Different strings on laminate ukes?

Nickie said:
All of my concert lams have sounded and played great with Aquilas. However, my lam soprano sounds just as bad with them as it did with the black strings I took off. It's plinky and tinny sounding. ARGH! Any suggestions?
Click to expand...

i agree aquilas sound too but they make all lam ukes kind of sound the same (in my opinion) from what i have noticed.
Just hoping to find a slight variation with different strings, I will see what happens when i re-string with south coast.
 
You might try LaBella Uke-Pro strings, they're like a half-way house between Nylgut and Fluorocarbon.
 
YogenFruz said:
If you're looking for something mellower, maybe try the Aquila Red's. They're a different formula, and they feel different than the regular Aquilas (less "sticky") It might be what you're looking for.
Click to expand...

I agree with Aquila Reds. Can only speak for the soprano version, but it is a tad thinner than the soprano Nygut. It was everything I liked in the Nylgut, but a better feel and a slightly more traditional/ukulele sound, if that makes sense.
 
actadh said:
I agree with Aquila Reds. Can only speak for the soprano version, but it is a tad thinner than the soprano Nygut. It was everything I liked in the Nylgut, but a better feel and a slightly more traditional/ukulele sound, if that makes sense.
Click to expand...

I saw reds as very bright and metallic and almost makes your uke sound like a resonator. I even believe mimmo himself described them that way. I did not find them mellow what so ever. Not bad strings just not what i'm looking for on a tenor.
 
consider a simple modification to your laminated instrument Drill small holes straight down from in front of the bridge part which has the strings tying back to the . It really makes a difference in the sound , and you need not be concerned about the top delaminating and scattering pieces of a bridge across the window to the left.
 
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I've been slowing working through various strings on my laminates. Aquila strings seem to be standard on everything now and have been the rage for some time. But between Aquila and D'Addario Nyltech I prefer Nyltech. The difference is small but I do notice it. My long neck soprano has those on it right now.

On my tenor I just bought some classic guitar strings that are the proper size and I was pleasantly surprised. T2s by D'Addario didn't last very long. I didn't like them. Worth clears were nice on the solid zebra wood soprano but that uke is no longer with me.

Strings are fairly inexpensive. Each brand/type will have small differences. It takes time to find what works best. I'm not sure I have arrived at the perfect strings yet but it's been fun to experiment. The right combination can be different for every uke. Trust your ears and go with what sounds good to you. After all, you are the one that will hear the combination most of the time.

Kurt
 
DownUpDave said:
Save the strings you take off. I never cut them off, just unwind them. You can even leave the knot tied and just slip the long end out. Because they stretch and with the wraps there is always enough length to put them back on. This way you are not wasting anything, just stock piling lightly used strings.

This should go with out saying but make sure you label them as they come off. Hard to tell which string is what after the fact.
Click to expand...

@DownUpDave: This is a good idea and what I do when testing strings. When i take them off, they go back into the little bags they came in, the right one for each string (you DO save the packaging dont you?)

@iamesper: NONE of the strings are EVER wasted unless you cut them too short (very bad) or if they have been tuned too high (like UP to BEG#C on a tenor) and therefore got a real good stretch, they MIGHT be too floppy for C6 tuning on anything smaller than a tenor.

If you are not in love with the strings after a week, gently take them off, put them away neatly in the package, and save them for next time. I have been keeping a log in a notebook of what strings I like (or not) on which instrument.

If you no longer have the packages and if you take the strings off, one at a time, and use a piece of masking tape at the very end that you fit to the tuning peg, and write on it G,C,E, or A, and then coil it up, and do this for each string, then you can put them into a regular postal letter envelope, and write on it what the strings were, what uke you put them on with the date and yes/no or something. I keep everything in a large shoe box. I have photos in that thread I linked below, but my collection has grown significantly from what was shown there like 5 months ago....

Unless you have digital calipers or a micrometer, or AMAZING vision that you can discern widths smaller than the ruler lines of half-milimeter or thousandths, you will probably NOT be able to tell the strings apart with your naked eye, so LABEL them when you take them off, one at a time.

Also, if immediately restringing, you want to remove and replace the strings one at a time, and NOT take off ALL the strings at once. If you remove all the strings, then the tension on the neck is gone and the wood goes slack, and after you fully restring and tune to pitch, you have to really wait about 1 day for the wood of the neck and the soundboard to react and get comfortable under the full force of the string tension at pitch. This is also affected by your relative humidity and room temp. Your intonation will not be accurate until everything settles.

