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farukturunz
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A BRIEF CONTRIBUTION TO THE SOUNDBOARD DESIGN
HOW TO DESIGN A SOUNDBOARD AND WHAT PARAMETERS AFFECT THE SOUND?
To my knowledge I’ve gained and innumerous experiments I’ve done so far; the soundboard (S.B) of an instrument is highly complicated but easy to
grasp the main parameters. I may say humbly the following:
The basic parameters seem to me:
a)The number, b)the cross-section and c)the length (two of the latter are parameters that defines the specific frequency of a beam, together with the
"specific stiffness "- known and defined as Young Modulus- braces is related to the distribution of the stiffness of the soundboard thus the resonant
frequencies and resonance areas or regions.
It is possible to compose a well balanced soundboard by changing or controlling the following six parameters:
i- Overal thickness of the soundboard
ii- Number of the braces
iii- Specific frequencies of the braces.
iv- The layout of the braces.
v- Distribution of comperatively thinner areas towards the edge of the S.B.
vi- The number and the mounting of the mufflers.
So, I may summarize:
1-There are always some eigenfrequency distribution patterns on every objects, plates, membranes, etc. likewise on an oud soundboard. We must be able
to guess or know how those eigen frequencies will change after being braced.
2-There is no certain rule that imposes to locate the braces
on a soundboard. This is related to the tonality we want to arrogate to the oud we make.
3- It is possible to compose a well balanced soundboard.
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Edward Powell
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Wonderful!
Please continue.... !
BTW, what are the "mufflers"?
thanks Usta
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farukturunz
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Eddi, my friend!
All the wise guys are silent...(Muffler has a connotation very well fits the tone of this thread I posted)
You are one of the members who really deal with the factual aspect of these forums: To exchange information.
No need to emphasize that you are a complete artist who composes music, plays many instruments, and a researching luthier...
Mufflers = Silencers
Thanks
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Edward Powell
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I have heard a bit about luthier's doing some things to attempt to actually limit certain vibrations - perhaps as a way of restricting resonance in
certain areas --- or rather "redirecting the energy" to other areas. . . .
. . .but I didn't realise this was done with oud SB construction. . .
Specifically, what physical pieces are these 'mufflers'?
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farukturunz
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They are pieces of wood welts. They are composed of two short wooden welts attached to each other in the shape of (T) and the horizontal part is
located parallel to the S.B. grains and the other part perpendicular to the bowl.
During the alternation process of all the typically different oud "genus" innumerable makers must have tried innumerable ways to overcome innumerable
difficulties. To reach a brilliant sound the edges must be made resonant for very high frequencies. This may be accessed by making the edges of the
S.B quite thin, but this causes a continuum of those oscillation thus the oscillation of the whole package of the vibration which is composed of
fundamental frequency and innumerable overtones.
Thinning the edges must have arisen a fatal problem for the durability of the S.B.
To overcome this they must have devised putting some extra supporters every where tending to cave in. And the result came out as that typical
percussive, crisp, fast decaying, sooo liked "Arabian" sound.
It has not been especially targeted but an outcome of the precautions taken for hampering a total crash of the S.B.
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Edward Powell
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hmmm.... that is fascinating. I have seen innumerable soundboards being built by many makers including yourself, of course... and I have never
noticed these mufflers. Did I miss them, or are they not being typically used today?
thanks
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farukturunz
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Quote: Originally posted by Edward Powell  | hmmm.... that is fascinating. I have seen innumerable soundboards being built by many makers including yourself, of course... and I have never
noticed these mufflers. Did I miss them, or are they not being typically used today?
thanks |
We used to call them "susturucu" and had stopped using them some time before you started attending my workshop.
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Edward Powell
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| Quote: Originally posted by farukturunz | | Quote: Originally posted by Edward Powell | hmmm.... that is fascinating. I have seen innumerable soundboards being built by many makers including yourself, of course... and I have never
noticed these mufflers. Did I miss them, or are they not being typically used today?
thanks |
We used to call them "susturucu" and had stopped using them some time before you started attending my workshop.
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So what are they...? Do they look like this fotos? Something like this?
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Edward Powell
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Edward Powell
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...now I am confused. I have always heard the thinning the SB around the edges will boost the bass since it allows the entire SB to move and pump like
a "woofer", but you are saying that this should boost the very highs? I thought the highs come from the tight areas around the bridge, and the bulky
braces around the bridge (and obviously the bridge itself).
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farukturunz
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| Quote: Originally posted by Edward Powell | | ...now I am confused. I have always heard the thinning the SB around the edges will boost the bass since it allows the entire SB to move and pump like
a "woofer", but you are saying that this should boost the very highs? I thought the highs come from the tight areas around the bridge, and the bulky
braces around the bridge (and obviously the bridge itself). |
this is the complexity of the all construction. While the thin edges administer the "woofer" function; they also correspond with the very high
frequencies. Thin material fits better -in the total movement- the fine vibrations and this is so logical. Please try to remember what happens if you
put 0.70 mm PVF strings in place of 0.50mm diameter. The high overtones fade away with the thicker ones. This is so similar in the thin edges case.
