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Lintfree
Oud Junkie
Posts: 171
Registered: 2-9-2007
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Buzzing............................!! AAAGGHHH!!!
That's right, a great sounding oud (and expensive) but the buzzing is driving me insane! A Turkish scale oud tuned EABEAD and every course sounds
amazing except for the third course, the higher E which buzzes badly. I used a .023, a .024, and a .025 on the third course and the .025 sort of fixed
the problem but sounds way different than the other strings. Then I put D'Addario Turkish set on it and tuned it to DGADGC with PVF treble stings from
Hank Levin (MusiCaravan Strings) and it sounds great. D'Addario strings on the bottom four courses because the string excursion is not as great as La
Bella or Pyramid. I also have a Rapakousios that is loud, sounds great and does not buzz AT ALL in any tuning with any brand of strings!! Has anyone
else run into this kind of problem? I'm aware that there are certain schools and styles that don't mind the buzzing but it makes me want to go get out
the chain saw and the hockey mask!!
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Monty88
Oud Junkie
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It happens, I believe Mavrothis knows something about this. I know I played his Dincer Dakilic oud when I met him in Crete, and it had the lowest,
lightest action and strings i've ever played and buzzed a huge amount, but apparently this is a certain style of oud set up. Remember that Mav?
Something like they use in Ankara?
Dave, dunno whats happening there but, I've had some nice experience with the MusiCaravan strings, the wound ones. They are slightly higher tension or
and eliminate a bit of buzzing for me when in the Armenian/Turkish register.
What are the PVF trebles like? I'm not happy with the regular nylons in the musicaravan set. I want some plain nylon strings that havea really bright
sound. I hear pyramids are good, but the best ones I have tried yet are the labellas. Are the PVF strings much brighter?
regards
paddy
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dubai244
Oud Junkie
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Hi,
The solution is very easy. Remove the Nut and put 1.0 mm piece of wood
beneath the Nut. No need to glow it. And Return the stringes.
The Problem is you have low Nut compare the height in the Figer Board. So what you need to do is higher the Nut, so that the stringe does not touch
the Figer Board, so no " buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz"
Chears 
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adamgood
Oud Junkie
Posts: 499
Registered: 6-27-2005
Location: Brooklyn, NY
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It can be any number of things:
1. the fingerboard, maybe it's not evenly or consistently planed well? under that string could it be a bit uneven? (do not try this at home kids)
2. the holes in the bridge where that string goes through, they could be drilled a bit lower than the others. (again, do not try this at home)
3. the groove in the nut where those strings pass over, could they be lower than the others? what if you stick small folded up pieces of paper under
those strings? does the buzzing go away? (you can try this at home!)
4. the humidty level just changed dramatically and it's consistently more humid lately where you live. (tell the weather man to order some dry
weather)
5. there is some structural anomaly that is working against your ud's health. (go see my friend in NYC, see below)
but...
Don't sweat it or be surprised that it's happening to your expensive instrument as price has not much to do with buzzing. Like you say, some people
like the buzz.
If you are in or near New York City I can connect you with an incredible instrument repair guy who can help you out, just let me know.
Adam
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Marina
Oud Junkie
Posts: 615
Registered: 9-1-2005
Location: Bosnia
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I hate buzzing. The kings new clothes! Gosh! Those ouds ARE BUZZING!!! It is not "Turkish sound" it's buzzing!
I had this problem....So I swiched to arab oud....
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Lintfree
Oud Junkie
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My thanks to everyone who has offered help. And it's better. I've done a couple of things. I'm going to try putting the shim under the nut and raise
it up a little. I thought about that. I've done it with guitars and saz's by putting some aluminum foil over the nut a couple od thicknesses at a time
just to test it. It eliminated the buzz on the open string but not on the fingerboard in those first positions. I think it's very light bracing and a
super thin top. The energy generated by the top is huge, especially when adding chords and bass strings to what I'm playing. Najarian agreed about the
thin braces and is looking into the same problem on another oud.
The PVF strings from MusiCaravan are great. Louder, thinner by a couple of thousanths
and have a little thicker sound but with the same sustain or better. Any oud that has pingy unwound treble strings will sound better and more even if
those strings are used.
