majnuunNavid
Oud Junkie
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Registered: 7-22-2013
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Mood: Dude, where's my Oud?
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Aquila nyglut treble intonation
hey everyone,
I have been finding difficulties with Aquila oud strings sets of late. The treble nylguts are having intonation problems.
I wonder if anyone else has problems with this? I use the light tension set. I will contact Aquila about this. But it has happened to different treble
strings (either g or c) over the last three set purchases.
thanks for any info
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Brian Prunka
Oud Junkie
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Registered: 1-30-2004
Location: Brooklyn, NY
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Hi Navid,
You are not the only one. The nylgut strings can be very tricky, they are sensitive to any slight variation.
some things to try:
• Make sure you are putting both strings in the pair on the same way . . . whichever end you use at the bridge on one, make sure that the other goes
on the same way.
• Make sure that the loops on the bridge are as nearly identical as possible. If one loop is bigger/smaller, higher/lower than the other, this can
cause intonation problems for the pair. If, as is often the case, the two holes in the bridge for the strings are not at an identical height, then
it's possible that aquila strings will never intonate correctly unless the problem is fixed.
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majnuunNavid
Oud Junkie
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Hi Brian,
I was wondering if that is the case. I had tried a few things to that effect but I didn't have much success. I will definitely play with these again
and see if any of those suggestions works.
thanks!
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Jody Stecher
Oud Junkie
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This happened to me once. I removed one member of the pair of cc strings and reversed it so that the end that was previously at the peg was now at the
bridge and vice versa. That solved the problem. I have since replaced the whole set with the same Aquila light set and have had no problems. I also
have Aquila light trebles on another oud (with Pyramid lute strings for the wound courses, I think, — I got the oud second hand and it was like
this — and the intonation is perfect.
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gkhouri
Oud Lover
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Registered: 5-29-2013
Location: San Francisco
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I've had the same problem with the trebles. I found there to be problems with the string being in tune with itself, i.e., overtones from the string
clashing with the fundamental tone. I showed this to Jody while visiting him once. He tuned the strings (the g course in this case) down 2 semitones
and the condition persisted. That should disprove or at least favor the argument that the clashing overtones aren't coming from the oud. I haven't
tried Brian's suggestion yet. Perhaps Brian could tell us if there are often issues with quality control for the nylgut.
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Jody Stecher
Oud Junkie
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Quote: Originally posted by gkhouri  | | I've had the same problem with the trebles. I found there to be problems with the string being in tune with itself, i.e., overtones from the string
clashing with the fundamental tone. I showed this to Jody while visiting him once. He tuned the strings (the g course in this case) down 2 semitones
and the condition persisted. That should disprove or at least favor the argument that the clashing overtones aren't coming from the oud. I haven't
tried Brian's suggestion yet. Perhaps Brian could tell us if there are often issues with quality control for the nylgut. |
Oh, that's right, I remember that now, George. Just the plain open single string was untrue no matter what pitch it was tuned to. So it wasn't a
clash with an overtone... yes, it's all coming back to me. In my case it was simply a question of the two members of a pair of Aquila Nylgut strings
not matching. The higher I got up the fingerboard the more the two strings did not match in pitch. Reversing one of the pair solved the problem. I
didn't have a bum string. But yours seems to have been just that, a defective string. But on the other hand I've had the same problem with the open
first course on a different oud. So far I've had nylon and also PVF and it's always the same, that open course (either of the two) just rings false.
If I finger it however it sounds good. So that would seem to be a function of a reverberation problem of the oud itself, but that idea does not hold
up because I get the same effect no matter what the pitch is, just as we tested the Aquila string on your oud. Curiouser and Curiouser.
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majnuunNavid
Oud Junkie
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Registered: 7-22-2013
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Great info. Thanks for everyone's comments...
I tried everything you suggested Brian, with little success.. I first tried restringing so that the side tied to the bridge was tied to the peg
instead. My loops were exactly the same, and the height of the loops were the same. I even cut off the old unsuccessful loop and started afresh. What
happened was that the intonation problem disappeared when hitting notes higher than 'g' on the top 'c' string, but the notes between the nut and the
body where out... I think I had a bad string.... on my last set, it was my second 'g' string that had the intonation issue, but it was subtle and high
on the fingerboard so it didn't affect my playing. But this time it was the top c string giving me problems. My 'g' is perfect on this set.
Also, I usually order my strings from you Brian but you were closed when I happened to order them incidentally. I had to order from juststrings.com
who could not ship my full order because they didn't have enough of the string set in stock and they also tried to order more from Aquila but Aquila
told them they discontinued this set. It is the light tension Arabic set for C G A D gg cc.
Aquila Arabic Oud G C AQU_OUD-15o
Light Gauge, OUD-15o
Any word of that from your end? It's too bad, this has been my set of choice for a few years.
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aquila
Oud Maniac
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Registered: 2-3-2004
Location: Italy
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Hello guys,
Mimmo here, the Aquila owner... just to say that the intonation problems are solved righjt now.
The new nylgut trebles are yellow like gut now, even and they get in tuning very very fast
Ciao
Mimmo italy
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gkhouri
Oud Lover
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Registered: 5-29-2013
Location: San Francisco
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This is very welcome news. Thanks
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majnuunNavid
Oud Junkie
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Registered: 7-22-2013
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Mood: Dude, where's my Oud?
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Mimmo,
There has been some discussion on this forum lately that says that Aquila is not producing Oud strings anymore. Is this true?
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Brian Prunka
Oud Junkie
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Registered: 1-30-2004
Location: Brooklyn, NY
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Mimmo has discussed in the other thread that he is going to keep offering the CFAdgc' set in "normal" "light" and "superlight" tensions, and f'f'
pairs separately.
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