Also with a solid top, if you have low humidity and the wood is too dry, and you take off all the strings, and let it sit naked for a few hours, all the wood is relaxed, and then when you restring all at once, you are pulling the wood of the neck and the top with lots of tension all at once, and of the wood is too dry you can cause the neck to twist and cracks in the top, especially between the bridge and sound hole.

Trust me on this.

In the past 6 months, I have done over 100 string changes, and I've seen things that most folks would never even think about.

(For the sake of brevity I will not list everything I tested in this post, but ) I have gone through ALL of the Worth Clear sets AND ALL of the Worth Brown sets, and now am testing the Aquila REDS. So Far the Worth CL and BL are the ones I like the most for all, with Martin M600/M620 being a close second.

I just placed an order with stringsbymail for the Worth CL and BL strings, as well as the Aquila REDS concert re-entrant set - for me, these are keepers so far,.

When I am done testing these, I am doing SouthCoast next, then Living Waters, and then Fremont Blacklines and then ORCAS.

I have a feeling when it is all done, I am just going to end up buying four 25 yards spools of Seaguars fishing leader as per the chart that John (OldePhart) worked out a while back to duplicate the Worth CL set. Buying the Seaguars 25 yd spools, you get 40 sets of strings for about $2.15 per set (for tenor scale) and this will vary (for more sets on shorter scale) if you put them on other scale lengths. This is alot cheaper than what comes out to about $6.50 per set of Worths if you buy them as 'ukulele strings'....

It has become both an obsession and hobby to find the best strings that *I* like for each of my 10 ukes.

There was a really great thread back in February about all this, with LOTS of folks sharing their process and the strings they liked on different instruments - you would do yourself a great service if you spent the time to go through that entire thread

- see here: http://forum.ukuleleunderground.com/showthread.php?93141-It-s-like-UAS-only-worse-SCO

I have ruled out Aquila Nylgut/SuperNylgut and basically ANYTHING/everything Nylon that I've tried (9 different brands) as strings that I would never use on any of my current stable of 10 ukuleles. I dont like the sound, the feel, or both depending upon the strings.

So, check out that link (that thread has 104 posts across 6 pages that I see) so you will be reading a while.....

Hope this helps.

-Booli :)
 
Booli said:
@DownUpDave: This is a good idea and what I do when testing strings. When i take them off, they go back into the little bags they came in, the right one for each string (you DO save the packaging dont you?)

@iamesper: NONE of the strings are EVER wasted unless you cut them too short (very bad) or if they have been tuned too high (like UP to BEG#C on a tenor) and therefore got a real good stretch, they MIGHT be too floppy for C6 tuning on anything smaller than a tenor.

If you are not in love with the strings after a week, gently take them off, put them away neatly in the package, and save them for next time. I have been keeping a log in a notebook of what strings I like (or not) on which instrument.

If you no longer have the packages and if you take the strings off, one at a time, and use a piece of masking tape at the very end that you fit to the tuning peg, and write on it G,C,E, or A, and then coil it up, and do this for each string, then you can put them into a regular postal letter envelope, and write on it what the strings were, what uke you put them on with the date and yes/no or something. I keep everything in a large shoe box. I have photos in that thread I linked below, but my collection has grown significantly from what was shown there like 5 months ago....

Unless you have digital calipers or a micrometer, or AMAZING vision that you can discern widths smaller than the ruler lines of half-milimeter or thousandths, you will probably NOT be able to tell the strings apart with your naked eye, so LABEL them when you take them off, one at a time.

Also, if immediately restringing, you want to remove and replace the strings one at a time, and NOT take off ALL the strings at once. If you remove all the strings, then the tension on the neck is gone and the wood goes slack, and after you fully restring and tune to pitch, you have to really wait about 1 day for the wood of the neck and the soundboard to react and get comfortable under the full force of the string tension at pitch. This is also affected by your relative humidity and room temp. Your intonation will not be accurate until everything settles.

Also with a solid top, if you have low humidity and the wood is too dry, and you take off all the strings, and let it sit naked for a few hours, all the wood is relaxed, and then when you restring all at once, you are pulling the wood of the neck and the top with lots of tension all at once, and of the wood is too dry you can cause the neck to twist and cracks in the top, especially between the bridge and sound hole.

Trust me on this.

In the past 6 months, I have done over 100 string changes, and I've seen things that most folks would never even think about.

(For the sake of brevity I will not list everything I tested in this post, but ) I have gone through ALL of the Worth Clear sets AND ALL of the Worth Brown sets, and now am testing the Aquila REDS. So Far the Worth CL and BL are the ones I like the most for all, with Martin M600/M620 being a close second.

