rojaros
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A New Oud built by Sebastian Stenzel
Sebastian Stenzel, famous guitar making luthier, has built another Oud in traditional arabic style with one sound hole, using american and european
walnut tree for body and neck, and spruce for the top.
Pictures are here:
New Stenzel Oud
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rojaros
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LINK:
soundfile new stenzel
My playing is not at all great, but I got a chance to record a comparison of the three ouds as a first glimpse (the new one is #3 in the video).
Please listen through decent headphobes or better loudspeakers than through laptop or smartphone speakers.
BTW it is the best sounding microphon combination I ever recorded an oud with ...
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Dr. Oud
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What are the peg hole inserts in the peg box walls and why?
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rojaros
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Is that what interests you most? That's nice ...
It's a special treatment of the peg holes invented (if I understand right) by the oud maker Albert Mansour. For some mechanical reasons I don't
know.
Also I think they look very cool...
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Dr. Oud
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The inserts appear to be ebony. If so it can cause some problems tuning. The peg must be harder than the peg box wall so that the taper of the peg
shank will wedge into the wall, providing the grip to seat the peg and stabilize the string tension. If the peg is the same hardness this won't
happen. If the peg is softer than the wall it will deform and not seat at all. Looking cool is not a positive factor in my opinion if the
functionality of the parts is compromised.
Another potential problem I see is the deep cut of the pegbox joint into the neck. This weakens the neck and often leads to a bend at the top of the
fingerboard. The workmanship is excellent, but the overall design is more like a lute than an oud.
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bulerias1981
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Mood: John Vergara Luthier Lord of the Strings instrument making and repair
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The countersunk black rings in the pegbox are just painted I think. Not ebony. Albert Mansour countersinks that area where the peg enters and leaves
the pegbox walls in hopes that he creates less friction creating minimal contact and thus making the peg turn and perform better. I've never tried
this, but I really don't think its of any importance. I believe a well fitted peg is a well fitted peg and will perform great. I put more energy into
carefully checking for a perfect fit between the taper of the hole and shaft of the peg. But who knows, maybe he's on to something.
Like Dr. Oud, Albert does not use a mould and has mastered the free form building method. He also makes the edge of the bowl where the arm meets curve
inward making it very comfortable on the right arm (especially for Arabic style where the arm doesn't usually come down over the top of the
soundboard)
It looks like another beautiful work by Stenzel
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rojaros
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There are no inserts of ebony, and it is not painted either, but some other treatment of the wood the peg box is made of. The wood of the pegbox is
the same as used by A. Mansour. The walnut outside is just thicker veneer, as is usual.
The ebony pegs are extremely well fited and have also good stopping properties.
Yes it is beaitiful, and I woodn't worry about the neck bending, there is plenty of 'flesh' to hold the tension.
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suz_i_dil
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This bowl is amazing, I love it.
I didn't paid attention if Albert Mansour make it the same way. That may explain why I didn't felt the bowl so big when I tried an oud from Albert
Mansour, while mensurations should have make me feel it was too big.
It's a wonderful work Sebastian Stenzel have achieved. I would love to try it and feel its sound.
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rojaros
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suz_i_dil: If by 'mensuration' you mean the scale length of the open string, this oud has 57cm which is very comfortable even for small hands. I think
Albert Mansour has a bit different shape of the bowl. This one also doesn't feel big, although it is quite big.
I think in future there will be more chance to play Stenzel ouds; he's already building his third and fourth...
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suz_i_dil
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Hello
Actually I was talking of the bowl size, which I rather big regarding my habits but keeps comfortable to play
great to know for the coming works !
Best regards
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rojaros
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I don't have played too many different ouds, so maybe I'm not really able to compare, but I have had an oud that had a much bigger bowl, and some ouds
I have played did have a slightly smaller bowl, but it dosn't present a problem for me, one just has to optimize the posture for each oud so as to use
it most efficiently.
As far as I know Sebastian Stenzel has studied many historical records about arabic ouds and his bowl construction doesn't go in any of the extremes:
not specially long or short, not specially wide or narrow and not specially deep or shallow. What is nice is that the rib that is in connection with
the top is already slightly inward towards the top so that the ouds has more body volume than one with same depth and straight rim rib, without making
the top too big.
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newlife_ks
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For someone like me not using facebook - how do I get to see the pictures?
Greetings from Klaus in Germany!
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