The first fret on my uke is the hardest to barre - how normal is this?

Aegislash

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Hello!

Let me first provide some necessary background: a while ago I posted about my woes trying to barre the first fret on my uke (http://forum.ukuleleunderground.com/showthread.php?130469-Unusually-difficult-to-barre-first-fret). The strings are stiffer there than anywhere else on the fretboard, and I need to apply more force fretting them to get a clean sound. The consensus I received was that my action at the nut was probably too high, which was also my initial suspicion, and logically it makes sense. (My uke is a Kala Solid Acacia Concert - KA-ASAC-C - https://kalabrand.com/products/ka-asac-c)

However, I have since taken my uke to two fairly reputable stores that do setups. The staff in both stores claim that the action at the nut is not particularly high (and therefore the problem is nonexistent). Furthermore, a few commenters - plus some other places on the Internet - seem to suggest that the first fret is inherently the hardest to barre. Bearing that in mind, I have tried playing some other ukes at the store using chords like Bb and Gb, and their first frets seem no easier or harder to barre than any other fret. Strange...

Therefore, my question is whether or not it is indeed normal for the first fret to be the hardest to barre (if so, resolving the problem should be a matter of practice) and if not, what plausible explanations there could be besides high action, and the best way to proceed. Help would be appreciated!
 
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You said you went to a store, played other ukes and barring the first fret on those was "no" harder than barring other frets on those instruments. Just for clarification you are saying these instruments are easier to barr on the first fret than yours, is that correct. Were you playing the same scale instruments. I find a long scale length easier to barr at the first fret, tenor is easier than soprano. What is the make and size of your uke, this question was never answered in your original post.

If this is the case then either the way they checked yours was not accurate, ie did they actually measure yours or just press down on it. Whatever strings you have are higher tension or the neck profile does not suite your hand. Logic dictates that if those other ukes barred easier at the first fret than yours then your action is too high. Practice will improve your performance, Bb is one of the most difficult chords for a beginner.
 
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Just for clarification you are saying these instruments are easier to barr on the first fret than yours, is that correct. Were you playing the same scale instruments.

Yes. The first frets on those instruments could be barred more easily than the first fret on my uke. I used the same amount of pressure as was needed to cleanly barre the other frets (2nd, 3rd, 4th...) I tested this with concerts as well, same brand but different models.

What is the make and size of your uke, this question was never answered in your original post.

It is a Kala solid acacia concert - sorry about that, I've updated the information.

If this is the case then either the way they checked yours was not accurate, ie did they actually measure yours or just press down on it.

Both times they just pressed down on the first fret without measuring. However, in one of the stores they offered to (and I insisted that they should) measure the action and do a proper setup if necessary. Awaiting the results of that.

Thanks for the input :) All things considered though, how true in general are the claims that the first fret is usually the hardest to barre and that it is normal?
 
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The first fret is definitely the hardest to barr. It is pure physics, the string length is shortest here so there is less give or stretch. My first uke came without a set up and I didn't know any better because I was so new to playing a stringed instrument. After about three months of playing a luthier did a proper set up and lowered the action. Playing Bb was instantly so much easier.

Your Kala acacia concert is a very nice instrument, comes stock with Aquila strings. You might try Martin M600 florocarbon strings, I find they have less tension.
 
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The shops you took the instrument to seem to lack any understanding of string geometry, and possible have the misinformed conclusion that 'ukuleles are toys' and 'therefore dont need a setup' or 'cannot be setup' like a guitar.

I would avoid such places that appear to be either inept or maliciously ignorant.

As Dave has said above, if barre chords and the first fret are difficult, the sole reason is because the nut slots are TOO HIGH compared to the height of the first fret.

This is EASILY remedied by lowering the nut slots with a round-edge nut file. It takes some finesse and patience and is a slow iterative process to get it right without going too far.

Going too far and cutting the nut slots too low will result in fret buzz starting at the first fret. This can be fixed by either filling the nut slots with superglue and baking soda, OR by just replacing the nut with a new one, and starting over.

Lots of places online will sell you plastic ukulele nuts in a 5-pack for like $10 USD. If you want a Tusq or Nubone nut they can be had for about $10 ea. <<< These will come with starter nut slots you can file down to spec. You can also get micarta blanks without any slots, which will allow you to customize your string spacing, from Roy T. Cone's ukuleleword.com site.