But in addition to this fine vibrations (parallel to the wave fineness) the thin edges function as "woofer"s as well. Neither of these are against to
each other. They occur at the same time and nonetheless to create an accurate model one needs to make different experiments keeping these indications
in mind carefully.
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Edward Powell
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Aha, this makes a lot of sense. Perhaps it might explain why often it seems that good highs and good bass often go together.
Perhaps the "old school" Turkish oud sounds didn't use any extra thinning about the edges? since it seems the old turk sound was more strong in mids
and less in high and bass?? ...or what's your opinion about this 'old school' sound? Am I out to lunch on that one - or would you agree that this
is an old turkish sound?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgobGjQaSqw&feature=plcp
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ALAMI
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Dear master Faruk, I agree that it is fascinating, thank you for sharing.
In your brace tuning system, I am curious about the amount of the digital and analog parts. Previously you mentioned, and showed, screen shots, of
vibrating surface analysis using Ansys software. Do you think that digital technology is able to be accurate?
When I was designing the Golden Mean oud, I contacted a software company (from Dassault Group) who referred me to a professor in the EPFL (Ecole
Polytechnique de Lausanne), Being myself an old student of this university, he accepted to share with me some of their researches, we had some long
conversations and his opinion was that no numeric model is yet able to simulate the complexity of a wooden sound board (I lost the laptop where I had
the papers), he was still believing that although they can do it accurately for metal and plastic, wood is still way beyond their reach.
It seems that no technology can yet replace the empiric know how, the experience p and the ears of a luthier. What are your thoughts about this?
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farukturunz
Oud Junkie
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| Quote: Originally posted by ALAMI | Dear master Faruk, I agree that it is fascinating, thank you for sharing.
In your brace tuning system, I am curious about the amount of the digital and analog parts. Previously you mentioned, and showed, screen shots, of
vibrating surface analysis using Ansys software. Do you think that digital technology is able to be accurate?
When I was designing the Golden Mean oud, I contacted a software company (from Dassault Group) who referred me to a professor in the EPFL (Ecole
Polytechnique de Lausanne), Being myself an old student of this university, he accepted to share with me some of their researches, we had some long
conversations and his opinion was that no numeric model is yet able to simulate the complexity of a wooden sound board (I lost the laptop where I had
the papers), he was still believing that although they can do it accurately for metal and plastic, wood is still way beyond their reach.
It seems that no technology can yet replace the empiric know how, the experience p and the ears of a luthier. What are your thoughts about this?
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Dear ALAMI,
I appreciate your fasitiousness and timidity in your viewpoint about digital technologies’ efficiency for analizing any wooden soundboard.
This is a controlling attitude of many luthiery related people that the wood is not a homogenious material.
That’s true. Wood is not a material composed of calculable peculiarities.
Nevertheless, ANSYS program requires (during an analize) what the Young Modulus figures are for the three dimensions: Logitudinal, transverse and
cross-sectional.
You can find some researches made by several prestigious research institutes embodied some esteemed universities. Here is a sample for those
researches titled as “Modeling of piano sounds using FEM simulation of soundboard vibration": http://webistem.com/acoustics2008/acoustics2008/cd1/data/articles/0...
I am not a person who seeks shelter in an authority to defend own thoughts…But this axample implies a tendency in the efforts of understanding the
soundboards.
I am not arrogating or have not adduced that ANSYS can be used for constructing a soundboard . Never!
All I want to share is the complexity of a soundboard is too much beyond our imagination. By changing the controllable parameters we can understand
which of them are related to which feature(s) of the sound. That’s it.
Of course through a modern person’s eyes there is no any mystical esence in it. Of course some despises this sort of attitude or point of wiev. I
agree with them also. Of course I have a very good argument to becalm them: The mystical extension of the creation is stil there. A mystical fenomenon
occured and introduced to us a new magical power to understand some ethereal objects.
As for your last question "It seems that no technology can yet replace the empiric know how, the experience p and the ears of a luthier. What are your
thoughts about this?"
I never contemplate to handover my mastership to any digital technology
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ALAMI
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Well, having spent a few weeks of my spare time on the subject won't give me enough knowledge to discuss the knowledge of someone who spent on this
30-40 years full time.... We can call it timidity if we want.
The study you linked to seems interesting and more advanced than was available in 2007. It won't be easy for me to refresh my dusty calculus and
Algebra.
I noticed that you seem to make a difference between what you call "controllable parts" of a soundboard and the "rest". So the idea is to use a
numeric model to narrow the trial and error process to the minimum possible.
