Aquila Concert Strings on a Soprano?

Bill Sheehan

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Hello friends, I grabbed a set of Aquila high-g strings today from my local music shop, intending to put them on my soprano uke, and didn't realize, until I got home, that I had accidentally grabbed the concert-scale set instead of the soprano-scale set. Does anyone know whether the "gauge differential" between the Aquila soprano-scale and concert-scale strings is significant enough to make it unwise to go ahead and put the concerts on the soprano uke? (For what it's worth, I normally tune a half-step higher than "standard".) THANKS!
 
I put a set of Tenor Aquila stings on my soprano scale Vita Uke a couple of years ago. Great sound, great feel.

I don't know of any reason not to use Concert strings on a soprano instrument. Besides, some brands are labeled "soprano/concert".
 
I have known people who as a general practice, use concert strings on their sopranos. I have not heard of any problems.
 
Thank you, guys, I appreciate that input alot; and yes, now that I think of it, I believe the Martin M-600's, for instance, are labeled "soprano/concert". So hopefully, any increase in thickness between Aquila's soprano and concert sets is negligible. I'll give it a shot and see how it goes!
 
I’m sure that I (too) have read on this forum about people choosing to use the Concert size strings instead of the Soprano on a Soprano. IIRC it’s one way of get more out of a Dolphin, they drive the sound board a bit harder. Sopranos are sometimes tuned up to D rather than C and the D tuning puts extra load on the strings - and thinking about it probably drives the sound board harder too - so you might consider that Sopranos are built to take the (extra) load.

Some time back I bought a dusty decade old second hand Soprano Uke off of eBay, as is sometimes the case the owner didn’t mention a fault with it - some would not know or see a fault and others would just omit telling a buyer. It came with well worn oversize (Concert) Aquila’s and the area around in front of the bridge dipped more than on my other Ukes. I can’t say that the extra load caused the damage but I noticed that the brace on the underside of the sound board and next to the soundhole was loose at one side. I reattached the brace and fitted new Soprano strings, the bridge was then much less but still slightly over rotated (IMHO, that’s due to its earlier mis-use and age) but with a set-up that Uke played just fine and gave me a lot of fun playing as well as repairing. I really liked that Uke and now regret letting it go to a new home, but sometimes you just have to make space for something better or different.

@Bill Sheehan. When you are able to please do update the thread with your experience, we all gain that way.
 
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Grateful for the additional observations this morning, and yes, Graham, I'll definitely follow up as to how the strings are working out! I now have them installed, and it'll typically be a few days before they've settled in, but I'll let you know! Thanks, and everyone have a good Tuesday!
 
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