Oud creation begins with the selection of the kinds of wood and the design of the OUD we aim to produce; the timber must be completely dry. In case the wood is not dry, the instrument may face the risk of deformation with time, which will affect the stability of the instrument. To avoid this problem, we carefully select our timber wood, and we are storing it for more than ten years in our parched warehouse.
In our workshop, we have limited production capacity, for the reason that our OUDs and BUZUKs are hand made and the luthier is taking care of the details of all its parts, mass production is not our objective. Our vision is to produce outstanding quality to merit customer satisfaction and appreciation; we also manufacture OUD on demands, as per customer request.
In our workshop, each OUD is unique; it has its serial number and its characteristics. All information is detailed in a manufacturing certificate describing each part of the instrument.
The OUD is constituted from three main components: the bowl, the soundboard and the neck.
The Bowl:
For the bowl, a hardwood to be chosen and here we usually use wood such as rosewood, walnut, mahogany, ebony and maple. We start by cutting the wood into ribs 70 cm long, 4mm thick. The number of ribs may vary from 15 to 25 depending on the design and the width will vary accordingly; a combination of ribs from different kinds of woods and colours is possible, also engraving some mosaic and decorative inlay on the bowl is appealing for some people.
The top:
whereas other kinds of wood like the pine, spruce or cedarwood are used for the top (soundboard).Selection of the wood for the soundboard is critical to guarantee the perfect tone of the instrument, and here comes the experience of the luthier in selecting the best quality of unblemished, quarter-sawn, book matched, well seasoned, straight-grained wood. Add to that, the braces and the pattern used to support the soundboard has a critical role in ensuring the stability and the optimum vibration of the soundboard. Also on the soundboard, we have the rosettes, the pickguard and the decorative inlay items like mosaic, veneers and mother of the pearl.
The Neck, Head, Tuning Key:
The neck is made from hardwood such as mahogany, walnut, rosewood or maple. The head is made of five pieces with twelve conical holes, which allows the tuning head to stay stable. In some instruments and on customer requests, we can fit WITTNER peg which is a tuning head with a mechanical system inside.
At the end, the OUD is painted with the best quality of varnish, which provides protection and elegance for the instrument.
Finally, fixing the strings, tuning, and quality inspection start for one week to observe the OUD performance, resonance of sound and response for fine-tuning.
