suz_i_dil
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question about the number of ribs and sound
Hello
A quick research didn't bring me a clear opinion about the number of ribs oud maker use for the soundboard.
What is the influence of the number of ribs on the sound of the instrument?
Thank you
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Dr. Oud
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Absolutely nothing; the back is a chamber that reflects sound waves produced by the soundboard. Nahat ouds had 13 ribs, some Turkish makers make 21
ribs. The only difference is the shape is smoother with more ribs, but no affect on the sound at all.
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aytayfun
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In practice making a bowl with 21 ribs means 21 ribs made a bow. However if you build a bowl with 13 ribs you should have to bend the ribs both in
transverse and longitudinal axis or made bowl from much thicker ribs and than to curve them in order to obtain the desired concavity. This is a matter
for the luthier. However this is not the answer. More ribs means more surface area to glue. I’m not sure whether surface area of the glue or
parchment paper affects the sound on the bowl. Of course the masters will answer. But while the oudists insist on a wooden sound there must be enough
wood surface. Not glue and paper surface.
Dr. Tayfun AYDIN
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Dr. Oud
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There was a well known demostration done by Antonio Torres Jurado, a master guitar maker who first developed fan bracing. He built a guitar with a paper mache body, would play it behind a
curtain and no one could tell the difference from a solid rosewood body. The body is a structural element and a resonating cavity, but the material it
is made from has nothing to do with the sound. The tone is affected by the type and density of the wood used for the face, the resonant pitch and
volume are affected by the structure (thickness and bracing) of the face or soundboard. The size (volume) of the body has some affect on the bass
resonance, but not the material. All bowels are made somewhat thicker at first and sanded or scraped to smooth out the joints and shape. The more
ribs, the smoother the shape, a 13 pice bowel can be made smooth by starting with thicker ribs and shaping them. The final thickness of the back is
not a factor for the sound either, but rather an asthetic feature to make the instrument lighter.
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aytayfun
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I’m sure someone will give an explanation to my question. Why do the great masters usually prefer walnut, maple, plum, and mahogany etc? I think
they did not have a chance to obtain the other hard woods like wenge, sapelli, or the others. But I’m not sure.
I think there must be some important things that they know but we don’t. When it comes to size of the body I certainly agree with you. However, the
type of the wood (material) used in bowl might have an affect on the tone.
Dr. Tayfun AYDIN
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Dr. Oud
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walnut, plum, mahogany are common woods and easily bent, making the construction of the back less work.
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Jonathan
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I know we have gone around in circles on this topic a bunch of times, but. . .
I think there are a couple of reasons that luthiers stuck with woods like walnut, mahogany, and maple. First and foremost, they were (and are)
readily available. That's huge. Second, they are easy to work with.
However, I am one of those people that also think that the bowl woods absolutely affect the sound of the oud. And, my gut feeling is that the softer
hardwoods (mahogany, walnut) do make a warmer sound than the super hard woods (ebony, etc). I know that there are exceptions, and somebody can write
in and say that they have an ebony bowl that sounds amazing.
The topic seems to be going off a bit on a tangent, since it started by discussing rib number, but, since the topic was raised regarding wood choice,
I thought I would put in my 2 cents.
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aytayfun
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I'm with you Jonathan. 2 cents more.
Dr. Tayfun AYDIN
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carpenter
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<< walnut, plum, mahogany are common woods and easily bent, making the construction of the back less work. >>
Aren't they nice to work with? Plus, folks seem to go out of their way to get something made with figured &/or rare woods. Jewelry, bragging
rights, something pretty to look at? No argument with any of those, but practically, I think the bowl's a reflector, and encloses a particular volume
of air that the top pumps; that's it's job. One Man's Opinion, and I await correction from my many betters.
I draw my personal line at inlays on the soundboard; that just doesn't seem tonally optimal to me: glue and pearl vs. wood. I don't see the percentage
in going out of your way to get a nice piece of wood for a top and compromising its integrity with inlays. Part of the "ideal oud sound?" I don't
know.
