Ukulele Strings? Aquila vs d'addario

hiphoppan

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Hi everyone

I have a Kanilea K1 ukulele and I want to get the very best sound out of it and I was wondering which are the best strings to use. At the moment I am using Aquila strings but don't know if it would sound any better with other strings? I have only ever used Aquila strings on all of my ukes and have never tried a different brand so not sure what other brands sound great. I have heard that d'addario ukulele strings are pretty good.

Should I keep my Aquilas or change it for d'addario? Or does anyone else have anything else they recommend for a Kanilea?

I looking forward to reading your comments 😊

thanks for looking
 
I'll let "K" veterans weigh in, but I have not found a single type of string that works on every uke, to my liking, anyway. I have Martins on my Flea and my Ohana Vita and Ohana soprano. Living Waters on my Eddy Finn. D'Addario Titaniums on my cheapo Kohala. I tried Living Waters on my Ohana tenor and they never felt right, so I went back to Aquilas (which sounded too muddy on the Ohana soprano). If you like the feel and sound of Aquilas, you might want to stick with them, but strings are cheap, so an experiment with nylons or fluorocarbons may blow you away. Besides, the journey is fun.
 
Neither.


I would try
Worth Browns
Worth clears
PHD
Living water
 
Personally not a fan of Aquilas.

I think D'addario Pro-Artes bring out the ukulele's natural tone more so than other strings.
They're a mellow and rich sounding string.
 
Depends on how you want that Kanilea to sound. Want to bring out the highs? lows? rich balanced tone? I like Aquilas on some of my ukes, but they certainly don't sound best on all ukes. Time to try some new brands....you will likely be amazed.
 
try some Martins, they're inexpensive a readily available...that will give you an idea of what fluorocarbons will do.
 
A D'Addario rep handed me a set of "Nyltech Soprano" (EJ88S-Natural Nylon) strings to try on my uke, which previously had Aquila Nylguts on it. I haven't noticed any difference at all. But then again, my uke is not very high-end.

In the future, I will probably look for the D'Addario's, only because they are a local company. You might want to try some of the others mentioned in this thread.
 
I...I have not found a single type of string that works on every uke, to my liking, anyway....

What he said...

Different strings work better on different instruments - there's no set rule of pairing (a lot depends on your personal taste in sound).

While I like Aquilas, I find them a bit too brash on some ukes (spruce-topped come to mind). I like D'Addario too (the titanium series the best), but I also like Worth and Martin. I generally don't like GHS or most other black material strings because they don't seem to present as much volume. I've tried many string types, and find it's worth experimenting to get the sound that speaks most to you.
 
Don't do it..........don't try different strings if you like the sound you have.

It is a slippery slope once you embark upon " chasing tone" via string changing. Before you known you have 15 - 20 different sets of strings on hand and you send more time changing and experimenting than actually playing your uke. This is all tongue in cheek but there is more than a little truth to it.

Basically there are three types of strings, Aquila, nylon like D'addario and florocarbon like Worth, Martin, Oasis etc. You could buy a set of nylon and a set of florocarbon and try those. This will give you an idea of how each material type sounds on your uke.
 
Like others have said, it's all subjective. So try a few if you can afford to. I happen to prefer fluorocarbon strings over nylon. The strings I use are Savarez, PhD, and Southcoast right now. D'Addario just came out with a fluorocarbon string as well, EJ99T, which I'm trying out right now on one uke. I like them a lot, and they are priced very well.

Good luck and let us know what you end up choosing.
 
Your best bet would be to try different brands and see what works for you. Take into consideration tone, playability and feel as well as the build. What may work for any of the above members may not suit or work for you. In the end, it all comes down to personal preference.
 
Aside from the nearly infinite number of possible combinations of tone woods that can affect the sound (wait sorry you said Kanilea K1)

There's lots to see/feel/hear from trying different strings, from different brands, but you have to also realize that advice you get from others, based upon the SOUND of the strings is both going to be subjective/relative to THEIR hearing preferences, as well as sound completely different to YOUR OWN EARS because of your PLAYING technique...being different from that of others.

I'm not singling you out, this is true of EVERYONE.

In the past 3 months or so, there have been MANY threads regarding string choice, maybe they will help you...

have you tried to search the forum?

