Strings for a Guitarlele?

I love my Yamaha Guitalele. One of the biggest "bangs for your buck" in my collection. But I haven't gotten around to changing the strings since buying it about 18 months back. Now a couple of strings are showing signs of wear and I'm wondering what strings to put on it. Will a set of standard nylon classical guitar strings do the trick? Or do I need special strings? If the latter, can anyone point me in the direction of a source for those (preferably a European store).

Cheers,

Berni

I just put regular old D'Addario classicals on mine because that's what I had on hand and they seem to work just fine.

I am also a happy owner of the Yamaha GL-1 (with a self-installed Mi-Si pickup). At the time when I bought mine (Dec 2012), there were no others I knew of for sale. Now Cordoba has one selling for only $10 more ($109) at Musicians Friend.

I've had D'Addario EJ27N (normal tension) classical strings on mine. These are marketed as 'student grade' but the sound is great and they are effortless to play on. They last quite a while and when they are due for a change you'll know because typically the G string sounds dead and 'thud-like'.

Be advised that D'Addario also has a set EJ27H (hard tension) which I would caution you against using in a guitalele, which is pretty much a 1/4 sized guitar.

Keep in mind that by using regular classical guitar strings, you are taking strings designed for EADGBE tuning designed for the full size scale of as classical guitar, and tuning them UP a 5th to ADGCEA tuning, and as such, if you use NORMAL tension strings designed for the full size scale of as classical guitar and tune them UP for the guitalele, you will in fact ALREADY have much higher tension.

On my full size classical, I use the harder tension EJ27H strings, and going to the Yamaha with the normal tension EJ27N strings the feeling is almost the same. Either set cost like $5 online and/or retail and can be had pretty much everywhere.

At some point I plan to try the Thomasik-Infeld chrome flatwound set called CF128, which has 4 wound strings and 2 plain nylon strings, and by being flatwound, has almost no string squeak/finger noise according to fellow UU brother OldePhart (John).

The string squeak drives me nuts.

Also, I've seen that Aquila has a set designed specifically for Guilele/Guitalele, and they are available at most places that have the Aquila uke strings, also like $5-$7 per set...but I have not tried them yet.

Just for kicks, I replaced the 4 higher-pitched strings with the Martin M620 tenor uke strings, with the high-G, and it sounds very open and happy compared to the linear standard with what would be a low-g. Not sure if I will keep this setup, but next string change I am going to try the aforementioned Thomastik-Infeld CF128 set. They also have a set called CF127 which has 3 flatwound and 3 nylon strings like most standard classical sets.

-Booli

Thanks for the replies so far. Let me know how you get on with that other set Booli. I've subscribed to this thread, so I'll get informed, even if I miss the post on the main board. (An all too common occurrence with the sheer volume of threads on UU).

Thanks to Booli, I have discovered that D'Addario also do two variations on the sets he mentioned. One is for 1/2 size Guitar and the other for a 3/4.

Anyone tried these?

I use D'Addario hard tension classical strings on my Gretsch guitar ukulele.... No problems, and they sound great. I will probably put on a set of the extra hard tension next time around.

I found some Aquila Super Nylgut guitalele strings on ebay.
They really brought my guitalele to life! Try em out!

One more dimension to Berni's question:
I just got a 14inch sclae soprano guitalele-what strings for that-it has worn and dreadful Aquilas on it...

Any recommendations, please?
Happy Easter!