aquila - 7-3-2006 at 12:08 PM
Hello my friend,
I am going to consider new ways to produce oud sets.
I mean here not to consider the standard or light oud sets (that alreaday work) but something of very special.
I ask: do someone know about the oud strings before 1940's??
strung with gut for the first three upper strings and wound silk basses for the rest.This was the choice of the past.
Maybe the upper three were in pure silk also.
well, I have already made such set just to ear the result: gut strings and silk wound basses produce a quite warm sound.
Was this the true oud sound??
The second idea is to start to produce a new Aquila ud set made with pure silver wires.
Normally all brands (Aquila enclose) employ silvered copper wires or, sometime, pure red copper ones.
Pure silver wires grant a different feeling and lifetime.
what do you think??
Ciao
Mimmo from Aquila
SamirCanada - 7-3-2006 at 12:50 PM
Well That was a question I had a while ago about what kind of strings Farid el Atrash played with and where they were made etc...
I had no luck in getting any information about that but I read somewhere that as much as 80% of the sound you get from the oud comes from the strings.
Wich makes sense since the face and bracing and bowl etc... basicaly act as a amplification of the waves sent by the primary force. Wich are the
strings.
Hatem_Afandi - 7-3-2006 at 01:09 PM
Hi Mimmo and Samir,
I am not ging to make this post a long one. However, I learned the oud as a teen when I borrowed a broken one from a next door neihgbor. The tuning
was : F, A, D,G,C, and enventually the 6th. string was F. Someone told me that this tuning was invented by Farid El Atrache!!!!
Maybe???
I am not sure . I have been playing for years and years without meeting a single player. However, I am sure that this tuning is very popular in
Egypt.
Have a great day,
Hatem
Tuning and String sets
LeeVaris - 7-4-2006 at 07:01 AM
Hmm... I may be wrong but I'm pretty sure such a high tuning would not be possible with gut strings. I'm also reasonably sure Farid used lower tuning
- in some videos it seems like he's tuned down to B on the lowest string.
I would personally be interested in "antique style" gut strings jus to investigate a more mediaeval sound - they certainly didn't have nylon strings
in southern Spain in the 1400's!
Put me down for a set of gut and silk oud strings for a tuning of (low to high) CFAdgc...
Jameel - 7-4-2006 at 07:49 AM
What would a set of nylgut and pure silver cost? What can you tell us about how pure silver overspun vs. copper?
Elias - 7-4-2006 at 08:41 AM
Hello Jameel,
sometime i use Pure Silver basses on Nahat, the sound is so beautiful, very present and well balanced, it gives a lot of sound but without using the
sweetness typical of the other aquila....of course the price is higher...but for that is better to ask Mimmo wich could be the cost of this kind of
string for the abroad market...by the way one of the most important feature of this Pure Silver strings is the durability, wich is a lot longer tha
standard and lute strings, and your fingers will not become greeen or some other strange color!
elias