All in all I think that learning to play this oud as it is, is probably the best course of action. Playing lighter helps. As I said, the Rapakousios I
have does not buzz and is the shorter Turkish scale and is loud and sounds great. I know that a setar and a bouzouki have a buzz in the sound that is
not bad and a flamenco guitar must have a buzz and an upright string bass sounds great with a slight buzz, but to me an oud should have as little as
possible. The sitar was founded on buzz.
On an oud that I'm playing if it's a certain kind of buzz that is distracting then it's just the way I hear. Necati Celik can get away with buzzing
because his techniques are so mindblowing. Who cares about the buzz when he plays. His action is very low on the ouds he plays. But with me, I need
all the help I can get. Sorry if I get a little carried away. Too much coffee. Thanks again.
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paulO
Oud Junkie
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Registered: 9-8-2004
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Hi Lintfree,
The first ouds with super low action I played were the one's I ordered from John Merjanian. John had a nack for getting the action low with minimal
buzzing. One problem with this, is that every few years, due to fingerboard wear, the oud would have to go back to John to have the fingerboard
re-worked. He's the only one I know who payed this much attention to buzzing. It distracts from the sound of the note, and robs the instrument of
it's true tone.
One of the things my buddies and I who heard Necati for the first time was all that buzzing. It's become acceptable somehow, and with super low
action, there will always be some. Don't get me wrong, he's a fabulous player and, his taksims are beautiful. But he's made a choice for low action,
and buzzing comes with that.
Lastly your Rapakousios is proof that buzzing isn't inherent in any particular size or string length of oud. Experimenting with strings is always
good...shimming the nut is a safe bet in the short term..if it works, well let's hope it. Good luck dude, I know it can be very, very frustrating.
Regards,
Paul
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Lintfree
Oud Junkie
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Thanks Paul. Okay, problem solved. Sometimes you just take the wrong bus and ride around on it for a while until you figure it out. It's the wrong
bus. Good buzz and bad buzz. The good buzz comes from tuning the action until there's a little bit of a zing to the note, not a rattle (the bad buzz)
but a zing like an upright bass. Ron Carter to the rescue. The instrument in question was made to play a certain style, like a tambur. Forcing it to
play something else was the wrong way to go. This particular oud is a specialty instrument. My technique was wrong as well as a couple of bum strings.
Lower the action and tune it down, fool! Voila! The Zing! A rudra vina in a small package. Now I don't feel like Gomer Pyle. The instrument usually
speaks up at some point and tells the player what it wants. This one told me that I was on the wrong bus. Sure learned a lot about strings, though.
Fingerboard wear? John Bilezekjian has to get a fingerboard re-work every year. A Micarta fingerboard would solve most wear problems. This oud has a
little bit of wear...................guess where.........where it really rattles. Yep, Gomer Pyle on the wrong bus, that's me. Thanks to everyone who
contributed. Lintfree
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mavrothis
Oud Junkie
Posts: 1674
Registered: 6-5-2003
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Hi,
I hope it's all worked out for you. I've had very similar experiences , and I think it's important to point out that there are two types of "hearing"
when someone plays oud. There is what the audience hears, and what the player hears. I love hearing players on ouds that range from super clean to
intensely buzzy, but I only feel comfortable playing ouds that are cleaner, with less buzz (especially since I pick pretty hard most of the time). My
preference, many people feel the exact opposite way.
If you try recording yourself on what you consider a very buzzy oud from a few feet away, so you mimic the distance someone listening to you would
have, I think you'll see that the buzzing is not as overwhelming as you think (I'm generalizing, b/c I haven't heard your oud specifically).
But, this doesn't mean that it's not a problem, b/c the player reacts to the sounds he/she creates. So if you are uncomfortable with what you are
producing, you will not play as freely.
Anyway, it seems that you are figuring it out for yourself. I just find it interesting that personally I love hearing others play all types of ouds,
but I only react well when I'm playing with a certain sound - not free of buzzing completely - but with a rounder tone generally speaking.
Take care,
mavrothis
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Lintfree
Oud Junkie
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Hi Mavrothis -
The problem is pretty much solved with a combination of solutions. Tuning the action is different for each oud. And the fingerboard has to be just
right, no dips or bumps. The fingerboard on "The Buzzer" had a lot of wear on it and is now being fixed by Viken Najarian. I have a Turunz and a
Copcouclu I record with that don't rattle in the same way as "The Buzzer". They both sound great, especially the Turunz.
