GuhlMustafa
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Recent string nightmare
Hello all,
I've been using Labella Arabics on my Turkish oud for years with no trouble. The last set I bought didn't have wrapped strings in the D course, and
have been impossible to tune.
I contacted Mari strings for a recommendation, but he wasn't sure and sent me here.
2 questions- what happened to Labella, and what would be best for Arabic tuning on my Turkish oud?
I won't be insulted by being linked to another thread- perhaps this topic merits a "sticky".
Thanks and peace.
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ameer
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Perhaps you got the version with the extra trebble course rather than the single bass?
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GuhlMustafa
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Hmmm it is possible. I got them from juststrings.com-I'm not sure how on top of it they were. It only had a single bass though. Possibly a fluke?
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fernandraynaud
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I think this is the notorious O80A "Arabic" set. You should have gotten the O80 set. This is also what happens when people rely on the "Turkish" or
"Arabic" label rather than the gauges.
If you check the gauges, compared to any standard set, you will see why it cannot be used on a normal 6 course tuning, it works out too light. This
set seems to be designed for a 5 course "Egyptian tuned" oud, with the bottom string no lower than F, plus they add a top course, apparently designed
for ff tuning (0.022").
With the plain nylons, there's a lot of slack, a 0.022" can be tuned ff or cc, a 0.027" can be cc or gg.
But look at the bottom courses, O80A on the left, O80 on the right
Plain Nylon (2 each) .031 ------------------ Plain Nylon (2 each) .028
Silver-Plated Wound on Nylon (2 each) .023 -- Silver-Plated Wound on Nylon (2 each) .025
Silver-Plated Wound on Nylon (2 each) .029 -- Silver-Plated Wound on Nylon (2 each) .030
Silver-Plated Wound on Nylon (1 each) .033 -- Silver-Plated Wound on Nylon (2 each) .034
---------NONE--------------------------------- Silver-Plated Wound on Nylon (1 each) .042
You can see how this set lines up. Check some other sets.
These are D'Addario J95, same materials, plain nylon and Silverplated copper Wound on Nylon:
.022p - .028p - .025w - .029w - 033w - .041w
The O80A set is a bit strange, but when you compare, it is quite close to the bottom 5 courses of standard sets, e.g. their O80 set. The bottom 0.033w
course in the O80A set would work for E, F, G but not for C. Too light. So that means that on a 6 course Arabic oud tuned cc gg DD AA FF C, we are
only covering the top 5 courses, and that thinnest course could only be intended for ff, i.e. ff cc gg DD AA F. That also explains the plain nylon
third course.
Have them send you the standard O80 set, or just get one of the Mari sets from Bill Ostrie, they are all almost identical, and tune to cc gg DD AA FF
C. But since you will be tuning down on a short scale, you would probably be best off with the D'Addario J95 set, as it seems to be built a little
heavier, a little more metal at a given gauge, everybody says they feel tighter.
I hope this is clear.
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Aymara
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Quote: Originally posted by fernandraynaud  | | But since you will be tuning down on a short scale, you would probably be best off with the D'Addario J95 set, as it seems to be built a little
heavier, a little more metal at a given gauge, everybody says they feel tighter. |
I play them on a 58.5cm arab oud and they sound and feel very nice. Because they are relatively cheap, they might be worth a try.
Greetings from Germany
Chris
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GuhlMustafa
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Fernandraynaud, that was perfectly clear, thank you SO much for taking the time to explain it! I think I'll try one set each of the d'darrios and the
ones from mari for comparison. I'm also going to put all these gauges in a spreadsheet. Thanks for all the helpful input!
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fernandraynaud
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What we need in that spreadsheet is also tensions at a few common scale lengths, like 585mm, 600mm, 615mm, and the 2-3 most common tunings, like Low C
Arabic, High F Arabic and Turkish.
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GuhlMustafa
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| Quote: Originally posted by fernandraynaud | | What we need in that spreadsheet is also tensions at a few common scale lengths, like 585mm, 600mm, 615mm, and the 2-3 most common tunings, like Low C
Arabic, High F Arabic and Turkish. |
Is there a formula for that? Excel could calculate those things automatically...
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fernandraynaud
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Yes, there are good formulas - for solid materials. It's a matter of string material density, length, thickness, note tuned to, and you obtain
tension. Look for Arto's String Calculator, it's a Java interactive program.
http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/wikla/mus/NewScalc/
The problem is with wound strings, whose density varies depending on the windings, on the gauge. Thinner wound strings use thinner winding wire, but I
think thicker ones have more air space between the windings. In the end you have to interpolate after working backwards from published data to get a
rough sense of the equivalent density, how it varies by string gauge, and then you can (roughly) use Arto's calculator by entering an approximate
equivalent density.
Nylons weigh around 1050 Kg/cubic meter, a little more than water, while silverplated copper wire wound on nylon filament averaged around 4500
kg/cubic meter as I recall the last time I did it. One could certainly enter known data from e.g. the big D'Addario table from Matthias' site, and set
up a spreadsheet or formula to interpolate, then plug the derived density into the formulas that Arto uses.
There is also some missing density data, for as I recall PVF. But if you have any published tensions for such trebles, you can work backwards and
derive it, which then, unlike the variation by gauge seen with wound strings, will be constant. Worst case one could use the (thinner) thickness of
PVF trebles that replace given nylons, and derive the density that yields similar tensions. Or do trial and error until a plausible figure emerges. It
has to be a little heavier than nylon, since the strings are thinner. It's perhaps similar to Nylgut, around 1300 Kg/cubic meter.
There are slight differences between brands, but I've taken them apart and overall the construction of wound oud strings is very similar (if not
identical) to Spanish guitar strings (NOT Western steel stringed guitar strings).
In other words this is a doable job. The ideal thing would be to create an interactive calculator based on all of the above, but it's still a fair
amount of work to do the steps (to fill in missing solid materials like PVF, and to develop an automated interpolation method so the wound strings are
handled as easily as the trebles). I thought of writing such a program in C++, Java or .NET, but have more pressing things, and I just do the
interpolations for wound strings "manually". Try 4500 Kg/cubic meter and see how well it fits the D"Addario and other published data.
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ameer
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Have you any idea why the density of oud strings is somewhere around 1000 but if you google the density of nylon you get something closer to 1300?
It'd be nice to get some 1300 density nylons (yes, I'm thinking of downtuned thirds again. Surprised?)
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GuhlMustafa
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My D'addarios arrived yesterday, and have already stretched into some semblance of tune. Much better than what I had- thank you all for steering me in
the right direction...
Now to sort out live sound 
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Aymara
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Nice to hear that ... have fun 
Greetings from Germany
Chris
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