RAGMAKAMTAR #5

[Dennis Leahy]

Very cool, Edward! Thanks for letting us in on your creative process from the early design stage. You're one hell of an artist, but it is fun to get in on the left brained/engineering side of this process as well.

Dennis

[Edward Powell]

Thanks Guys...

I guess when it comes to design there is more going on here than it is possible to document with text and fotos - - this is where experience and trail and error come in---- it all then adds up to an intuitive sense.

But more concretely the main challenges I have am facing with design are these:
- GREAT SOUND
- GREAT PLAYABILITY

...I have given up on great looking. I will worry about this if and when I manage to solve the other two.

great sound: for this I feel that the sarod part is not difficult and I think I have figured that one out.
The oud on my previous versions either have great highs and pretty good bass or both.... but I have never managed to get in incredibly mid-range that an oud gets. Hell, a good classical guitar also can't match an oud's mids. ---So looking closely at an oud's soundboard from the 'sound is round' perspective --- taking the BRIDGE as the center of the circles... we can see that the midrange size circles enjoy almost full unbroken circles of free/unblocked continuous soundboard space, and airspace inside the instrument. As you get more into the bass size circles - the deeper you go the less of a circle you get- only part of the circles are represented, and show up as arks... I realise that on the deep bass when the circle is so big that if falls off the soundboard, then it continues over onto the back and sides, and somehow the deep bass drives the whole instrument to vibrate. It seems that this is why you can have good deep bass (because the whole instrument vibrates) and good treble (because this is simply produced very near the bridge).... but MIDS seem so very very illusive --- the reason is that mids seem to require that there be a very free and flexible region encompassing in a circle around the bridge between 6 and 8 inches in diameter - calling the bridge the center point. Ideally it seems that these circles should be either fully round, or at least be 75% there (ark)... but 50% (semicircle) will not be enough to get really rich mids. It seems like clearing the streets so the traffic can get thru! Design the soundboard so there are clear pathways for those frequencies that you want. ----I am assuming, and do believe that the sound is round theory is correct... and am using this to identify exactly WHERE those vibrational pathways are - and then making design decisions based on that.

Anyway, at the very least, at the end of this build I will be in a good position of verify these theories.

great playability: ---so far, with each new ragmakamtar I have noticed new ergonomic problems, and it has forced me to become highly aware of exactly what it takes to get an instrument easy to play. It is amazing how just a slight change in bridge position or body shape/size, and make an enormous difference to the ease of playing! This is a very very sensative and important topic. If it is not maximum easy to play then how is the player going to kick-ass on it??

It's GOT to sound great and be really easy and fun to play, or else it will simply be a failure (at least for me because I won't stick long with an instrument that doesn't CALL me to play it)

[Edward Powell]

I got, with the wood ribs, pretty far.... and I probably would have pulled it off with the wood if I have planned it out more carefully - - - but the amount of compensation I was beginning to need was starting to get extreme, and finally it was impossible. . . . so I abandoned the wood ribs.

Then I remembered that it is possible to make a back out of papier mache..... so off I went on this idea.

[Edward Powell]

The papier mache back is now finished, but it needs to sit and dry --- (by the end of the day today sitting in the sun it is now ROCK hard.... perhaps I made it actually too thick... next time I will go a bit lighter - it can be misleading because it does not get really HARD until it has been drying for a few days)

So I began to move onto the soundboard, and this requires choosing the wood. the necks and heads will for sure be this Khaya Mahagony. And the top will be either Redwood, Douglas, Cedar (or Spruce - but I have none at the moment). I was thinking about using Redwood for fun.... but a little voice told me to think carefully about this and make sure the colour combinations will work - - - so I decided to do a few test drawings and compare the colours.

Here they are...

the first is:
-top: Redwood
-necks: Khaya



the second is:
-top: Spruce
-necks: Maple

(this combination is my old standby which is simple black and white and always works)



finally
-top: Cedar
-necks: Khaya




After looking at these I realised why the black and white always works so well....

To me the Redwood and Khaya didn't look good, as I subconsiously suspected...... the Cedar and Khaya have almost exactly the same light brown colour (as spruce and maple have the same pale yellow) - so this combination to me seems very homogenous, and I decided to go with it - - - - also I LOVE the sound of Cedar (and I need that warmth because I am trying to get a warm oud sound on this instrument.

[D_H_G GUITARS]

Very enlighting Edward! I like seeing ideas come to light. Failures are all but a way to rethink out the process at hand.
The light and dark contrast will work very well for the whole instrument in general.

Thxs
Hugh

[Edward Powell]

Very enlighting Edward! I like seeing ideas come to light. Failures are all but a way to rethink out the process at hand.
The light and dark contrast will work very well for the whole instrument in general.

Thxs
Hugh

Hey Hugh Brother!

Great to hear from you. Yes, U know very well what I am going thru with this because U witnessed how my understanding changed and grew in the process of building the last ragmakamtar... U saw me changing design mid-build.

I think it is part of my karma to simply keep going with this concept until either I get complete success - or I run out of really good ideas to improve it.

[Edward Powell]

Made some real progress with the soundboard today. With super inadequate tools I managed to get together $1 worth of common cedar from the local lumber yard, into what seems a decent soundboard.

I only have a circular hand saw which I rigged up like a table was. The cedar boards are 12 cm wide and my makeshift "table saw" can only cut 4cm deep. So I took time to set it up precisely and took two passes with the saw, one from above and one from below - then sawed out the middle 4cm by hand. It actually was not so difficult.

I managed to cut the 4 pieces each about 2.3mm thick, so once they were glued together all they needed was to sand them clean and smooth and the soundboard is now about 2mm all around. I want to bring it down to about 1.7mm all around or even a bit less perhaps.

The papier mache back is now almost totally done as well.... it is really tough to get the edges totally flat, but it is almost there.... this back in now really really solid and pretty heavy and hard. But I am not bothered by this - I figure this way there will be no resonance lost thru leakage into the back, and with such an incredibly light soundboard it ought to resonate like crazy which is what I am after. ---furthermore, the ragmakamtar design has an inherent challenge of being very very neck-side heavy... so the heavy thick back ought to help in this direction. . . . . . or. . . . . it will somehow damage the sound - . - . I can only wait and see what the result will be..... the only thing that is certain is that this will for sure be at least another great learning experience.

Here are some fotos of the SB so far.... now only rough sanded with 80grit and a hand held electric sander. Tomorrow I will hand sand with a large sanding block starting with 100, up to 180.

[Edward Powell]

ok... making some serious progress, and it looks like I can get the oud strings on to this quick prototype in a few days.

I got a rough neck cut, and fitted on with a skrew. I am going to glue it very very lightly with OBG and the skrew. I will need to take the neck off again for transporting it back to europe.

At the moment, since I well know that there might be again something very wrong with this design, and my main concern is the oud sound, I am just making this now as quickly as possible - with the idea that if it all works, I will then slap the rest of it together and use it for the time being --- with the intension of then really taking time with the next instrument - hopefully then having the design part out of the way.