[edit]: Sorry, I just saw what Kanaka916 said above, in like half the words I used, so sorry if my post seems redundant.
 
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It's a good idea to ask others what has worked for them, but we all have our own tastes. So I think you should try different strings. Many different strings. Besides tone, there is also how they feel to you (some strings may be too hard or too soft). It's typically about $5-$7 per string set.
 
Try 'em all!
I agree that there is no instrument/string combination that pleases every ear equally. But some combinations just do not seem to work. For me, well, actually not only for me, that is Worth strings on Kanile'as. Somehow the mids and trebles are missing.

You will not be able to try all the strings there are. So I think it's wise to ask about other people's experiences and I am looking forward to reading the answers.

So far I had Aquila New Nylgut, Super Nylgut, Worth Clear, and Galli Fluorocarbon on my K1.
I didn't like the Worth strings, they were to mellow.
Super Nylgut was better than New Nylgut.
Galli is good, too. More overtones compared to Nylgut (harmonics) but less mids and trebles. Sounds weird, but that's the way it is. Galli strings are softer and I find them easier to play. ATM it's a tie between Galli and Super Nylgut. Although I like Galli a bit more, maybe...

I'll test Martin and Aquila Red next. And I'm not going to try Worth Brown. I like Worth strings on my Brüko and Pukanalas, but they just don't seem to work well with Kanile'a.
 
I agree with DownUpDave....if you like the sound, don't mess with it....wear the Aquilas out, then try another type. Don't go chasing the "perfect tone", cause there probably ain't one.
Don't fix what works...people tend to noodle around with stuff too much, then get ticked off.
This is not a good reason to suffer the effects of UAS.
 
Don't do it..........don't try different strings if you like the sound you have.

It is a slippery slope once you embark upon " chasing tone" via string changing. Before you known you have 15 - 20 different sets of strings on hand and you send more time changing and experimenting than actually playing your uke. This is all tongue in cheek but there is more than a little truth to it.

Basically there are three types of strings, Aquila, nylon like D'addario and florocarbon like Worth, Martin, Oasis etc. You could buy a set of nylon and a set of florocarbon and try those. This will give you an idea of how each material type sounds on your uke.

Absolutely. There is little or no difference between different brand strings of the same material. This article makes interesting reading.

http://www.gotaukulele.com/2015/02/snake-oil-in-ukulele-world.html
 
Absolutely. There is little or no difference between different brand strings of the same material. This article makes interesting reading.

http://www.gotaukulele.com/2015/02/snake-oil-in-ukulele-world.html

For those of you who don't have time to read the article, the author basically takes the stance that most options and gizmos for ukuleles are no more than "snake oil." The search for snake oil is common among almost all hobbies I can think of. I am an avid bicyclist and I cannot believe how much expensive garbage cyclists think they need in order to pedal from Point A to Point B.

The author of this ukulele article comes off a bit offensive and arrogant, but he drives home a great point when he asks "Why not just play the damned thing?"
 
For those of you who don't have time to read the article, the author basically takes the stance that most options and gizmos for ukuleles are no more than "snake oil." The search for snake oil is common among almost all hobbies I can think of. I am an avid bicyclist and I cannot believe how much expensive garbage cyclists think they need in order to pedal from Point A to Point B.

The author of this ukulele article comes off a bit offensive and arrogant, but he drives home a great point when he asks "Why not just play the damned thing?"

I don't find him particularly offensive, provocative, yes but that's not a bad thing, IMO. Maybe it's a cultural thing but we Brits can be a bit stroppy at times and I suspect he doesn't suffer fools gladly. I do agree with him that there's little difference between different brands of string of the same material as it bears out my experience with fluorocarbon strings. Such differences as there are have more to with string sizes and hence string tension at the same tuning.
 
try some Martins, they're inexpensive a readily available...that will give you an idea of what fluorocarbons will do.

Second that. In my experience with koa ukes, these nearly always sound great. So do Fremont Blacklines. I haven't been impressed with D'addarios (tried several kinds) on my koa ukes although I did like Nyltechs on the mahogany uke that I no longer have. And I know people love them, but I'm not a fan of Worths at all.
 
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