Ukulele for the Frozen North Countries?

My ukes actually seem to sound better when the humidity is below 40%, with the best sound at around 35%, but I take peace of mind any day of the week!
 
Maybe too much humidity? A friend of mine says her ukuleles sound best dry, just before they explode.
 
Good quality plastic ukes may come, as Outdoor Ukulele have proved with their tenor, just need to wait, I guess. :)

Kala are going to be making a concert scale Waterman for release soon, so I read. ;)

I have a Brunswick plastic concert scale uke which is OK strummed, with a change of strings, but not so good picked.
 
And so we're back to maintaining safe humidity levels and ukes made of non-hydroscopic materials like OXKs and Outdoor Ukes or laminates.

I just don't worry about it. If I had ukuleles worth several thousand dollars or irreplaceable for sentimental reasons, I'd control their environmental variables to the second decimal point. But I don't, and for mass produced instruments I figure any environment that I can live in, so can they.

On Sunday my lightly built all solid mahogany tenor sat with me through 27% RH and 87% RH. Not locked away like a mummy, but resting against the coffee table where I could pick it up frequently. It travels with me for work and vacations with me in the tropics. I figure if a few years down the road it's bent and unplayable, I'll replace it and still be ahead because there's value in all those accumulated minutes of playing.
 
On Sunday my lightly built all solid mahogany tenor sat with me through 27% RH and 87% RH. Not locked away like a mummy, but resting against the coffee table where I could pick it up frequently. It travels with me for work and vacations with me in the tropics. I figure if a few years down the road it's bent and unplayable, I'll replace it and still be ahead because there's value in all those accumulated minutes of playing.

My guess is that C. F. Martin and others like him felt the same way when they started making stringed instruments back in the day. Great minds think alike.
 
Top Bottom