, La Bella will still
be the best option overall.
D'addario offers a good selection of clear nylon in the .028 - .032in range (suitable for g), but again not in the high c' range as far as I'm
aware.
Pyramid offers clear nylon in .62mm, .64mm and .70mm I believe, which are usable for high c'. Stefan at oudstrings.com should have all of these
available. Clear nylon gives you more sustain, not as percussive as rectified (personally I like rectified for Arabic oud but different strokes
etc.)
Aquila uses nylgut and their "sugar" plastic, which are entirely different materials from nylon. Their "oud" sets are plain extruded (i.e., not
rectified), while their "lute" stings are rectified nylgut (and available in .56 .58 .60 .62 .64 .70 .73 .76 .79 .82 mm, covering the entire range of
c' and g). The Aquila 'lute' are my favorite treble strings.
The other thing to consider is scale length, and whether a particular gauge suits a particular oud. Some ouds will really respond much better to one
material or another. I've played ouds that sounded great with nylgut and weak with nylon, and other ones that sounded great with nylon and weak
with nylgut.
Of course there's PVF as well, but I think that has no place on an Arabic oud unless used for a plain third d course. Sounds great on Turkish ouds
though.
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Alaa
Oud Admirer
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Registered: 6-2-2021
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Hi, first of all thanks Brian and Jody for the replies and by the way the project would not have advanced without the valuable info one can find on
this forum provided by you and the others,
I have used a packaged set ou80a as I am still figuring out what works best, it has an optional high f as it was the only one at the local music
shop in town Copenhagen denmark, the gauges were .22p .27p .31p .23w .29w .33w,
Actually thinking about it and hearing the recordings now I could recognize what both of you wrote, I could hear a nice arabic tone but a bit muted
and the strings being percussive, I will give them a try on another oud a friend has so they can also settle a bit.
As it is an experimental project for me I am also playing around with the height (9mm to 12mm) at the bridge to see the effect on the sound while
trying different string gauges and types, my scale length is 60 cm, hopefully finding a nice balance, btw many thanks for the detailed info Brian
I'll keep your advices in mind while working on this project
Best regards
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Brian Prunka
Oud Junkie
Posts: 2945
Registered: 1-30-2004
Location: Brooklyn, NY
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Mood: Stringish
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| Quote: Originally posted by Alaa | Hi, first of all thanks Brian and Jody for the replies and by the way the project would not have advanced without the valuable info one can find on
this forum provided by you and the others,
I have used a packaged set ou80a as I am still figuring out what works best, it has an optional high f as it was the only one at the local music
shop in town Copenhagen denmark, the gauges were .22p .27p .31p .23w .29w .33w,
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You're welcome. The ou80a is fine set. So the .031in plain string (not .31 - that would be huge!) is what you're using for the g? That should be
a pretty good gauge for g at 60cm. I might actually use .030 or .029 even if I was using nylon. Currently I'm using .73mm Aquila lute for that
string.
"Dull" is a little vague, so it's hard to guess if the string is too heavy or too light.
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Alaa
Oud Admirer
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Registered: 6-2-2021
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Yeah sure I forgot one zero on all gauges , the sound was nice but by dull i mean
that it sounded as if I muted it very slightly with my palm and preventing the string from expressing the full sound, but i will investigate this
further as i still have the set .Now i installed the aquila set so i can do the last fine-tuning bits on the pegbox and nut.
Best
Alaa
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