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franck leriche
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What is a cheap oud?question for luthiers and musicians
It might be interesting to have some information about cheap ouds.
There a growing demand for oud, but many people can't or don't want to spend to much, so they buy cheap ouds.
So it would be great to know what can we expect for, let say 600$.
It's about between half or a third of the price of a great oud.
I have some ideas on how a maker can lower the price:
-lower wood grade
-left over or imperfections from mid grade
-duplicating the same oud (no custom orders)
-making a lot of instruments in order to buy more wood quantity and pay less
-bowl with less ribs
-minimum of decorations.
-delivery with cheap strings
-sprayed synthetic cheap varnish
-synthetic material for rosace and nut.
-cheap glue
-attracting price to get new customers for more expensive ouds
I can imagine also differences in the time devoted to make and assemble the parts and the sanding.
So what can one hope from a cheap wood?
If he is lucky, the sound will be good, the wood quite stable, and the oud will not fall apart....
If he's not the fingerboard will quickly have holes under the strings, the look of the spay varnish will be....let say... sprayed....
He may have some issues when the weather will be to dry or humid...
The sound might be be quickly boring.
He might have buzzes on the fingerboard, Uneven holes for the strings
I really would like hear musicians and luthier's opinions on this matter.
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Jason
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Prices may be different where you are but wood is relatively cheap in America. Generally, the most expensive physical part would be the spruce top.
The best way to lower the price is to use cheaper labor and increase volume. Sukar ouds were relatively cheap because they sold a lot of instruments
and weren't relying on a single person to make everything.
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franck leriche
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Ok, so how can a maker working by himself or with one or two employee can sell a student model oud for 600$ and a "pro" model for nearly 2000$?
Everybody knows the volume and cheap labor factor for "larger" companies.
I wasn't thinking of the USA or europe because life is quite expensive and there's no big oud production.
So if the spruce top is the most expensive part, why do some luthier ask a lot more for special woods for the bowl.
I like the things to be clear. Personally i would be ok to pay 10 000$ for a great oud i would love all my life.
But education is he best way to avoid thieves and bad behaviors.
So if this forum can help making a little more clear the way ouds are made, it would be a great improvement for the community.
Too many people on this planet make their money on the lack of knowledge of their clients.
I
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Dr. Oud
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90% of the cost is in the labor. the cheap outs are made in cheap labor states like Pakistan using unseasoned wood and production methods. The result
are wall ornaments, not worth the cost to make them capable of holding pitch and playable .
Fewer ribs made with common woods and reduce the cost, but not by much, certainly not $1,400. If I sell an oud for $2,000 I make about $18/hr, less
than a grocery checker. In the Mid East this is a good income, in the US or Europe, not so much.
Exotic woods used for the bowel are just an ornamental sales issue, the bowel wood doesn't make any difference in the sound.
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Jason
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They can sell the student model for $600 because their labor costs are exceptionally low and they aren't doing any time consuming ornamentation work.
Actual materials really don't make THAT big of a difference in price unless you're using something exotic like CITES certified Brazilian rosewood.
The price always come back to the cost of labor.
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franck leriche
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Quote: Originally posted by Dr. Oud  | 90% of the cost is in the labor. the cheap outs are made in cheap labor states like Pakistan using unseasoned wood and production methods. The result
are wall ornaments, not worth the cost to make them capable of holding pitch and playable .
Fewer ribs made with common woods and reduce the cost, but not by much, certainly not $1,400. If I sell an oud for $2,000 I make about $18/hr, less
than a grocery checker. In the Mid East this is a good income, in the US or Europe, not so much.
Exotic woods used for the bowel are just an ornamental sales issue, the bowel wood doesn't make any difference in the sound.
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Ok, roughly that mean that a $600 oud has $50 of wood and a $2000 oud has $180, am i right?
So, let's do the math, there's roughly 1300$ of labor difference.
Where goes the difference if the same person builds those two oud?
Let's not talk about wall hangers.
I think this matter concern the musicians who are interested in playing the oud, not hanging it in the living room.
It happens quite often that some people are asking advices about "professional" ouds in the $600 range.
What can he expect from that compare to more expensive instrument?
And where the difference really comes from if they are made by the same person?
I don't want to give any name here, but that would be very easy.
To make it clear, i don't have any personal issues with anyone who wants to earn more money and sells ouds a high price.
I've been a craftsman and in my field i can give you all the tricks to lower the price to satisfy one part of the market....
I like to know what i pay for.
So let's try to make it clear for those who wants to know.
