Meet the Maker #4 – Sitar Makers Series – Alan Arthur Suits
Meet the Maker: Alan Arthur Suits, Sitar maker from Santa Fe If you want to explore the full conversation with Alan Arthur Suits, this interview offers a detailed look into his path as an instrument maker working across different musical traditions. He reflects on his early encounters with both…
Fitting a Buddha Systems Skydiver Pickup to my Surbahar
Why I Chose the Buddha Systems Skydiver I recently fitted a new Buddha Systems Skydiver sitar pickup system to my surbahar. The instrument itself was built by Waseem Maner in Miraj, India, and has everything I look for in a surbahar: a warm, deep and highly resonant voice with…
Surbahar Head Repair
A hiding fracture One day, a problem arose with Kees Verbeek’s Hiren Roy surbahar. The instrument had previously been repaired at the headstock. It had probably been dropped or suffered transport damage at some point, but had been repaired very neatly. The instrument had always remained stable, but suddenly…
Meet the Maker #3 – Sitar Makers Series – Kees Verbeek
Meet the Maker: Kees Verbeek, Sitar maker from Eindhoven In our latest blog feature, we take a closer look at the work of Kees Verbeek, a Netherlands-based maker focusing on surbahar and rudra veena — two instruments that sit at the deeper, more introspective end of North Indian classical…
Meet the Maker #2 – Sitar Makers Series – David Keustermans
Meet the Maker: David Keustermans, Sitar maker from Saint-Agnan-en-Vercors A new interview is live in the Meet the Maker series. In this conversation, I spoke with David Keustermans, whose work moves between European lute building and Indian classical instruments. What interested me from the start was not only what…
How to Tie Frets
How to Tie Sitar Frets – A Practical Guide for Makers and Players Properly binding sitar frets (pardas) is an essential yet often underestimated aspect of the instrument. The position and fit of the pardas determine not only the playability but also the intonation and tone of the sitar.…
Meet the Maker #1 – Sitar Makers Series – Ivan Rügen
Meet the Maker: Ivan Rügen, Sitar maker from Saint Petersburg In a studio in Saint Petersburg, Russia, Ivan Rügen works on instruments and art objects that blur the boundaries between craft, music and visual art. His work stems from a deep fascination with sound, form and material. Combining traditional…
Kanailal joint repair
A very fragile part of the sitar is the joint. It is the connection between the neck and the resonator. The neck (dandi) itself consists of two large parts: the flat top plate and the round bottom part. The resonator consists of three large parts: the gourd (tumba), the…
Buddha Systems in Hiren Roy
Engineer and passionate sitar player Ashok Nair has been making excellent pickup systems for sitar and other acoustic musical instruments for several years. They are sold under the name Buddha Systems and are now used by many well-known musicians worldwide. Matyas Wolter is one of them and has been…
Barun Roy broken joint
One day London based sitarist & composer Jonathan Mayer drove with his car straight from London to SiTAR FAcToRY in Belgium (+/- 8hrs drive). His favorite sitar, recently made by Barun Roy, has a severe joint problem. At first sight the joint has only loosened. A friend of him…
Kabul 1900 sitar restoration – Pt2
In a first part, you can learn about this particular ancient instrument, baptised the Kabul sitar, and read a description of how to check and repair the body and make the missing wooden parts. At that time, it was already clear that other important parts were also missing: at…
Kabul 1900 sitar restoration – Pt1
In April 2020, Matyas Wolter stumbled upon some very old Indian musical instruments for sale on ebay in southern Germany. His eye fell on one of them. The description indicated that the instrument was bought in Kabul, Afghanistan, in the mid-1970s. At that time it was already considered old,…