Low G: Nylon vos Wound Any Impressions

[Hippie Guy]

Got a Low G set (3 & 4 wound, 1 & 2 unwound) from Chuck Moore. I'll not use anything else unless Chuck says he's found something better.

Last I heard he was using Thomas-Inkfield strings for the basses. The Ukulele Site was selling them for a while. Just FYI for those interested.

[luv2uke]

Charlie Fukuba, builder of I'iwi ukulele, also uses Thomastik-Infeld wound strings for the basses and flourocarbons for the trebles. It sounds good on my I'iwi.

[TopDog]

Wound strings never seem to last long for me, so I stick
with plain nylon/fluorocarbon and that last as long as the
rest of the set!

[Croaky Keith]

Living Water fluorocarbon low G/low D for me, on nearly all my ukes, don't like wound strings.

[DownUpDave]

I prefer wound for low G. Nylons sound too thuddy to me and I don't like how fat they feel. My go-to strings for low G are Fremont Soloist and Southcoast wound sets.

This, this and this. I could not agree more.

"eyedoc" because you are a guitar player and are comfortable with wound string your choice of Fremont Soloist is perfect. They are the gold standard for a low G string. I go one step further and use a wound C string as well, much better transistion. Either Thomastik CF 27 or D'Addario Silver Wound NYL028W

[sopher]

Wound strings never seem to last long for me, so I stick
with plain nylon/fluorocarbon and that last as long as the
rest of the set!

+1 for this, wound strings don't seem to last very long

[bsfloyd]

I guess I'm in the minority as I like wound nylon strings. I also like to hear the finger "whosh" from time to time when playing. Probably stems from my guitar playing. I'm currently only baritone so my bottom two strings (D and G) are both wound. I like the balance it gives to the instrument having two wound and two plain nylon. I'm sure if I were playing for traditional ukulele I might feel different about the low G being wound. True that the wound strings wear out faster than the plain nylon - the price to pay

[bratsche]

Like bsfloyd, my baritone is tuned in fifths, GDAE, but I could not stand a wound third string, even a flatwound Thomastik. That was a surprise, as I'd been using Thomastik flatwound steel strings happily for many years. The zinging noise caused by my right hand fingers playing on upstrokes was just too much for me, as it was a blatant and obvious-sounding noise in transition from the very quiet upper non-wound strings. So I switched to fluorocarbon 3rd (thanks to Seaguar) and couldn't be happier with the improvement in sound. Playing the first string, mostly with my fleshier thumb, was not nearly as bad sounding, and besides, it's a moot point since where are you going to find a non-wound string to tune that low? So I use the lowest Thomastik one for that. Likewise on my viola-tuned tenor, I use three fluorocarbons and one Thomastik flatwound.

bratsche

[buddhuu]

I don't like wound low G. I don't like the way they wear the frets quicker than the flurocarbs do.

[buddhuu]

[...]

I haven't noticed wear on my frets due to wound strings, only how quickly typical low-G strings in stock sets wear out, particularly the Aquilas and Martins. The Soloist and CF30 wear much longer than standard wound strings.

A wound G is the only one that ever wore my frets. I have a pretty light touch on the left hand and the other strings never hurt the frets. I bend strings a lot and notice a catch on low G. Or rather I used to - I haven't used a wound string on uke for 5 or 6 years.