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Alfaraby
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test 
alfarabymusic@gmail.com
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Alfaraby
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Hello friends
Happy New Year
Low cost ouds can be acquired only in developing countries, just like every other artifact. Ouds can be found in Egypt for example, starting from less
than 20 $ ! Of course don't expect for a real musical instrument, but just to get the idea. If you decide to spend up to 100 $, you will probably find
a reasonable, good looking descent oud. In Syria, it's quite the same: for a hundred you can (I mean could) buy a Sukkar, Zeryab, Damascene (both from
Ali Khalifa's family) and more. This's possible just because labor wages don't reach 100$/month per capita;
while in Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, Gulf, South Africa etc. the cost of living is rather expensive, so everything, not only ouds, cost much more
.....
To be continued after hopefully solving the posting problem
Yours indeed
Alfaraby
alfarabymusic@gmail.com
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Adel Salameh
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A very Happy new year to you ...interesting topic Franck , yes you can find a decent student OUD for 100 US dollar in Syria , quite clean but no sound
... I do not expect an instrument at this price to sound great ... You can spend also 1000 or 2000 euros on an OUD and not got what you want ... I do
not see how a luthier in the Arab world can make a decent living making Ouds without charging the real value of the instrument unless we are talking
about mass production which is common practice these days by many makers , not to forgot also that most of these makers are putting different parts of
the OUD together . I. E they buy separate parts of the OUD and put it together .... Albeir Mansour in Lebanon is charging 3000 euros for his Oud, I
believe his instrument is worth that much for the time he spend making the instrument and the sound that he gets out of it...I believe that getting a
student OUD is possible at reasonable prices , the same for intermediary students ... The problem still and may last for sometime is getting a
professional OUD for performers ... This is a problem that makers have to deal with as we have lost contact with the instrument. Wish you all the very
best , health , happiness and peace , Adel
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Jody Stecher
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The cost of making an oud is not just materials and many hours of labor. There is the cost of maintaining a shop, the cost of tools, of electricity,
of heat, the cost of varnish and other finishes, the cost of glue, the cost of paying an assistant in some cases, etc. Wood must be bought in
quantity to get a lower price. Although the the price per board is lower this way the overall price can be a substantial layout. This money has to
come from somewhere. Another factor is the many hours and years of unpaid time that the luthier has spent learning his craft. There is the cost of the
materials and time lost on mistakes. Some early ouds are failures. The family of the luthier must eat. And often the luthier is not paid until the oud
is finished so there is no income during the time the instrument is being built.
If the luthier did not charge more than all these costs he would not be making a living, he would be breaking even.
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Jody Stecher
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| Quote: Originally posted by Adel Salameh | | . The problem still and may last for sometime is getting a professional OUD for performers ... This is a problem that makers have to deal with as we
have lost contact with the instrument. Wish you all the very best , health , happiness and peace , Adel |
Adel, what do you mean by "we have lost contact with the instrument"? I understood the rest of your post, but this is not clear to me. thanks!
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Adel Salameh
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Jody ... Long time ago in the late1980's I was in Baghdad .. I visited an old master who was making wonderful OUD , I was talking to him about OUD
making ... He has told me that it will take a maker 10 years to make an OUD .... Meaning he /she will spend 10 years of learning before he/she can
make a decent OUD ... Most makers I have seen or have met do not want to take the time to learn ... They want to produce and earn their living which
is fair enough ... Take Nazih Ghadban , I have known his work for a long time ... His work today is completely different from 15 years ago ... Gained
more experience and he made copies of nahat as he saw many nahat Ouds , repaired them , even in some cases I am sure he had to take the top of the
instrument and replace or repair it ... Making a copy of an OUD , it's not simply taking measurements, but also locating the bars, thickness / height/
width and the distance of the bars , using decent wood , using seasoned wood , decent glue ... In fact we must have schools on which new OUD makers
can go and learn how to cut the wood , putting ribs together , to enable the maker have a decent clean finish with great sound ... A German maker has
told me once that it will take him 15 years of practice to cut a shamsya like the one on my Abdo nahat OUD ...again I say it if you want Ouds for
beginners in the Arab world or intermediar ... You have huge choice.. But if you are looking for professional OUD ... It's very hard ... Having said
all of this let me remind you of one thing , we were not shortage of great masters in the past ... I think OUD makers now a days have a lot to learn
from the old masters and not to dismiss the great old masters , best wishes, Adel
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Jody Stecher
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Thank you, Adel. *Now* I understand.