That very-plain-alder-bowled oud I built had a dandy sound, I thought; alder's pretty soft for a "hardwood." I wonder if a coat or two of finish on
the inside of a softer-wood bowl would make any difference (that you can actually hear vs. imagine) ... Any Real-World experience there?
My Secret Shame: I thought those old Ovation fiberglass-back guitars sounded pretty darn good, so there we are. Also reminds me of the 19th C.
trapezoid-shape violins played behind a curtain, and judged superior. In the ear of the beholder, I guess.
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jdowning
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I suspect that many modern ouds are of much heavier construction than those of earlier times so can carry higher tension strings and are, therefore,
louder (but not necessarily superior in tone quality).
Little is written about the construction of early ouds but the information that we have, taken from manuscripts dating from the 9th C to the 15th C,
is consistent in confirming that the bowl of an oud should be thin, as thin as possible, thinner than the soundboard - of uniform thickness - made
from light to medium weight wood - and that the bowl should have 11 ribs (staves) but sometimes 13 are used.
No ouds from this period survive (or even earlier than the second quarter of the 19th C) so the historical data cannot be verified. However, there are
lute bowls surviving from the early 16th C, by famous luthiers like Laux Maler and Hans Frei. The number of ribs in these early instruments ranges
from 9 to 13 and they are made very thin - typically less than 1.5 mm in thickness. One famous example, a lute body by Hans Frei in the Warwick County
Museum, U.K. has 11 ribs - described as having "slight concavity" (i.e. scalloped due to the natural anti-clastic curving of the ribs when bent) -
"the inner surface convexity matching the outer concavity" (i.e. the ribs are of uniform thickness) and that "the ribs were made 'flat' and of paper
thinness"
I have to wonder if early oud bowls were also made this way and if the shaped rib, semicircular curved profile of the bowl, so familiar today, was a
later development (as it was with the lute - some lutes by the end of the 16th C having 30 or more ribs)?
My opinion is that the lightness of a bowl, the use of wide thin flat ribs, and the kind of wood does have some influence on the response of an
instrument - the objective being to make an instrument as light as possible consistent with being able to structurally withstand the strings tension
involved. The lower the string tension the lighter the instrument can be in construction - particularly important for a lute played 'fingerstyle'
requiring low tension strings.
Of course, by shaping the interior of an oud bowl to match the rounded profile of the outer surface, the bowl can also be made very thin and light and
of uniform thickness - time consuming work. I suspect, however, that many ouds only have the outer surface of the bowl shaped so that the ribs are
thicker in the centre than at the joints (i.e. the bowl is non uniform in thickness) and so are heavier. Whether or not this makes a difference I
don't know as the 'egg shell' like structure of an oud bowl is very strong and stiff.
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rojaros
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As a physicist I have my 2 cents to throw into the pot (unfortunately it's a longer story anyway):
i.m.h.o. every little factor counts! Shape, thickness, material density, material structure (grain, tranversal versus longitudinal modulus of
elasticity) etc etc.
Though an oud (as every other stringed instrument) can be treated by a first order acoustical theory as a resonant cavity - it is far from being an
ideal resonant cavity, as it doesn't have an infinite mass of the walls, so the walls start to vibrate - everybody who actually plays
an instrument like oud or guitar knows that and depending on what one likes one rather dampens those vibrations or one tries not to obstruct them.
(As an analogy remember that a room can be treated in first order as a resonant cavity and the resonant modes are determined solely through its shape.
But - as soon as the walls start to follow the vibrations - there come many other factors that can make huge differences in sound even in equally
shaped rooms: reflectivity, wall resonances etc etc...)
So there can be and will be a frequency selective energy transfer to the bowl depending on all those factors mentioned before from the main vibrating
device - the soundboard - to all the other parts, including the bowl and the neck and even the tuning pegs. (I recently changed tuning pegs from some
lighter wood to rose wood - the sound changed a bit, for me ). Change one of these
factors and the sound will inevitably change, though sometimes more subtly, sometimes more obvious.
