fernandraynaud
Oud Junkie
Posts: 1865
Registered: 7-25-2009
Location: San Francisco, California
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Mood: m'Oudy
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Bad data on D'Addario J95 oud strings
This is case of total confusion. If you look at the tensions that D'Addario lists for its popular J95 set, they are absurd. Over 21 lbs on the 3rd
course? If you compare to D'Addario's own large tables, it's obvious someone made a mistake and they have never corrected it over the years.
The actual strings are apparently the same strings they package for guitar, they have the same part numbers, like NYL043W. I think I figured out what
happened. When they created the packaging, they listed the note pitches for Turkish tuning, and IN TURKISH NOTATION, a fifth higher. So the high
course is listed as g instead of d. Then someone plugged these notes and scale length into their big tables, and came up with these absurdly high
numbers, which they have published for years. Run the calculation for tuning a 0.022" nylon string up to g on a 585mm scale, and sure enough you get
5.28kg, 11.7 lbs, which is what they list for the 1st course. In reality it's 2.9 kg tuned Turkish d on 585 mm scale, and 2.6 Kg tuned to c on a 615
mm scale.
It's not true that D'Addario J95 strings are incredibly high tension: it's an error. If they are a little higher tension than e.g. Daniel Mari or
LaBella O80 sets, it's only by a modest amount due to perhaps a bit thicker winding wire relative to the nylon filaments core. They are safe to use on
Arabic sized 600-620 mm scale ouds tuned Arabic, and Turkish sized 570-600 mm ouds tuned to Turkish or Arabic tunings. It would be nice for D'Addario
to correct their data.
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adamgood
Oud Junkie
Posts: 499
Registered: 6-27-2005
Location: Brooklyn, NY
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Mood: 2.7 koma flat
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Would be nice if they fix that to avoid an already confusing situation.
They should just print the standard western pitch names for Turkish tuning, ie. D is the highest pitch string. Do they even have much of a market in
Turkey??
Even the Turkish Pyramid ud strings are labeled with the western names.
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Aymara
Oud Junkie
Posts: 1162
Registered: 10-14-2009
Location: Germany / Ruhr Region
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Mood: No Mood
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Just from the feeling when playing them on my 58.5cm arab oud in CFAdgc tuning I would rate them "low tension".
Greetings from Germany
Chris
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fernandraynaud
Oud Junkie
Posts: 1865
Registered: 7-25-2009
Location: San Francisco, California
Member Is Offline
Mood: m'Oudy
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Well, of course, 585mm scale, Arabic tuning, it's going to be pretty slack. You could easily beef up those strings, using expensive
boutique-repackaged strings or cheaper D'Addario guitar singles. Somebody was saying they are dangerously high tension. I think they read too many
cereal boxes. I'm willing to consider the idea that some silvered copper on nylon fluff strings are a little different from others, but cut off a
centimeter of various strings and examine them. Pretty much the same stuff. Do you really think all these string suppliers have purchased tons of
machinery to make their own strings? I'd say a NYL034W is a NYL034W, and finds it's way into many a boutique set. The J95 can be considered one of the
base-vanilla oud sets. I would be willing to bet that Daniel Mari, like D'Addario, was packaging flamenco and spanish sets (who knows who makes the
actual strings), and realized he could also package strings as oud sets. And they are very nice strings, at a good price. On our end, we also have the
freedom to mix and match.
Now a NYL028 plain nylon is not the same as a 0.028" PVF, different density material, different tension. And there are exotic wound strings made
completely differently. Not to speak of brass wound on steel. Of course you can't substitute a 0.034" brass on steel "western" string for a 0.034"
silvered copper on nylon fluff Spanish string, but you could calculate an equivalent. Whether you like that timbre on oud is another story ;-)
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