-jody
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Mike
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You should be able to post special characters again without a problem. In other words, you won't have blank posts anymore.
The problem was php related. I'll spare you the details of how it was resolved.
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franck leriche
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Thanks to everyone who participate to this topic.
I apologize insisting again, but the idea i would like to make clear doesn't concern very cheap ouds, neither the fact that oud makers have to pay the
bills, of fed the family which almost everybody has to do.
My question is: if someone wants to buy a oud from one maker who offer him a "student model" for $600 and a "pro model" for $2000, what will be the
differences?
For sure, the maker will have to pay the bills and eat every month. He will have not access to very low cost labor because he is working by himself.
So if the difference is not in the wood, it's in the labor, but where?
How can the same maker can make a oud for $600 and $2000?or $1000 and $3000?
Let's talk about a oud looking the same.
Ebony fingerboard and pegs, spruce face, walnut body or any not expensive wood.
What are the tricks to save time?
And what the customer will get?
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Adel Salameh
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Franck ... How? Let me start with expensive wood ,ebony fingerboard, ebony pegs,expensive wood the bowl let us say rosewood ... Etc ... All of these
woods are no good for the OUD .. The best wood for the bowl is walnut ... Fine you like the exotic wood and it looks nice and beautiful ... Still it's
very strange for the OUD and none will give you the warm sound of walnut .... I had 4 Ouds made for me with expensive rosewood ...the result was
miserable .
Coming to your point about making student OUD at 600 dollars , either you have professional oud makers Albeir Mansour , Nazih Ghadban , Wolfgang
fruh... They do professional Ouds they do everything in the instrument apart from the pegs ... It will take 3 months to make the OUD..And most of us
do know their prices ... They will not do you a student model ...you have other makers like Sukar , he makes students model and intermediar and his
prices is the one you are quoting ...the poor maker has to make a living , has to eat and to pay the bills ... An alternative to this ... You go
yourself and buy ready parts of the OUD which is sold in Syria , Egypt And put all the parts together ... It will cost may be less than 600 dollar
and will not take you long time to do so ...you will find it very hard to find a professional Arab OUD for less than 2000 euro .... And if you are
decrementing OUD player like myself .. You will have to pay more to got what you want .
Good luck ,
Adel
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franck leriche
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Great Adel, you made a big point here!!!
So let's forget exotics woods which is bad also for the planet because of the shipping oil need...
Too bad many makers claims that the bowl wood doesn't change the sound....
I trust you hundred times more because you will not get any money from this business...
Now we understand why some makers advertise their ouds mostly on bowl wood...maybe they don't have anything else to say.
Maybe i wasn't precise enough, but the idea of this thread came to me after this post:
http://www.mikeouds.com/messageboard/viewthread.php?tid=16238
I was more thinking about turkish makers than arab ones that i know less.
Let's put a few names here:
Mustafa Copcuoglu offers student model for $1200 and pro for $1800( shortfingerboard)
Faruk Turunz offers reduced price point oud for $1300 and concert oud for no less than $2700
In Ramazan Calay shop i found different prices , some where really crappy and other better.
I am not concerned by this category of ouds but it would be nice if we could give a hand to those who are willing to buy them.
How can a maker able to make great ouds can make a cheaper oud?
Does he make it faster?
How can he save some time?
And what is the result for the buyer?
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SamirCanada
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This is an interesting question Frank,
I will contribute to this from my standpoint. I am a hobby oud maker and therefore I have the luxury of not having to depend on it for my livelihood,
but still when I do sell my works I want to charge a price I feel is representative of the efforts I put in the work.
The cost of wood is relative to how much you buy and where you are located in the world. To your point about exotic woods, I think the costs
difference between expensive woods or other more affordable woods is an illusion. The rosewood billet I used to make an oud cost me $80 enough for 2
ouds. Walnut was actually similar in price. But rosewood is harder to work with and is considered to be more expensive. I am in agreement with Adel
that for the Arabic oud, walnut is the ideal wood but unfortunately the demand for ouds is based on expensive oud looks not on things that matters
like sound, string action, competence of the oud maker.
In my case, someone living in Canada, the woods and materials for a oud cost me roughly $200. Selling the oud for 600 would be about $400 for let’s
say about 130-150 hours of labour. Some people might find that it’s enough for them but for me given the investment in tools and time I have put
towards this craft it doesn’t work.