StewMac also has nut and saddle blanks for ukulele, as well as the 'proper' files ($125 for a full set).

Otherwise you can use the 'welding torch tip cleaners' from Amazon or CB Gitty which sell for ~$5-7 and has a dozen or so gauged and round files. These are not good for a bone nut as they are not abrasive enough to cut bone effectively (personal experience) and for that you can get the depth with a cut-in-half hacksaw blade, and then round-out the bottom of the slot with the tip cleaners. However the tip cleaner work just fine on the softer materials like plastice, Nubone/Tusq and micarta.

There are LOTS of YouTube videos offering details and/or a tutorial of doing these procedures and it is not hard to learn to do it yourself with maybe as little as $20 in tools, otherwise you are going to pay a 'guitar tech' starting at around $50 to do it for you, with often questionable results unless they are experienced with fine-tuning ukuleles.

I prefer the DIY methods, which is like knowing how to change the oil, or change a tire on your car, i.e., standard maintenance.
 
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The shops you took the instrument to seem to lack any understanding of string geometry, and possible have the misinformed conclusion that 'ukuleles are toys' and 'therefore dont need a setup' or 'cannot be setup' like a guitar.

I would avoid such places that appear to be either inept or maliciously ignorant.

As Dave has said above, if barre chords and the first fret are difficult, the sole reason is because the nut slots are TOO HIGH compared to the height of the first fret.

This is EASILY remedied by lowering the nut slots with a round-edge nut file. It takes some finesse and patience and is a slow iterative process to get it right without going too far.

Going too far and cutting the nut slots too low will result in fret buzz starting at the first fret. This can be fixed by either filling the nut slots with superglue and baking soda, OR by just replacing the nut with a new one, and starting over.

Lots of places online will sell you plastic ukulele nuts in a 5-pack for like $10 USD. If you want a Tusq or Nubone nut they can be had for about $10 ea. <<< These will come with starter nut slots you can file down to spec. You can also get micarta blanks without any slots, which will allow you to customize your string spacing, from Roy T. Cone's ukuleleword.com site.

StewMac also has nut and saddle blanks for ukulele, as well as the 'proper' files ($125 for a full set).

Otherwise you can use the 'welding torch tip cleaners' from Amazon or CB Gitty which sell for ~$5-7 and has a dozen or so gauged and round files. These are not good for a bone nut as they are not abrasive enough to cut bone effectively (personal experience) and for that you can get the depth with a cut-in-half hacksaw blade, and then round-out the bottom of the slot with the tip cleaners. However the tip cleaner work just fine on the softer materials like plastice, Nubone/Tusq and micarta.

There are LOTS of YouTube videos offering details and/or a tutorial of doing these procedures and it is not hard to learn to do it yourself with maybe as little as $20 in tools, otherwise you are going to pay a 'guitar tech' starting at around $50 to do it for you, with often questionable results unless they are experienced with fine-tuning ukuleles.

I prefer the DIY methods, which is like knowing how to change the oil, or change a tire on your car, i.e., standard maintenance.

Wow. Thank you very much for the very comprehensive overview, if all else fails and the problem persists I will quite likely experiment with DIY nut filing; good that I know friends who can help me along with that... and interestingly, the shops in question don't have any malice towards ukuleles at all, and in fact regularly sell them and set them up. But I guess it is pretty concerning that in a shop that is reasonably competent from a technical standpoint, the front desk staff told me no problem purely because "the action looks good by eye" and "I can play the first fret just fine". Seems a little hasty and noncommittal to me... :/
 
Wow. Thank you very much for the very comprehensive overview, if all else fails and the problem persists I will quite likely experiment with DIY nut filing; good that I know friends who can help me along with that... and interestingly, the shops in question don't have any malice towards ukuleles at all, and in fact regularly sell them and set them up. But I guess it is pretty concerning that in a shop that is reasonably competent from a technical standpoint, the front desk staff told me no problem purely because "the action looks good by eye" and "I can play the first fret just fine". Seems a little hasty and noncommittal to me... :/

I'm glad to be able to help.

if they are in fact competent, maybe the folks that analyzed your uke are either lazy or just dont want the business?