My interest in the subject was then related to an " intuition" that the nature of the radically assymetric design I was working on calls for curved
braces and all those I talked to told me that It can't be done and, having zero woodworking knowledge but being good with 3D and simulation softwares
I wanted to try it virtually.
Regarding what is scientific and what is mystical when it comes to oud making, it would be a long discussion and we all want to believe that our
instrument is not just wood and numeric knowledge. When a musician talks about the timbre of an instrument it is always subjective and I believe that
timbre is not measurable. We've seen that even describing with words what is Turkish or Arabic sound is a hazardous exercise.
As a scientific guy, I love to understand how things work, but as an oriental guy I still believe that what makes me say "aah" to a sound or a voice
is mystical.
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farukturunz
Oud Junkie
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| Quote: Originally posted by ALAMI | Well, having spent a few weeks of my spare time on the subject won't give me enough knowledge to discuss the knowledge of someone who spent on this
30-40 years full time.... We can call it timidity if we want.
The study you linked to seems interesting and more advanced than was available in 2007. It won't be easy for me to refresh my dusty calculus and
Algebra.
I noticed that you seem to make a difference between what you call "controllable parts" of a soundboard and the "rest". So the idea is to use a
numeric model to narrow the trial and error process to the minimum possible.
My interest in the subject was then related to an " intuition" that the nature of the radically assymetric design I was working on calls for curved
braces and all those I talked to told me that It can't be done and, having zero woodworking knowledge but being good with 3D and simulation softwares
I wanted to try it virtually.
Regarding what is scientific and what is mystical when it comes to oud making, it would be a long discussion and we all want to believe that our
instrument is not just wood and numeric knowledge. When a musician talks about the timbre of an instrument it is always subjective and I believe that
timbre is not measurable. We've seen that even describing with words what is Turkish or Arabic sound is a hazardous exercise.
As a scientific guy, I love to understand how things work, but as an oriental guy I still believe that what makes me say "aah" to a sound or a voice
is mystical.
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I appreciate your feelings and leave the priority to you with respect, for making the final remark
But with a simple question: Haven't I laid out many information from top to bottom of this thread dealing with the oud making art smelling some
"intuition" and perception?
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Edward Powell
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This is my favorite type of SOUNDBOARD!
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farukturunz
Oud Junkie
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!
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ALAMI
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Full Length recent Research Paper:
Vibration analysis in the design and construction of an acoustic guitar
Closer to our world.
On page 5-6 of the pdf there are some infos about the mechanics of wood, thought it is interesting
Attachment: Gorrostieta-Hurtado et al.pdf (949kB)
This file has been downloaded 4321 times
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farukturunz
Oud Junkie
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| Quote: Originally posted by ALAMI | Full Length recent Research Paper:
Vibration analysis in the design and construction of an acoustic guitar
Closer to our world.
On page 5-6 of the pdf there are some infos about the mechanics of wood, thought it is interesting |
Dr.Rolf Bader published a book titled "Computational Mechanics of the Classical Guitar "
http://www.amazon.com/Computational-Mechanics-Classical-Guitar-Bade...
Regards.
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ALAMI
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...and yesterday I was (unsuccessfully) trying to by "On The Construction of Lute Belly".
Mr Turunz if you keep dragging me into this, and as I am not sure I can have a lifetime for this, I will have to come to Istanbul, take you as hostage
(it is our national sport these days) and make you do those curved braces for me.)
I make good Turkish coffee and I am a good cook
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farukturunz
Oud Junkie
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[rquote
Mr Turunz if you keep dragging me into this, and as I am not sure I can have a lifetime for this, I will have to come to Istanbul, take you as hostage
(it is our national sport these days) and make you do those curved braces for me.)
I make good Turkish coffee and I am a good cook[/ rquote]
No! No! Please... I am ready to accept all your conditions to surrender 
But why not to welcome a very enthusiastic gentlemen who also makes good Turkish coffee and is a good cook. Please bring with you one ton of coffee
mixed with cardamom which is hard to find here nowadays...Tastelessness is knee deep here really
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ALAMI
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And that would a major reason (on top of many) to schedule this long delayed visit to lovely Istanbul....looking forward to meet you.
I'll show you a trick with cardamom and you show me a trick with soundboards. 
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farukturunz
Oud Junkie
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| Quote: Originally posted by ALAMI |
And that would a major reason (on top of many) to schedule this long delayed visit to lovely Istanbul....looking forward to meet you.
I'll show you a trick with cardamom and you show me a trick with soundboards.
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OK. with pleasure
But, I see that I am still unsuccessful in showing that there is no any trick in it
It is just a simple application of the Physics
Trick with Cardamom is out of my knowledge but I love coffee with it 
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farukturunz
Oud Junkie
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By the way... If you don't mind... Are you Lebanese?
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