Jameel - 1-4-2008 at 06:04 PM
The place where my ouds live is of course drier in the winter. Not by much since I have a humidifier on the furnace, but it's about 40% in there,
whereas in the summer it's 50%-60%.
Yet I'm still amazed, year after year, that my ouds, especially my #2, sound incredible when its drier. Louder, deeper, woodier. It's just so much
more alive in the wintertime.
So I guess wintertime does have some pluses...
pauldata - 1-4-2008 at 09:40 PM
Yes, generally all my guitars and oud sound better when dry. Has to do with the resonance qualities of wood when saturated versus dry. I guess the
wood moves more freely when dry. Glad I live in Arizona...
revaldo29 - 1-4-2008 at 09:46 PM
Jameel, Funny you mentioned that. The weather in Atlanta just got incredibly cold and I've just started running the heater. I noticed last week that
my oud projected so much better than usual.
jdowning - 1-5-2008 at 01:50 PM
It can be tough in Northern climates. Here we can have hot, humid summer conditions (for those of us who do not 'enjoy' air conditioning in our
houses) reaching temperatures of 40 C and relative humidity of up to 80% but in the winter with wood stove heating the house interior to 70 C or so
and outside temperatures dropping to minus 40 C the relative humidity inside the house can drop to under 20% - bad news for instruments and furniture
that were made when the relative humidity was around 50%.
My instruments tend to lose some resonance in the worst of high humidity of summer but quickly recover when the humidity drops. I believe that use of
hide glue in the construction of instruments is beneficial because the glue will soften slightly at high humidity/high temperatures to relieve any
built up internal stresses - something that does not happen with some modern water resistant adhesives. Just a theory.