According to a post on FB, Saadettin Sandi has died.
I don't have one of his instruments - tried one once and liked it a lot - but I'd guess a lot of people here do.
I just now got a phone call that one of my good friends died yesterday. And now this. I have one of S Sandi's ouds, one he made for himself in 1990.
I asked him why he was selling it and he said "I have 9 ouds I made for myself and I live in a one room flat." That made me laugh. Sandi ouds are
underrated in my opinion. They are factory products generally, that is true, but so are CF Martin guitars. There are any number of instances where
someone has said to me that this or that Sandi oud responds and sounds much better than it "ought to". SamirCanada - 10-4-2020 at 06:17 AM
Thank you Samir. Losing Larry was a shock to everyone who knew him. His only apparent health problem was failing eyesight. All I know is that he
abruptly stopped breathing. No Covid, no cancer, no heart condition. He was in the luthier supply business, manufacturing and then importing guitar
fingerboards, violin chin rests and pegs, etc. One of my fondest memories is in 1980 discovering that Larry and I were in India at the same time and
traveling with him to a sawmill in Kerala. There I saw 4 or 5 elephants walk down from a mountain, each carrying an enormous ebony log or rosewood
log in its trunk. They'd walk down the road, enter the grounds of the sawmill and drop the log —branches, leaves, bark, and all — in the dust
beside the giant blade. The cloud of dust was huge and to an untrained eye there was no hint of the beautiful wood grain waiting to be discovered
beneath the bark and dust.Microber - 10-4-2020 at 08:25 AM
I never met him. But my first oud was one of him. The famous VMIU50 I bought in Istanbul in 2005. I never knew what these letters and digit mean. But
I keep an unique souvenir of my first emotions playing an oud. Aldana02 - 10-4-2020 at 06:51 PM
Sad to learn that. My current oud is a low/middle range "Arabic" oud from Sandi I received in May.
It sounds far better than I expected for the price. Didn't personnally knew the man but the communication with its son (I guess) was very pleasant.
May he rest in peace.norumba - 10-27-2020 at 05:12 PM
my first decent oud was a Sandi, years ago. He actually made a childs size oud for my daughter later that year, and was wonderful to communicate and
work with... ... i still have that child;s oud, and while she didnt stick with it, I now have a grandson who will inherit it.