The fact that the evidence is much less for somebody far away and also separated by a curtain, as in those experiments mentioned, is not a
contradiction.
If you did some recording work, you will know how much there is difference between the close field and the far field sound of every instrument.
And now comes my main point: even if for the distant listener there is not much difference to be noticed - for the player it can make the whole world
in terms of her or his feedback (or to be less formal, his or her rapport) with the intrument: percusivity versus sustain, fast attac versus slow
attack, harmonic overtones present versus them being not present etc.
SO her or his playing will be affected by every single detail of how an instrument is made, how it vibrates. Especially how the bowl vibrates can make
a huge difference for how I feel the instrument and through that how I play.
So dear oudists - there is theory and there is practice - and finally you have to find for yourself your own truth and your suitable instrument
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rojaros
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I should add that I'm not saying that discussing the issues of the influence of construction details do not matter; on the contrary: what I'm trying
to say that it's not the question whether there are influences from construction details or not, but rather how these influences precisely are.
In other words, it would be imho more valuable to exchange experiences on how different things like numbers of ribs or the wood used
in construction or other details influence the sound and playability instead of generally questioning these effects that are so obvious...
In putting forward those experiences people would get a better feeling for what to look after when they have a certain vision of the oud sound they
are looking for.
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rojaros
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Effect of the Ribs and the Wood
Maybe to put the issue on a less theoretical but raher more experiential basis I'd like to suggest some experiments everybody who is
interested can do:
Take the oud you know best, play it for a while and make a decent recording.
Then start to cover the body (not the sound board!) with some materals like felt or plastic packaging materials so that it becomes more and more
acoustically inactive or dead (it's not entirely possible, bot certainly to a certain degree).
Repeat recordings under same conditions with same gear playing the same tunes.
Do a close field recording and a far field recording (at least 3-4 meters or more)
Then you will know the influence of the oud body on the sound and other important factors of your playing like attack, sustain etc. for yourself.
best wishes
PS (this is the scientific bit of myself coming up
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Jonathan
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I'm not sure that would work, rojaros. I think the critical part would be the reflective surface inside the bowl, and not necessarily how thick or
dampened the staves might be.
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journeyman
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Hi everyone. I know absolutely nothing about instrument construction, but I'm going to jump in with with a point that could be valid, and one that is
often overlooked. My opinion, regarding sound, is based on a history of owning many guitars, several ouds, (an expensive education) close associations
with a small number of luthiers and speaker cabinet designers and experience in recording studios with producers and engineers. I think everyone would
agree that the craft of any builder, including whatever scientific knowledge of acoustics they have, and the materials (especially the top of an oud
or other stringed instrument) are the primary factors in determining the sound and responsiveness of an instrument, in this case an oud. Having said
that, my personal belief is that [1] instrument building on some level is an art form and and there is something intuitive in the process of
construction that is imparted by or through the builder that cannot be quantified. This is not the case with all builders, and I would even say that
it is rare. [2] No amount of scientific understanding, the best materials or craft can make up for a lack of ears. If the builder can't hear it, he or
she can't build it. I have worked with recording engineers that really know their stuff but could not hear what the instrument sounded like. Therefore
they could not capture the sound. The best engineers and the best luthiers are the ones who have the knowledge and craft, and can bring those in line
with a great set of ears and some kind of intuitive sense. That's my story and I'm sticking to it...for now anyway.
All the best to everyone,
Roy
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rojaros
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Thanks for your sceptical response.
You might not hear much on the recordings but you might get some interesting experiences with your ears...
I was talking recently to one of the very renowned guitar makers (I'm not going to tell you his name here, I don't want to do any kind of
advertisement here...) and I mentioned the issue of the materials of the body and its influence on the sound.
He clearly stated that there is big influence because the body acts (as I also decribed before) as a kind of a passive filter network on the sound.
