Short Scale Baritone Strings & Playing

Graham Greenbag

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A little while back I read that someone (who’s name now escapes me) had strung their Concert Uke to Baritone tuning. Out of curiosity there are ‘two’ questions in my mind that I hope other UU members will help with:

1) a) Who sells short scale Baritone (tuning) strings?
1) b) Are such Strings available in Soprano, Concert and Tenor lengths?

2) If someone wanted to have a go with that alternative tuning then what music is there out there to play? I’ve never looked and would have thought relatively little but who knows, there might be a Uke 365 for Baritone.
 
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I know Fremont sell a set of string for tenor that are designed to be tuned DGBE. Sam13 tried them on a Pono tenor and liked the results. I have never heard of a concert and certainly not a soprano tuned DGBE. With such a short scale length the tension would be very very low, the body is way to small to give enough resonance also. But everybodies tastes are different so I suppose it has been tried.
 
I have recently put classical guitar strings on my laminate tenor & long neck soprano, both tuned to DGBE, works OK for me. :)

(Using, now, the 'top' 4 strings of the guitar set.)

Edit: Regarding what to play, anything a uke can play is fair game, even strumming chord shapes you're familiar with, it'll just be in a different key.
 
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GHS in collaboration with Sarah Maisel and Craig Chee has created a set of dGBE strings for tenor ukuleles. Check out the video at http://www.ghsstrings.com/videos/2031354 for sound demo. I enjoyed them a great deal plus the convenience of traveling with a tenor rather than a baritone. String tension was understandably lower than most tenor sets I've used. I agree with DownUpDave: I can't imagine them on a concert. Too much depth, resonance and richness would be lost.
 
I have recently put classical guitar strings on my laminate tenor & long neck soprano, both tuned to DGBE, works OK for me. :)

(Using, now, the 'top' 4 strings of the guitar set.)

Edit: Regarding what to play, anything a uke can play is fair game, even strumming chord shapes you're familiar with, it'll just be in a different key.

Very interesting as the long neck soprano is a concert scale. If you say it worked ok I guess it is possible, wonder about soprano scale though??
 
Southcoast XLL are designed to play linear DGBE on soprano or concert scale but note that this is a full octave higher than typical baritone tuning
 
Thank you to everyone who has supported my thread / answered my original post. As you share your knowledge I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the new things that I’ve learnt and the suggestion options to explore.


I have recently put classical guitar strings on my laminate tenor & long neck soprano, both tuned to DGBE, works OK for me. :)

(Using, now, the 'top' 4 strings of the guitar set.)

I guess that in fitting them to a long neck Soprano you’ve taken things to the extreme of ‘what works’. As I’ve no experience at all of Guitar Strings - maybe that will be true of other readers too - is it possible, please, to have more details of what you fitted (make and other identifiers).
 
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It was purely an experiment using cheap, as in £2 a set, no name classical guitar strings bought online.

Originally I had intended trying them on one of my baritones, but put a set of them on the tenor, then I just tried them on the long neck, just because I could. ;)
 
It was purely an experiment using cheap, as in £2 a set, no name classical guitar strings bought online.

Originally I had intended trying them on one of my baritones, but put a set of them on the tenor, then I just tried them on the long neck, just because I could. ;)

That the great thing about the uke, it is a great platform to experiment with. I have done lots of those "just because I could". Put steel strings on a baritone, just glad it didn't rip the bridge off before I quickly removed them, sounded like crap.
 
I have recently put classical guitar strings on my laminate tenor & long neck soprano, both tuned to DGBE, works OK for me. :)...

Keith - to be clear, is this long neck soprano your Ohana SK-30L?
 
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