I just placed an order with stringsbymail for the Worth CL and BL strings, as well as the Aquila REDS concert re-entrant set - for me, these are keepers so far,.

When I am done testing these, I am doing SouthCoast next, then Living Waters, and then Fremont Blacklines and then ORCAS.

I have a feeling when it is all done, I am just going to end up buying four 25 yards spools of Seaguars fishing leader as per the chart that John (OldePhart) worked out a while back to duplicate the Worth CL set. Buying the Seaguars 25 yd spools, you get 40 sets of strings for about $2.15 per set (for tenor scale) and this will vary (for more sets on shorter scale) if you put them on other scale lengths. This is alot cheaper than what comes out to about $6.50 per set of Worths if you buy them as 'ukulele strings'....

It has become both an obsession and hobby to find the best strings that *I* like for each of my 10 ukes.

There was a really great thread back in February about all this, with LOTS of folks sharing their process and the strings they liked on different instruments - you would do yourself a great service if you spent the time to go through that entire thread

- see here: http://forum.ukuleleunderground.com/showthread.php?93141-It-s-like-UAS-only-worse-SCO

I have ruled out Aquila Nylgut/SuperNylgut and basically ANYTHING/everything Nylon that I've tried (9 different brands) as strings that I would never use on any of my current stable of 10 ukuleles. I dont like the sound, the feel, or both depending upon the strings.

So, check out that link (that thread has 104 posts across 6 pages that I see) so you will be reading a while.....

Hope this helps.

-Booli :)
Click to expand...

sounds cool! thanks for the advice. I have a few more to test out
before i can make a final opinion so i won't see which is good or bad yet
being i have not tried enough to make a decision yet, i still say on my tenor
between aquila or oasis i prefer aquila. Trying out more in the coming weeks.
 
TheCraftedCow said:
consider a simple modification to your laminated instrument Drill small holes straight down from in front of the bridge part which has the strings tying back to the . It really makes a difference in the sound , and you need not be concerned about the top delaminating and scattering pieces of a bridge across the window to the left.
Click to expand...

not sure if you are serious here i'm assuming this is some kind of attempt at humor (and if its not i apologize)
but there is not a snowball's chance in hell i'm going to drill a hole in my uke.
 
iamesperambient said:
theres more to just playing finding the right sound colors and tones
that suit ones ears is very important especially when playing specific styles
of music.
Click to expand...

My thoughts exactly.

The right strings can make all the difference in the world. Some folks do not have acute enough hearing perception to tell the difference, and other folks maybe just dont care, but to the rest of us, it's like a form of O.C.D. where if it's not 'right', then it's just all 'wrong'.

Each person will love and/or dislike different strings, there is no absolute, it's what YOU want your instrument to sound like. :)

-Booli

P.S.: For example, on my Koa tenor Fluke, the difference betw Aquila Nylgut, Martin M620, Worth Browns BT-LG and Aquila RED low-g, is quite large. From one string set to the next, each one makes the instrument sound AND feel very different. I will not get into all the description of how each string set sounds and feels (see my link in a previous post to this thread for that), but to MY ears and fingers, they are VERY different from each other.
 
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Booli said:
My thoughts exactly.

The right strings can make all the difference in the world. Some folks do not have acute enough hearing perception to tell the difference, and other folks maybe just dont care, but to the rest of us, it's like a form of O.C.D. where if it's not 'right', then it's just all 'wrong'.

Each person will love and/or dislike different strings, there is no absolute, it's what YOU want your instrument to sound like. :)

-Booli
Click to expand...

agree because i have such a detailed sense of hearing for tones/textures (i make ambient music so i more design
sound textures than melodies) its def an OCD thing for me. I'll find the right set for my tenor i will!
 
iamesperambient said:
agree because i have such a detailed sense of hearing for tones/textures (i make ambient music so i more design
sound textures than melodies) its def an OCD thing for me. I'll find the right set for my tenor i will!
Click to expand...

Have you tried the Worth Browns Tenor Low-g, called 'BT-LG'?

I find the tension is just right on the low-g, and you get the same strings with a high-g too, see here:

http://worthc.to/english/w_strings.html (scroll down)

I find that the Worth Browns have about 4x MORE sustain than the Aquila Nylgut/SuperNylgut and 3x more sustain than the Martin M620s.

While ALSO having pleasing overtones that are complex, but not saturated, and very crisp and bell-like, yet with a subtle warmth and sweetness to the tone, this perception is on both my Kala KA-T laminate mahogany tenor, and Koa tenor Fluke.

