Graham Greenbag
Well-known member
:agree:These discussions are frustrating because most people suggest a single solution. Obviously check for defective strings, and if the uke is close but not close enough then a different type of string might improve things. But if you have decent strings ...
Improving intonation is a process, and not that hard to remember in terms of sequence.
1. Measure from face of nut to 12th fret, and from 12th fret to saddle peak. The second measurement should be 0-3mm more than the first. If it's not, the thing isn't made right and it's major surgery to fix. Return or abandon (or learn to rebuild!)
2. Check that the nut slots slope down towards the tuners. The string has to last touch the nut at its face - if it leaves it early, that screws up intonation. If you're not sure, put a scrap of paper under the string in the slot and see if that improves the intonation - if so, your slots don't slope right.
3. Set the nut height. Hold each string down between frets 2 and 3 and check the height of that string above the first fret. If it's greater than a single thickness of ordinary printing/writing paper then it's too high, and you won't get decent intonation. Fix this by deepening the slots, keeping the slope towards the tuners.
4. Set your desired action height, which is the distance between the top of the 12th fret and the bottom of the strings. 3mm is about the highest you can really go on a uke, 2mm around the lowest. You do this by lowering the saddle, usually sanding the bottom.
5. Compensate the bridge, if you're going that far. Plenty of instructions around so I won't describe that.
But do steps 1-4 FIRST. If they're not right, whatever you do to compensate the saddle will be wrong, and so a waste of time. 1-3 find the problem in at least 50% of cases, and take 10 minutes total to do.
Perhaps I’ve missed the suggestion in other posts but just measure the current set-up before you do anything else. The steps above will tell you if there’s an obvious problem with the set up and more importantly they will tell you what it is. Armed with that information you can approach the shop or set to and do the work yourself.
For checking the string hieght (gap) at the 12th fret I use the shank of 2.5 and 3.0 mm drills.
Strings might be the issue but they should have come right from the seller, the seller not the buyer should address this IMHO. The only time I’ve ever had duff strings is when I bought some probable fakes from China - they come in a little see through bag with a well know manufacturers label but could be anything.
I’ve bought quite a few Ukes now and mail order shops that say all our Ukes leave properly set-up have never supplied me with one that is, that’s my experience here in the UK and YMMV. Kala is my favourite supplier and with a bit of work I’ve made their products work well for me. There are reasons why it’s impractical for a manufacturer to set each instrument up and I accept that now, again YMMV. There are reasons too why it’s impractical for a non specialist music shop to set-up an instrument and I also accept that. What I don’t accept is no one telling me that somewhere along the line that my nice new instrument will need setting up by someone, to me that’s a form of mis-selling.
This last week I was gifted a low end Kala brand Uke, it was part set-up already but it still sounded bad - perhaps my ear has become more sensitive but I just didn’t want to play it. I did some work on it, just correcting a few minor issues, and it sounded quite reasonable and very different. I chose to do more work on it after that (getting some small improvements here and there that together add up to a noticeable difference) and am very pleased with the results, Kala make good instruments but like the other mass produced makes a decent set-up is needed to allow them to sound their best.
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