The problem is that I have played 3 Karibyans and at least four Najarians and a Nahat that didn't buzz at all and had low actions. The Rapakousios I
have does not buzz at all.
There seems to be an ideal string height to get the right zing out of each oud and it is way lower than I thought it would be. Raising the string
doesn't solve the problem. These instruments are alive and have learned to feed themselves. They have coffee and toast in the morning before we wake
up. At night they hide our mizrabs from us and spin their pegs to scare us. I'll be fine. D.L.
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SamirCanada
Moderator
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hahaha.. too funy Lintfree.
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paulO
Oud Junkie
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Dear Lintfree,
Funny yes...but true--- absolutely !!
PaulO
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Lintfree
Oud Junkie
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I took the oud in question to Yuris Zeltins, a master luthier who restores extremely high end classical guitars and is a genius with problems like
this. His last major project was saving Pepe Romero's "La Wonderful", preventing the top from collapsing. He has also restored Hausers, Antonio
Torres, Fleta's, everything. He has seen very few ouds so I thought it would be good to have a new perspective. We determined that it was a mechanical
problem and not an accoustic problem by a process of elimination checking each note with a strobe tuner. Conclusion: It's not the bracing. He has a
technique and special tools he made for discovering inconsistencies in fingerboards. The places where this instrument rattles have small dips in the
ebony. No guessing, no maybe's, I saw them. We then checked each individual string separately. He said the following: "These instruments are so alive
that the fingerboards have to be perfectly tuned like a cello or a bass viol. The simplest way to deal with a fingerboard like this is to start with
making it flat. That's easy. With this thing you have to go further." He showed me on a Domingo Esteso with a paper thin top and narrow small braces
what it means to get it right. No rattles. "Why is this?" I asked. "It's perfect," he said. So I'm learning a lot about this. What Yuris said is
essentially what Viken Najarian said about the problem so this experiment flies like a bird. Thought you'd all like to know.
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adamgood
Oud Junkie
Posts: 499
Registered: 6-27-2005
Location: Brooklyn, NY
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cool that it's working out and that you are learning about this, keep us up to date. It's really interesting.
I imagine planing the fingerboard will solve it right away.
Adam
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Lintfree
Oud Junkie
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It's actually a file that does the job, a fine mill-bastard file that's completely flat. It takes off a little at a time and it's not as wide as a
fingerboard so the edges don't get rounded. The file being completely flat is the key to this, according to Yuris. A machinist can straighten a file
to make it flat. Once the fingerboard is free of potholes, low spots and bumps then it can be sanded with 1200. I saw one fingerboard that had some
kind of epoxy surface applied. Then I thought about Micarta, that stuff they make knife handles out of. Henry Besancon, before he passed away, put a
Micarta fingerboard on his oud so he could play with his fingernails like a cumbus is played. It was off-white like ivory, bound on the edges. Sounded
great too, like it had frets. Didn't Fadel use some kind of plastic for fingerboards? Phenolic that looked like ebony, I think it was. (The Nahats
would crap right about now.) Oversharing mode. D.L.
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paulO
Oud Junkie
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Hi Free,
John Merjanian used to have a crazy custom machined straightedge that he used to find problem spots in fingerboards...he sent Peter Dorian and I
writeups about how to find and elminate the buzzes...I lost mine years ago, but Pete might have his tucked away somewhere...(in the land of the lost
mizrab's !!)
Richard Hankey put a bone fingerboard on an oud, it worked really well. Micarta sounds cool -- I'll keep that in mind. Oversharing mode ?? No
way...you can never go into too much detail about all things Oud.
Cheers...Paul
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Lintfree
Oud Junkie
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Paul - Richard Hankey knew Henri and Henri might have done an ivory fingerboard too. Jose Ramirez's shop made fingerboards out of phenolic. People
that tried to power sand that stuff got a nasty surprise. I'll try to talk Yuris into working on ouds too. He's the best in his field. Viken is
extremely busy and backed up right now and it would be good to have someone who can re-dress fingerboards. Oud people are pretty crazy but we're sane
compared to the classical guitar/flamenco guitar folks. Ever see "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre"? Remember "Leatherface"?