Since you mention your love of your baritone often (but I dont remember if you have an acoustic bari, in addition to your konablaster), you might try their baritone strings, or the BF (FAT) or BS (STRONG) sets which are similar to the baritone sets (check the linked page above)....

-Booli
 
Booli said:
Have you tried the Worth Browns Tenor Low-g, called 'BT-LG'?

I find the tension is just right on the low-g, and you get the same strings with a high-g too, see here:

http://worthc.to/english/w_strings.html (scroll down)

I find that the Worth Browns have about 4x MORE sustain than the Aquila Nylgut/SuperNylgut and 3x more sustain than the Martin M620s.

While ALSO having pleasing overtones that are complex, but not saturated, and very crisp and bell-like, yet with a subtle warmth and sweetness to the tone, this perception is on both my Kala KA-T laminate mahogany tenor, and Koa tenor Fluke.

Since you mention your love of your baritone often (but I dont remember if you have an acoustic bari, in addition to your konablaster), you might try their baritone strings, or the BF (FAT) or BS (STRONG) sets which are similar to the baritone sets (check the linked page above)....

-Booli
Click to expand...


hey thanks for the tip. Actually for my baritone i already found the perfect string living water re-entrant G (high D) their perfect. I'm actually now trying to find the perfect string for my tenor.

Worth browns are next on my list. I actually have a set of oasis low G warm's which im going to try just to see if i even like a low G set up.
Also the guy from oasis thinks I have have gotten a mistake set and was kind enough to send me these new ones I will give them a try before i make a full evaluation on them.

Worth brown though should be the last stop for me before i make a decision.
 
iamesperambient said:
hey thanks for the tip. ...

Worth browns are next on my list. ...

Worth brown though should be the last stop for me before i make a decision.
Click to expand...

Remember that with the Worth Browns, there are actually 12 different sets of strings they sell that you could try.

http://worthc.to/english/w_strings.html

The main difference across all of the them are the gauges of the outer strings, i.e., the G and A strings, aside from that, on most of their sets the C and E strings are the same, i.e., 0.0291" for the C string and 0.0260" for the E string.

I have found that even the BT-LG strings have decent tensions still if you like to tune DOWN from GCEA to something else. I have not tried tuning them higher than ADF#B (D6) tuning since at that pitch, the 'A' string (i.e., 1st string as in closest to the floor) gets so taught that it scares me and it is near impossible to bend the string.

Right now I actually have my Kala Tenor tuned as a baritone DGBE (Oh the horrors - purists will rage -tenor as baritone - OH NOs) and strung with the Worth Browns (BT-LG) trebles, as in the C-E-A strings and the Fremont wound polished squeakless low G and it is very nice to play, requiring little pressure to fret the strings and the sustain goes forever.

Despite what others may think, the strings are NOT too floppy to be detuned by finger pressure as the Worth Browns have higher tension than most at this scale it seems. Chords sound fine, and the intonation is NOT way off as one might expect (based upon previous discussions here in the forum about tuning a Guitalele down to EADGBE from ADGCEA).

It's been set up like this for about 2 weeks and is stable. This will tide me over until I get get a decent baritone.

-Booli
 
Booli said:
Remember that with the Worth Browns, there are actually 12 different sets of strings they sell that you could try.

http://worthc.to/english/w_strings.html

The main difference across all of the them are the gauges of the outer strings, i.e., the G and A strings, aside from that, on most of their sets the C and E strings are the same, i.e., 0.0291" for the C string and 0.0260" for the E string.

I have found that even the BT-LG strings have decent tensions still if you like to tune DOWN from GCEA to something else. I have not tried tuning them higher than ADF#B (D6) tuning since at that pitch, the 'A' string (i.e., 1st string as in closest to the floor) gets so taught that it scares me and it is near impossible to bend the string.

Right now I actually have my Kala Tenor tuned as a baritone DGBE (Oh the horrors - purists will rage -tenor as baritone - OH NOs) and strung with the Worth Browns (BT-LG) trebles, as in the C-E-A strings and the Fremont wound polished squeakless low G and it is very nice to play, requiring little pressure to fret the strings and the sustain goes forever.

Despite what others may think, the strings are NOT too floppy to be detuned by finger pressure as the Worth Browns have higher tension than most at this scale it seems. Chords sound fine, and the intonation is NOT way off as one might expect (based upon previous discussions here in the forum about tuning a Guitalele down to EADGBE from ADGCEA).

It's been set up like this for about 2 weeks and is stable. This will tide me over until I get get a decent baritone.

-Booli
Click to expand...

sounds good ill do some research soon on which worth brown strings i want to try out first.
 
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