Thanks Ken, easy way for the novice builder to work with sound hole design.
New Player - Do sound holes significantly affect sound?
It's not square inches of sound hole per X amount of surface area... the equation uses the volume of the instrument, not the surface area, so the shape of the instrument is irrelevant -- hourglass, teardrop, box, little brown jug, bowed psaltery, violin, etc. For dulcimers I use, as a rough guide, the area of 4 American quarter coins -- not as much as 6, not as few as 3.
Thanks for the tips - As you said, hopefully at $350, the luthier is decent enough to not just smack some huge holes on it just to make it 'look nice'.
Still unsure if I will go with this seller as this is a bit pricey for a first instrument, but I'm not finding much in the way of alternatives.
The shape of the soundhole(s) is irrelevant. It's the square area of holes that matters. Too little soundhole area and the instrument is muted. Too much soundhole area and the instrument sounds "brash". There's a complex formula called the Helmholtz Equation where you can calculate all this is you like partial differential equations. But most of us just say want 2-3 square inches of sound hole area for a 'good' sound.
You can certainly do leaves -- Cripple Creek was famous for their Aspen leaf holes -- and any decent luthier will know how many leaves to get the right sound...
I once built a replica Baltic Psaltery, on which the original instrument had just over 100 soundholes arranged in a spiral design, each hole was a hair less that 1/8" diameter....
100% new to the site (thank you to the welcome message I received) and to dulcimers. I am looking at an online seller who custom makes dulcimers. I decided on the hourglass shape and all walnut, based on a little research saying this made for a 'fuller' sound.
I was going to ask for a custom leaf image for the sound holes, but am worried this could make the instrument sound 'thinner' versus traditional f holes. I'm also unsure that I should be spending $350+ on my first dulcimer, but I've been cheap about a drumset in the past and it sounded HORRIBLE and made me never want to play it.
Any insight on sound hole affects or instrument recommendations is more than welcome!
updated by @stryder517: 11/03/17 12:58:31PM