Viken's almost done with "The Rattler". I felt bad about dumping a monster like that on him but he's the best. Can't wait. Without the rattles and
buzzes that oud can probably knock flies out of the air at 20 meters. Later. Lintfree
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paulO
Oud Junkie
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Wow Lintfree...sounds like a fabulous oud. Enjoy dude....Paul
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ALAMI
Oud Junkie
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Just got 2 ouds from repair by a master luthier , they were suffering high action and needed a neck-level repair.
The repair is very clean and invisible and the action is perfect but now, both are........BUZZING !
The luthier was laughing seeing my deception when I tried them out. He told me that I will have to wait till the neck "relaxes" and that knowing that
we are starting the hot and humid mediterranean summer, he had to do it a bit "over" and that the buzzing will be gone in october and if not gone
completely it would be a good news that means that the oud structure is in good condition and then he'll be able to do the final fine tuning.
Anybody had a similar experience ?
I am not totally convinced what do you think ?
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Lintfree
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I can only speak from my own experience. I would raise the action by lifting each string slightly and gently down at the bridge. You'll be able to see
the upward shift of the string as you are lifting. A floating bridge is a different problem.
Then I would check the fingerboard under each string and see if there are grooves in the wood near where each note buzzes. I'm assuming that what you
described as having been done was a neck-set, <b>rooster</b>ing the neck back? The method you have described, over-doing it a little and
waiting until it settles then finishing the job is not an unusual way to solve the problem of a high action. The only problem is that you have to wait
for the ideal neck angle and that is very boring. Then it may not settle into the right position by October and you'll have to get it done again. I've
had neck sets done to several instruments and they are at the perfect angle and ready to play the next day. And when the action becomes high again
then I have it done again. It sounds like the luthier you took your instruments to anticipated future neck-sets and covered one problem and created
another problem. Maintaining a constant neck angle has always been a problem on ouds. Lowering the action can also make an already buzzing instrument
buzz more or even rattle if the fingerboard is worn. Try another luthier. Good luck. D.L.
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ALAMI
Oud Junkie
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Thanks lintfree for the infos
On one of the ouds the fingerboard was changed and is brand new the old one with inlays had "mounts and valleys" and was beyond repair, and on both
only the wound strings are uniformely buzzing on any finger position
The strings are OK, (brand new Aquila and Pyramid custom low tension)
So am I right to assume that it is only due to the overdone neck-set operation?
You are right it is painful and boring to think that I have to wait months before before being able to enjoy playing these 2 ouds, but this luthier
was the recommendation of all the professional oudists I know in Beirut, even those who don't like his ouds.
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Lintfree
Oud Junkie
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Sometimes "perfectly flat" is not the ideal for a fingerboard and it has to be relieved or made to be slightly bowed. This is hard to do and takes a
master. I would try to raise the action as I described. I've seen Viken and Henri do it and I do it all the time. Take a hold of each string just in
front of the bridge and lift until you see or feel it shift. When you let it go the string should be higher off the fingerboard. What you are doing is
shifting the position of the knot on the bridge. If the neck is bowed slightly back when you sight down it fom the butt end of the instrument then you
have a different problem and the strings will buzz until the neck straightens into position. That's part of the waiting thing that the luthier told
you about. The neck should be straight or VERY slightly bowed forward (relieved). You can check the curve of the fingerboard by looking at the shadow
of the string on the fingerboard comparing it to the straightness of the string just above it. In a way you have to become a part time luthier and
figure out what is happening and why. There are several valid and reasonable ways to fix the same problem. Some ways consume less time than others and
last longer. The luthier you took your oud to was not wrong. My replies look terribly long. Send me a U2U. D.L.
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cliffgallupsghost
Oud Lover
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Honestly, I had D'addarios on my Turkish oud when I first got it, and they buzzed like crazy. After I put some Aquila strings on it the buzzing is
gone.
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Lintfree
Oud Junkie
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I'll have to try those. I had LaBellas on one of mine, changed them to D'Addarios and the buzzing went way down. The third string was a .025. It may
be that the Aquilas are higher tension or in some way different. I think they have different sets, one for Arabic ouds and a longer scale and one for
the shorter Turkish scale. Putting a high tension set of strings that are larger in diameter on an oud usually gets rid of the buzzes but it can also
put too much tension on the bridge. I'm for anything that stops buzzing as long as there's no harm done to the instrument. Thanks for the tip. D.L.
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cliffgallupsghost
Oud Lover
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Yeah, I get mine for the best price from the Kalifa Oud Luthiery website.
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