Common wisdom here on UU is to only ever buy a uke from a vendor that does setups prior to delivery to the customer, and most of these vendors also will reject ukes that have obvious issues, as a sort of last-stop quality control, which is something completely absent from Amazon, or Guitar Center or other big-box stores that mostly just drop-ship items from a faraway warehouse.

If you were buying from a reputable vendor that does setups, methinks that the action at the first fret would have been either remedied before it was even shipped to you, or rejected and sent back to the distributor if it was unfixable, as per standard practice from places like Hawaii Music Supply, Mim's, Uke Republic, Elderly, Mainland Ukuleles et al.

Kala, Ohana, Gretsch, Cordoba, etc. in fact do NOT QC their ukes in this way^ once they leave the manufacturing plant and go to the distributors, and usually need a setup done specific to the player/buyer.

Some folks that are banging away with cowboy chords in first position, and never doing any fingerstyle will want ~3mm action at the 12th to avoid the strings slapping against the frets, whereas folks that play up the neck and/or fingerstyle/campanella will want a lower action ~2.5mm. In either case this is also mitigated by the height of the nut slots in order to achieve both proper intonation and proper string geometry.

It's really up to you how you like the uke to be set up. If it's hard to play now, I'd see about getting it fixed so it will be more comfortable.

Usually all can be adjusted unless the fretboard is spaced wrong or the bridge is not in the correct location on the soundboard. With these issues, it's basically a wall-hanger and will not play in tune unless major surgery is done on it, and for the time & money involved, you can spend it on a uke that comes 'playable out of the box'.

Unless the uke in question is a family heirloom or something, it's usually not worth it to pay to have a setup done on one of the "$25 Amazon Specials" since the setup work is going to cost more than the uke itself, and you can get a Makala WITH SETUP from Mim or Uke Republic that INCLUDES the setup for ~$50 + shipping.

Yes, not in the same level as your KA-ASAC-C, but they do setups on all ukes sold, no matter the price range.
 
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I'm certain I've read this here before. Or, am I barking up the wrong tree?

Does not a zero fret solve this issue? Can one not be installed after the uke has been delivered?
 
In my experience, the first fret is always the hardest to barre. It is only a problem if it is significantly harder than other instruments. In your case, I have no idea if it's a problem, but it sounds like you are doing all the right things.
 
Sure the first fret can get easier to play with a good setup, but that doesn't mean it's going to be as easy as some other frets necessarily.
You have a wire (string in this case) stretched across two points. It's only natural that it's going to flex more in the center and be tighter on each end (nut and bridge in our case).

I'm certain I've read this here before. Or, am I barking up the wrong tree?

Does not a zero fret solve this issue? Can one not be installed after the uke has been delivered?
The nut slots themselves could be set to the same height as a zero fret would be, so I don't see any advantage there.
If you installed one after the fact, it'd throw the intonation off, since it'd basically move the nut. The zero fret would be the new nut and it'd be in the wrong place.

There is one company that makes a nut that has a fret built into it, so things line up correctly. That is for guitar though and a few other instruments. I haven't seen a uke one.
http://www.stewmac.com/Materials_an...MIk4mj48HM2AIVlbjACh1zjgRFEAAYASAAEgKSAvD_BwE

They say it's more for tone and tuning though. You can take a #2 pencil and rub it through the nut slots on your uke and coat them and improve tuning simply.
 
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Sure the first fret can get easier to play with a good setup, but that doesn't mean it's going to be as easy as some other frets necessarily.
You have a wire (string in this case) stretched across two points. It's only natural that it's going to flex more in the center and be tighter on each end (nut and bridge in our case).


The nut slots themselves could be set to the same height as a zero fret would be, so I don't see any advantage there.
If you installed one after the fact, it'd throw the intonation off, since it'd basically move the nut. The zero fret would be the new nut and it'd be in the wrong place.

There is one company that makes a nut that has a fret built into it, so things line up correctly. That is for guitar though and a few other instruments. I haven't seen a uke one.
http://www.stewmac.com/Materials_an...MIk4mj48HM2AIVlbjACh1zjgRFEAAYASAAEgKSAvD_BwE

They say it's more for tone and tuning though. You can take a #2 pencil and rub it through the nut slots on your uke and coat them and improve tuning simply.

Thank you!
 
As others have told the first fret is the hardest to barre. The nut action aside that should be taken care of, I don't go for that here.

