Mike's Oud Forums

ribs wood and sound

nati - 5-21-2015 at 06:08 AM

helo!
i have bubinga, paduk and turkish walnut and im wondering about the affect of the kind of wood on the the sound.
bubinga is the harder and im not shur if it will be good to make all the bowl with it. can someone please explain me how the wood type affect the sound?
it will be better to make one oud with bubinga and walnut and another with walnut and paduk?

Dr. Oud - 5-22-2015 at 08:46 AM

The material of the bowel has no affect on the sound of the oud, it only provides a chamber to reflect the sound made by the soundboard. Differences between ouds with different backs are due to variations in the soundboard and bracing.

nati - 5-24-2015 at 01:00 PM

ok. thanks richard

faggiuols - 5-25-2015 at 11:47 PM

Quote: Originally posted by Dr. Oud  
The material of the bowel has no affect on the sound of the oud, it only provides a chamber to reflect the sound made by the soundboard. Differences between ouds with different backs are due to variations in the soundboard and bracing.

sanding the inside of the bowl affect the reflection of sound?
if so, how?
thanks to those who will respond.

jdowning - 5-28-2015 at 02:27 PM

It is always a good idea to try to visualise the complexities of instrument acoustics in simple basic terms in order to help understanding about what is going on. However, I think that the idea that the bowl of an oud is some kind of acoustic mirror - reflecting and focussing internal 'sound' so that after bouncing around the bowl interior in random fashion it (somehow) exits through the 'sound hole' in a concentrated form - is a mis-conception. So then is the idea that polishing (sanding smooth) the bowl interior so that it might more efficiently act as an acoustic reflector. Anyway who is to say that the bowl wood acts as a reflector rather than absorber of 'sound'?

The sound board vibrations (pressure pulsations) cause the air trapped inside the bowl to be set in motion so that the mass of air will pulsate across the area of the sound hole at a resonant frequency whose value is determined by the volume of air, the area of the sound hole(s), the thickness of the sound hole(s), the geometry of the sound hole(s), the number of sound holes and their relative positions, the rigidity or stiffness of the resonant cavity (i.e., the bowl/sound board structure), the geometry of the bowl and the speed of sound in air at ambient temperature.
The air resonance frequency is usually designed to support the bass response of an instrument and so, in turn, affects the instrument's 'tone colour'.

The air resonant frequency is detected as sound (pressure fluctuations transmitted through the air) by the human ear as is the sound transmitted by the vibrating sound board surface and together they combine to give the perceived acoustic characteristics of an instrument.