We say the main cost of making the oud is labour. However, it’s not just any labour it is a very skilled labour only devolved with experience,
passion, skill and knowledge of woodworking tools etc… This has its own costs and it’s determined by the maker. For example, I know that in a year
I can make 1 or maybe 2 oud at the most because of my family situation and my main work. I make them to the best of my abilities and so when it comes
time to sell it, I want to make sure it’s going to someone who will appreciate it and I have the luxury of waiting to find someone who will purchase
for the price I am asking. Some people may not have this luxury…
The question of going faster or cutting corners is tricky because with experience you can get better and faster but it has limits. I know that if I
try to go faster on certain hand operations I will mess up so I take my time and go slow. The key to save time would be to make a few ouds at a time
for example if you make 5 ouds at a time and you are ripping enough ribs for 5 ouds it’s going to be faster because you are already setup to do the
operation. Also you can develop special jigs to make certain tasks much faster.
About varnishing and finish… also there it’s an illusion that spraying a finish is faster and cheaper. Finishing happens before any finish is
applied; taking time to make sure the surfaces are nice and clean with scrapers or sand paper. It is much easier to achieve a nice finish when you are
applying with a rubbed rag.
I also think the price of a oud should be determined after it’s done, for example I could build 6 ouds the exact same way and 1 will sound amazing,
the others will sound ok or perhaps even some will have poor sound. Should they all be the same price?
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Jody Stecher
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Frank, one big difference between the lower and higher priced Turkish ouds is the finish. A hand applied French polish takes a lot of time and labor
and skill. A matte finish, sprayed on, and not rubbed to a polish, can be done quickly.
Adel, I have an oud made 4 years ago by Nazih Ghadban. The bowl is made of alternating ribs of rosewood and amarante. I think you would like the
sound and how it plays. It's not metallic or harsh or "foreign" sounding.
Richard, I agree with everyone who says the soundboard is the biggest factor determining sound. I disagree that that the wood of the bowl has no
effect. I have played and heard enough walnut bowl ouds to recognize a characteristic sound. It is a small percentage but a crucial one. Consider the
difference in the taste of lentil soup with no salt and with a quarter of a teaspoon added to the pot. The amount of salt is far less than one tenth
of one percent of the contents of the cooking pot but the taste of the lentils is entirely different.
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franck leriche
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Thanks Samir and Jordy for your inputs.
So, now everybody knows that asking a lot more for exotic woods....is....let say...not very fair.
But we all know that there's a fashion regarding exotic wood so it's a nice way to get more money for the builder.
We also know that the biggest factor of the sound is in the soundboard.
But one big question remains:
How can the same luthier make a student sound from the soundboard on one hand and a concert sounding one on the other hand?
I have a small idea on this matter, a good luthier knows what the sound will be by tapping the wood.
So he keeps the worst ones for student models. Am i right?
Also he may spend less time checking the sound during the bracing process, even not checking at all for very low quality ones.
About woods there's also the drying process, some luthier have a nice stock of wood, space is money, so for cheaper ones they might use younger woods.
Specially for the soundboard.
Hüseyin Aktel has show me his personal stock of old spruce.He was very proud of it.
I will not forget the salt in the lentils tonight!!!
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Brian Prunka
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As Samir noted, this is skilled labor. But different parts of the oud require different amounts of skill.
A luthier who is offering a cheaper "student" oud is using assistants or even outsourcing the less critical labor to other, more factory-oriented
shops. The bowl is a huge amount of work but contributes minimally to the sound, so that work is often delegated to less-skilled workers as that will
be a way to save a lot of money while having the least impact on quality. The master luthier's main contribution is in creating the soundboard and
bracing—this determines 90% of the sound. Secondarily, it is in making sure that everything functions properly—the tuning pegs, pegbox, bridge,
nut, neck joint and action are all set up to play well. Modestly competent woodworkers can create beautiful bowls, but creating a great sound
requires a master luthier (and a bit of luck).
This is one way that a luthier can offer a cheaper instrument while maintaining reasonably high quality. He doesn't waste his time on the parts that
an assistant can do just as well. Building jigs and other labor saving tools is another, though since those also require investment of time and
money it is generally not going to result in a cheaper instrument.
Many people have said that the old Syrian makers like the Nahats didn't generally do their own rosettes, but that that work was done by specialists,
which makes a lot of sense. I understand the desire from a standpoint of craft, but it really doesn't make sense for a luthier to go to all the work
to learn the rare skills of building an instrument that plays well and sounds good then waste his time on decoration when it's something that many
people could do.
