blaise.douros
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- Apr 11, 2018
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Hey all, I'm new to the forum--I think this is the right place to post this?
I've just developed an interest in ukes, and I'm coming at them from a specific angle--I like instrument hacking. Short background--I've played guitar since high school (I'm in my 30s now) and always sucked at managing six strings. I tried ukes once in my twenties, and got frustrated with the tuning. Traded it out for a mandolin. I like fifth-tuning, but I hate having my fingertips shredded. So my mando doesn't get a lot of play.
A couple years ago, I wanted to play bass for my church--we wanted an upright bowed sound, but I didn't have the skills to play fretless. So I had a guy build me a radiused electric upright with frets, so I could bow it without taking three years to learn fretless fingerings. So now I'm interested in instrument hacking, creating crossovers in categories that don't exist. I got a U-Bass recently, and it got me thinking--what if I could make a cello-tuned nylon-string?
So recently, I bought an inexpensive Caramel baritone uke from Amazon, and got to work. I calculated out two different string sets; one for a CGDA cello tuning, and one for GDAE (three of the strings were common, so I hedged my bets).
The cello tuning worked, but the baritone uke body wasn't quite resonating enough. I switched it out for the GDAE tuning, octave mandolin/Irish tenor guitar, and that's where I'm landing today.
It's a gas to play. It's most of the tonal range of the guitar minus the low E, with only four strings for my tiny brain. The fifths tuning makes everything so logical--three-note chords and all their inversions are easy to find up and down the neck, and if you learn a melody or chord progression in one key, it's easy to transpose to another for the most part.
So now I want to make a concert uke with mandolin tuning, or get a tenor guitar body to see if that works better as a cello.
Anyone out there interested in this stuff? Has anyone done this before? I am not having much luck figuring out what strings can take the tension for mandolin tuning.
I figure if there are like-minded people anywhere, this is the place! Happy to share any specs I've come up with along the way
I've just developed an interest in ukes, and I'm coming at them from a specific angle--I like instrument hacking. Short background--I've played guitar since high school (I'm in my 30s now) and always sucked at managing six strings. I tried ukes once in my twenties, and got frustrated with the tuning. Traded it out for a mandolin. I like fifth-tuning, but I hate having my fingertips shredded. So my mando doesn't get a lot of play.
A couple years ago, I wanted to play bass for my church--we wanted an upright bowed sound, but I didn't have the skills to play fretless. So I had a guy build me a radiused electric upright with frets, so I could bow it without taking three years to learn fretless fingerings. So now I'm interested in instrument hacking, creating crossovers in categories that don't exist. I got a U-Bass recently, and it got me thinking--what if I could make a cello-tuned nylon-string?
So recently, I bought an inexpensive Caramel baritone uke from Amazon, and got to work. I calculated out two different string sets; one for a CGDA cello tuning, and one for GDAE (three of the strings were common, so I hedged my bets).
The cello tuning worked, but the baritone uke body wasn't quite resonating enough. I switched it out for the GDAE tuning, octave mandolin/Irish tenor guitar, and that's where I'm landing today.
It's a gas to play. It's most of the tonal range of the guitar minus the low E, with only four strings for my tiny brain. The fifths tuning makes everything so logical--three-note chords and all their inversions are easy to find up and down the neck, and if you learn a melody or chord progression in one key, it's easy to transpose to another for the most part.
So now I want to make a concert uke with mandolin tuning, or get a tenor guitar body to see if that works better as a cello.
Anyone out there interested in this stuff? Has anyone done this before? I am not having much luck figuring out what strings can take the tension for mandolin tuning.
I figure if there are like-minded people anywhere, this is the place! Happy to share any specs I've come up with along the way
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