For Arabic ouds, we shall start with oud which has seven strings and a different way of tuning system. First artist who performed this system successfully is famous Egyptian oud virtuoso Joseph Tawadros. He invented this tuning and string sequence system and started to use very rich sounds because of his innovation. When he told us about this system we immediately started to work on it and tried this new system. After a long term of work we have developed a totally new balcony system. This oud’s balcony system is different from other Arabic ouds’ balcony systems. This system provides annihilation of differences between bass and acute sounds and hardens bass sounds to a very high level. With this system we have procured a unique sound. For this oud we have determined fingerboard length as 20 cm, 21 cm, and 22 cm and length between two bridges as 60 cm, 61 cm, and 62 cm. Sounds between these sizes don’t differ. We have acquired proximate sounds for each oud. To provide these new bass sounds we used a new soundboard pattern. We managed to have a unity by determining the length of pattern as 50 or 51 cm.
Today, this new system (seven course) has swiftly spread to many countries and number of performers has increased. Length between two bridges in normal six strings Arabic ouds is 60 or 61 cm as we mentioned above. But in seven strings ouds because of their different tuning systems natural volume of strings have strengthened. So, they have been the most preferred ouds. Because of this seven strings system has invented by Joseph Tawadros, in the market it is named as Tawadros Series. Tawadros always plays this oud in his concerts and presents really successful performances.
During the construction process of this oud we tried many different woods for the bowl. Eventually we discovered that three different types of wood harmonise with each other to a successful level. These woods are wenge, padouk, and zebrano or wenge, padouk, and ovengkol.