As far as cutting corners: using wood that isn't fully seasoned, using very cheap woods, using incompetent workers, using cheaper woods and materials,
etc.. Some of these I don't really understand—is it that hard to get good quality glue? Using whatever garbage wood Sukar and others use for the
tuning pegs makes no sense to me, at most you're saving about $12. Maybe a bit of labor as the soft woods are shaped quickly and easily even with
subpar tools. As you suggested, there may be considerably less time spent on fine-tuning the sound. Turunz has said that his concert ouds each have
individually tuned tops while his student ouds are built according to a formula with minimal adjustment.
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SamirCanada
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Brian,
About good glue and decent premade pegs. I feel you!
I don't believe in the hocus pocus of wood tapping, that's just my opinion. Otherwise how do you explain that some ouds with "low quality" spruce tops
turn out to sound much better than master grade tops. Maybe I wasn't blessed with the "gift" but honestly I think the only way to make a oud that
sounds good is to make a lot of ouds and learn from your mistakes and successes. This is what you are paying for in a oud, the experience of someone
who has made enough instruments to know what will work and what will not.
This idea of the "gift" has to be the thing that most irritates me, I have had interaction with some "luthiers" who tell me they were born with a gift
to know how to make a oud sound good 100% of the time just by "feeling" and they never made a bad oud.
The recipe for sound in my opinion is:
10% construction skills and technique (know how to shape braces with a plane, how to use hide glue in a quick efficient manner, how to attach them to
the soundboard and bowl, how to plane a soundboard to the right shape, how to ensure a light responsive construction that is strong and will not fail
under pressure)
10% experience. meaning making ouds and studying your previous models which have great or poor sound and figuring out how to make adjustments also
studying the works of the ouds made by the master luthiers of the past and present.
80% luck. We are trying to make something out of a somewhat unstable material that is 2mm thin with a lot of tension applied to it, it has to vibrate
greatly at the right frequencies and yet it must not collapse. Too many things are happening to say we have a lot of control.
I agree with you Brian, there is more of a need for luthiers to learn to delegate and outsource some parts of the oud. For example I don't find
anything wrong with using premade pegs or even using a jewelry maker to fashion the rosettes etc...
However, I don't agree that making the bowl is easier than making the top, more things can go wrong and if you have learned the skills to make a oud
bowl you can definitely make a oud top. When you play a good oud, you feel it vibrate in your body. The joints have to be tight all along the ribs,
the ribs have to be the right thickness and more importantly the wood used to make the bowl has a big impact I think more so than we have come to
believe. I have not done this experiment but I would be interested to hear the difference if the same top was installed on say 2 or 3 bowls of
identical dimensions but of different woods. I would bet the difference would be astonishing.
The most difficult thing and also most important aspect of making a oud is setting up for playability, specifically the string action, nut spacing,
pegs functioning well, bridge height and spacing etc... It's also why I think that to make good ouds, you should play the oud pretty well. I don't
think I could make a good guitar because I don't play the guitar, it may resemble a guitar but I wouldn't know how to adjust it ideally because I cant
play it.
About finishing, is spraying really easier than a oil hand rubbed finish? the equipment is expensive to maintain and you must be in a dust free
environment. I am not talking about French polishing shellac but there are finishes that are really easy to apply with a rag or a brush and that look
much better than sprayed lacquer. The spraying I think is used to hide poor wood surface preparation which is really the part that takes more time and
skill. I will say that spraying might be thought of as "faster" and easier but I don't think it really is because to do it right you still have to
sand between light coats and you still have make sure finish doesn't get on sensitive parts of the oud. I will say its easy to do a spray finish
wrong.
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Brian Prunka
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I just want to clarify that what is "easier" if often a matter of what can be divided into multiple separate tasks more easily, or what can be solved
by technology and adequate preparation. A factory set up correctly can spray finishes much much more efficiently than is possible with French polish.
It's true that many drying varnishes can be applied easily. Many cheap Arabic ouds use cheap shellac that is not polished out. If you are producing
a small amount of instruments, then it's true that lacquer is more work, but if you are producing a lot of instruments it can be done much more
efficiently (and more importantly—by specialists, not by the luthier). Nitrocellulose lacquer is a beautiful finish with minimal or positive
acoustical effects when done well, and actually reveals imperfections, it doesn't hide them. It's a lot of work for a single finish but can scale
very well in production. Synthetic spray finishes (polyethylene, polyurethane, etc.) are easy and require much less work, hide imperfections (and
kill the sound).