What I want say is that while I am not an advocate of the thumb always behind the neck approach at all and rather prefer the more traditional easy way that works for most chords that are not barred better, in my opinion. To allow easy more supported way for all uke's strumming techniques.

The technique to play full barre chords is so valuable that sometimes trying to substitute partial barre is maybe counter productive? Full barre chords require learning how to adjust thumb to back of the neck and then how to change back to other chords.

For chord like D7, I vary depending of the neighbour chords if I play 2223 with full barre or finger it with my all 4 fingers. Sometimes hawaiian too. Usually Eb7 with a full barre.
With Bb7 always barre and B7 depends if I play it with full barre or the other fingering, of the chords I am changing from to it. Sometimes I play Bb also with a partial barre, meaning my thumb is not behind the neck.

But what I want to point out is that learning how to change your hand position quickly to full barre hold is such a worthwhile technique to learn.
 
There is one company that makes a nut that has a fret built into it, so things line up correctly. That is for guitar though and a few other instruments. I haven't seen a uke one.
http://www.stewmac.com/Materials_an...MIk4mj48HM2AIVlbjACh1zjgRFEAAYASAAEgKSAvD_BwE

The same company actually does also make the Zero Glide for ukulele and other instruments:

https://goldtonemusicgroup.com/zeroglide/products/zs-19

I have no experience with these, but I have played some zero frets guitars back in the day and liked them for what they are. However, I do agree that a proper setup at the nut is a definite must for any stringed instrument. I also believe that the action at the nut is more important than the action at the saddle (thought both should be setup to assure proper playing for the entire range of the instrument) seeing how much of our beginning playing is in first position.
 
The same company actually does also make the Zero Glide for ukulele and other instruments:

https://goldtonemusicgroup.com/zeroglide/products/zs-19

I have no experience with these, but I have played some zero frets guitars back in the day and liked them for what they are. However, I do agree that a proper setup at the nut is a definite must for any stringed instrument. I also believe that the action at the nut is more important than the action at the saddle (thought both should be setup to assure proper playing for the entire range of the instrument) seeing how much of our beginning playing is in first position.
Oh interesting. Thanks for the link.
I used to see them for guitar too, but never tried it myself. I spent a lot of time and some money (decent files and materials) learning to adjust nuts, and still prefer the more traditional way.
Yeah, I believe every nut slot should be a slightly different depth due to the varying thickness of the strings. I like to set them individually. I play plenty of notes at the first fret, and it does matter for that. This doesn't have a way of allowing for that. I guess one could argue that gets lost after you fret an instrument anyway. Then it moves more to how things are adjusted at the saddle. Also, you still have to have some slots there for string spacing. Those would still have to be at the right width. With guitar, I don't think it'd matter as much since there's so much more string tension to hold the strings in place. With uke though, the lower tension would make it a lot easier for the string to slide side to side on an open string if the nut slot was too wide. As for tone, the only notes effected will be the open strings. As soon as you fret a note you're taking the nut out of play as far as tone is concerned. The more I think about it, I just don't get this product..or see it being worth it. That's just me though. I know some people have bought into it though because these things have been around since I was still on guitar forums, and that has been quite a few years ago.
 
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Good points, jer. I think the product has a place in the market for those that don't like to fuss with nut height as it is a moot factor seeing how the zero fret acts as the nut. And, I see this (and nut action height in general) being more useful on the shorter scale instruments - but moreso for the first, maybe the second, frets. Let's take a soprano ukulele versus a baritone ukulele - the soprano's first fret is a good deal closer to the nut than the baritone. If both instruments had the same nut height, and a height that was slightly too high to begin with, surely the soprano would be more difficult to depress at the first fret than the baritone. The distance from the nut to the first fret is shorter. Now, on even a longer scale instrument like a guitar, it would be easier to depress yet as proper technique has us fretting the string right behind the fret. Though the distance differences are slight, I think the feel is rather noticeable.

However, with a nut set at the right height, all the above is moot. And, I much prefer using a regular nut because one of the beauties about picked stringed instruments is the resonance of the open strings. Add in the factor of the choices of nut and saddle bone materials available these days makes it even better. Bob Colosi has a nice selection of different bone materials for nuts and saddles to choose from. Just my take on it :)
 
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You make some good points I hadn't thought of, bsfloyd....like first fret distance on various scales effect on tension there. Something to ponder there. Thanks.
 
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