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- Feb 5, 2010
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mm stan, I hear you. My Uluru mahogany tenor was my go to uke for a good six months. Then, as my playing and my ear improved I noticed that the intonation was fairly poor, even at the 5th fret. I went through several brands of strings (assuming worn strings might be an issue) before replacing the heavily compensated stock saddle with a new one that I barely compensated at all. Intonation now really good but I'm having a dilemma - I've strung it low g with Thomastik Infeld CF-27 and CF-30 for the C and G strings. This is probably the best this instrument has sounded but I'm not enjoying the feel of the strings for some reason. It's weird because I have them on my Cordoba Mini and love them, just don't dig them on the tenor. Should I sacrifice sound for playing comfort or stick with it and get used to it (already had them on there a month or so).
Or, of course, I sell the Uluru and get an entirely new uke because getting new ukes is a whole lot of fun!
Aloha Jim, that's the delima, high tension strings provide clarity, but feel too high tension for comfort
Before you change to lower tension strings I would recommend you drop the tuning to half step, f#,b, d#, g#
Or two half steps to hear the tone and voice. F, A#, D, G. You will a bit of clarity, bit muddy but improve on
Comfort and playability also you will have a sweeter tone. Good luck
Heavily built ukes I used to think was a bad thing, but a good luthier can make the into richer tone, great substain
And resonation.
one mistake I do believe many new ukers make is getting rid of ukes they cannot play...I try to keep all of mine, many times
many new ukers blame the ukulele for their short comings... as you get better you will be able to play ukes you couldn't or didn't like before...also they mature too and break in
becoming many times better sounding ukes.. I have nothing about newer ukes but Id rather stick to some with age and broken in too
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