You can also clearly hear that with his guitars: the soundboard construction is extremely similar in any of his guitars, but depending on the body
they have a different sonic character.
But I don't want to split hair: one has to decide for oneself what is actually true through ones own experience.
Another issue is whether these differences are at all important. From my experience with instruments I would say: What is most important is the
relation and attitude one has toward the instrument. Any kind of doubt will be reflected in ones
hearing and feeling about it.
My best wishes to everyone
| Quote: | Originally posted by Jonathan
I'm not sure that would work, rojaros. I think the critical part would be the reflective surface inside the bowl, and not necessarily how thick or
dampened the staves might be. |
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Ararat66
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Just a thought!!!
Without doubt the bowl is reflective and the top the prime mover of the air to produce the sound ... but as we all know when we play our ouds we sit
in a field of sound that radiates mainly from the front of the instrument but also through the bowl - i know 'cos I can feel it. So the quality of
the bowl will effect the way sound is reflected but also the three dimensional field of sound that surrounds the entire instrument.
So much of playing is to do with feel! I would imagine many of you would agree with me, and the feel of the sound field (for want of a better term)
alters the way you play and the sound you make. I think this is where instinct comes to play in the luthier and the player choosing the instrument
(oh I wish I had the time to make one of these instruments then I could express this so much more clearly !!!).
In my humble experience, mainly of guitars, the back does colour the sound BUT you're not going to have a great instrument (unless by fluke) if the
luthier is no good. There must be plenty of people who have obtained the best grade tops, and most choice rosewood and produced an instrument that is
as flat as a pancake - conversely a superb luthier could probably make a fabulous sounding instrument from an old crate (check out the Fylde 'single
malt' guitar - http://www.fyldeguitars.com/index1.html - hand made from old whisky barrels. I've tried one and it was astonishing.)
Its the devils work ... and no mistake
Leon
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DaveH
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Just to add grist to the mill, there's a very interesting page on Stephen Barber and Sandy Harris's website on fluted-back vihuelas and guitars. This is a discussion of reproductions of surviving early instruments, such as the Chambure Vihuela, which used a very unusual design for the back,
being both vaulted (arched, getting towards oud-shaped) and fluted (radically accentuating the natural transverse concaves that are produced when a
rib is bent longitudinally). It does appear that these modifications were undertaken for very good accoustic reasons. If you thought this thread
generated argument, you'll be surprised to learn how much controversy the seemingly sedate world of early european instruments can generate!
Some pretty nice eye-candy too.
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rojaros
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This kind of discussion exists in any msuical instrument making. As it happens I do play quite different instruments and I have witnessed same
discussions in all the respective areas.
Theoretically the materials of saxophone mouthpieces should not matter, but as every sax player knows they do a lot, even when all other parameters
remain the same, as far as production tolerances go.
Also the point Leon made is very good indeed: There are flute makers that make wonderful sounding flutes of any metal they get hold of, and there are
flutes that are boring, though being made of silver or gold...
I have played guitars made from most wonderful materials that were not really exciting besides looking wonderful and as Leon says, there are
instruments that are really enchanting, though they look being made of lesser materials.
I remember once having listend to Carlo Demeniconi (wonderful Italian guitar player and composer) in concert in Berlin. I hadn't given a second look
to his guitar if I had seen it in the shop window, but the sound was just wonderful.
What is fascinating that there are these two parties: one is making rather general theoretically based statements and the other resorts to more kind
of subjective feeling.
Lets go the middle way...
What finally counts is how one is getting along with the instrument and what one wants to play on it.
Maybe a part of discussion is motivated by the desire to have some objective criteria how to choose an instrument that you can't touch before you buy
it. At least in Germany I don't know of any place to go and to play at least two different Ouds - please correct me if I'm wrong, i'd love to hear
about such a place.
So we all probabely would like to have some security how to choose the instrument we are going to buy through the internet and pay in advance.
There is not much, I'm affraid...
best wishes to you all
Robert
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