A bowl isn't "easier", exactly—it's a lot of work and does require skills. Strictly from the standpoint of woodworking skills, making a great bowl
seems much more complex and difficult than other aspects. But they are more straightforward skills (that is, they stem from widely available knowledge
that can be learned by a motivated person) than are required for a good-sounding top.
I agree with you that playing the oud and having the desired sound in your head are critical. This is why this is the part that can't be delegated.
I disagree that if you have the skills to make a bowl then you have the skills to make a top. From a woodworking standpoint, sure, that's true. But
I've seen over and over again luthiers who have all the skills to make fantastic bowls, but their ouds have no sound because they don't really know
how to make a top.
The fact remains that the bowl is a small part of the sound and a huge part of the labor, so it is the most logical candidate for delegating. It
still needs to be done by someone skilled, but I've seen a bunch of really nice bowls from factories in Egypt and Syria—I think it's indisputable
that it can be done well. Again, a dedicated bowl-maker can work more efficiently than a luthier who builds one or two bowls at a time and then
makes a top, and a neck, and a pegbox, and assembles everything as well.
The factories in Turkey are generally turning out very nice bowls at very little cost. I'm sure if you wanted to do your experiment, you could get a
factory to provide you with half a dozen bowls to your specifications, then try the same top on a few different ouds (and different tops as well).
While I think that most modern oudmakers are in the 80% luck category as you say (and why I am unlikely to order an oud from a luthier), the fact that
luthiers in period 1900-1940 seemed to be able to produce good instruments pretty consistently suggests that there are simply techniques and knowledge
that have been lost. Even assuming the poor instruments were more often discarded, causing selection bias, luck doesn't seem to me to be a sufficient
explanation. I think this is what Adel was referring to when he said we have 'lost touch with the instrument'. The tradition of making that led to the
great makers like Nahat, Gamil Georges, Kandalaft, etc. seems like it got disrupted and we are trying to recover the lost wisdom that took generations
to develop.
Regarding your comments about wood tapping and "the gift" —I don't disagree and I don't think I suggested anything about a "gift" or about wood
tapping. The only "gift" I could think of would be the luck to be trained by a master who can actually pass on what he's learned. Most "luthier"
woods seem to be graded by visual appearance and have little or nothing to do with their ultimate acoustical qualities.
I'm not exactly advocating the luthiers "should" do anything. I do think that if someone has the skills to make great sounding and playing ouds, then
they could produce more and be more efficient with their skills (and be more likely to feed themselves) if they are strategic about what they really
need to do personally vs. what can be done by someone else. I'm not really concerned with whether that results in a "bargain" for customers. But
being realistic, the number of people who are able or willing to pay $3000+ for an oud is very small.
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Brian Prunka
Oud Junkie
Posts: 2939
Registered: 1-30-2004
Location: Brooklyn, NY
Member Is Offline
Mood: Stringish
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That said, I respect the old-fashioned sense of craft that is involved in building an instrument start to finish. There is definitely a kind of
integrity in that. But if dedication to that feeling leads to people unable to develop their potential as luthiers or to feed themselves and their
family, maybe it should be reconsidered.
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SamirCanada
Moderator
Posts: 3405
Registered: 6-4-2004
Member Is Offline
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This is a great discussion Frank, Jody, Brian, Adel.
hopefully we can hear from some oud makers. I think we agree on many points.
About knowledge of woodworking and oud making 1900-1940, these were a sort of golden period for the craft. A lot of knowledge and experience as well
as a high demand for quality ouds during those days. I will say though,I also love nice old ouds but they wont be around for ever. I wonder what the
ouds of today's makers will sound in 80 years. How much of what we hear today is due to the best ouds having been cared for over the years and the
effect of age in instruments. If we dont encourage those oud makers today who are doing their best to revive the craft, how will it carry on?
If a dedicated oud bowl maker can become very good at bowl making, what is a luthier? a dedicated top builder? I mean really, if someone was only
responsible for making the tops and adjusting the playability obviously they would become better at it with time. Are they a master luthier because
they are responsible for assembling and installing the top?
Anyways to bring it back to the topic, cost of making ouds and if it can be reduced a keep a decent level of quality. Yes I think so, either by
repeating tasks and making many ouds at a time. ex: make 5 bowls then make 5 necks, make 5 pegbox, then fit all the pegs etc... working with a small
team sure you can spread the tasks more evenly. Even then, will they all sound the same? no they wont, even if it was the dedicated top builder
"master luthier" who was installing all of them. Ouds are all unique in the end, its why I think the price should be determined once the oud is
complete based on the mostly sound.
@samiroud Instagram
samiroudmaker@gmail.com
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