Tenor sustain monster?

I'm loving my concert Opio, and I'm hankering to add a tenor to the mix soon. Can anyone recommend a model with a lot of sustain, with a price up to $1,200? Thanks.

cptdean said:

I'm loving my concert Opio, and I'm hankering to add a tenor to the mix soon. Can anyone recommend a model with a lot of sustain, with a price up to $1,200? Thanks.

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the KoAloha tenors are loud and vibrate quite abit...
the new Opio Tenors will be out soon at HMS

Great! I certainly wouldn't mind an Opio tenor. It'd make a nice mate.

Other than sustain, what other criteria do you have? There are lots of ukes way below your budget that has longer sustain than your KoAloha Opio:

http://shop.mainlandukuleles.com/pr...8E0E.m1plqscsfapp05?productId=13&categoryId=3
http://www.ukerepublic.bigcartel.com/product/ohana-90-sc-cedar-spruce-rosewood-maple-ukulele
http://www.ukerepublic.bigcartel.com/product/ohana-redwood-rosewood-tenor
http://www.ukerepublic.bigcartel.com/product/ohana-tk-50-cedar-rosewood-tenor

Thanks for the links! My only other real criteria would be excellent intonation. I'd love to spend far less than $1,200 on a tenor ukulele with excellent sustain and intonation, but my experiences in the guitar world have tended to pushed me up the price ladder to get both.

cptdean said:

Thanks for the links! My only other real criteria would be excellent intonation. I'd love to spend far less than $1,200 on a tenor ukulele with excellent sustain and intonation, but my experiences in the guitar world have tended to pushed me up the price ladder to get both.

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Best bang for the buck for a high quality instrument are the Pono Pro Classic tenors. You can get an instrument for $700 - $900 that has the quality, tonewoods, appointments and most importantly sustain, projection, intonation and playability of instruments that cost twice as much or more.

I wouldn't overlook the Mele's either

If you weren't set on a tenor, I'd say consider a Blackbird Clara.

You could get a very nice used instrument in your price range (e.g., a Collings or more nicely appointed K brand). New in your price range, I've played a couple (only two) of Kanile'a KSDLX models that impressed me. I hadn't been that impressed with their other models but these were quite nice.

Ukulele Eddie said:

If you weren't set on a tenor, I'd say consider a Blackbird Clara.

You could get a very nice used instrument in your price range (e.g., a Collings or more nicely appointed K brand). New in your price range, I've played a couple (only two) of Kanile'a KSDLX models that impressed me. I hadn't been that impressed with their other models but these were quite nice.

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Aloha Eddie, I do love the tone of the carbon fiber blackbird tenor more and Andrew at hms and the ukulele site
Has them! Amazing tone with some punch and I do prefer them highly ..and in his price range

For a "sustain monster" in a tenor size, I would recommend Gary Gill's pear-shaped tenors. I have been consistently impressed with the volume and sustain on the two of his that I currently own. Priced around $700, Mim's Ukes is Gary Gill's U.S. distributor.

mm stan said:

Aloha Eddie, I do love the tone of the carbon fiber blackbird tenor more and Andrew at hms and the ukulele site
Has them! Amazing tone with some punch and I do prefer them highly ..and in his price range

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I agree, the Blackbird Tenor I recently purchased has great tone and sustain!!!

The only experience I had with carbon fiber prior, was with a CF guitar from Rainsong; I sold it after a short time as I could not warm up to the harsh tone (IMHO).

To my ears, the Blackbird Tenor (low G) has a wonderful, warm, full tone with great projection, clarity and sustain.

The Satin finished Kanilea Tenors were originally called "Sound Monster", so you might want to have a look at those (since you asked for a "monstruos" sustain). I suppose that their Super Tenors with a larger lower bout will even have more sustain.

Rakelele said:

The Satin finished Kanilea Tenors were originally called "Sound Monster", so you might want to have a look at those (since you asked for a "monstruos" sustain). I suppose that their Super Tenors with a larger lower bout will even have more sustain.

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Does the body size actually affect sustain? I thought it was string length, neck stiffness, and mass.

Any tenor with a pickup and an amp will have more sustain than Carter's has pills.

equina said:

Other than sustain, what other criteria do you have? There are lots of ukes way below your budget that has longer sustain than your KoAloha Opio:

http://shop.mainlandukuleles.com/pr...8E0E.m1plqscsfapp05?productId=13&categoryId=3
http://www.ukerepublic.bigcartel.com/product/ohana-90-sc-cedar-spruce-rosewood-maple-ukulele
http://www.ukerepublic.bigcartel.com/product/ohana-redwood-rosewood-tenor
http://www.ukerepublic.bigcartel.com/product/ohana-tk-50-cedar-rosewood-tenor

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I would second the Mainland Red Cedar…sustain it has.

I second the Mainland Red Cedar…great sustain.

I am surprised that nobody mentioned that string choice will also have an effect upon how much or how little sustain you can achieve.

i.e., with all things being equal, strings with more tension may tend to be a bit stiff and not vibrate as long, where as lower tension strings may tend to vibrate a little longer.

of course this is also mitigated or enhanced by how freely the top of the instrument resonates with a given set of strings, by virtue of how thick or flexible it is...a thicker top may require more tension to better drive the top to resonate both longer and louder (sustain and amplitude), whereas a thinner top will require less tension to drive the top and the instrument can acutally be harmed by too much string tension, as evidenced by a lifting bridge, and/or bellying/dishing of the top around where the bridge is mounted. This has less of an effect on an instrument with a tailpiece and floating bridge like an archtop, as the arched-top shape is more resistant to bellying/dishing since a majority of the string tension is held by the tailpiece at that end, but the tension pressing down on the floating bridge must be with enough pressure to drive the top to resonate...

the main point is...there are more variables than just 'which uke' has more sustain, but maybe one should also add the question of 'which strings on which uke'...and in the past 3 months there have been MANY threads that debate our favorite strings on various instruments....

the only conclusions that I've found is that each person needs to experiement with various types of strings in order to seek and find the exact tone, play-feel, volume and sustain...

in pursuit of lasting sustain and less plinky tone on my tenors, I've found great satisfaction by tuning DOWN to re-entrant Bb, i.e., F-Bb-D-G. The only issue is that sometimes the 3rd or 'Bb' string is too floppy for my liking, and for that I've gone to using either a GHS Vanguard Classics classical guitar 'polished' 'G' string for the 3rd uke string, or a Thomastik-Infeld (T-I) CF-27 chrome flatwound for the 3rd uke string.

Both are 0.027 in diameter.

The T-I string has much lower finger-squeak noise and intonates better than the GHS, but the T-I string is also 3x the price from online resellers.

The above observations come from trying out string sets from over a dozen string companies, and many sets from each, all individually on over a dozen ukes over the past 18 months.

Some folks think that all strings of a given material (regardless of manufacturer label) all sound the same, but I beg to differ, and offer that their hearing perception may be less acute than mine, and their interest in a specific tone, tension and play-feel is also limited and are content with whatever they already have.

Different strokes for different folks, whatever makes you happy. is all that really matters.

Rakelele said:

The Satin finished Kanilea Tenors were originally called "Sound Monster", so you might want to have a look at those (since you asked for a "monstruos" sustain). I suppose that their Super Tenors with a larger lower bout will even have more sustain.

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I had a satin finish Kanile'a super tenor. It did seem more resonant, with more overtones than a regular Kanile'a tenor. But I'm not sure the sustain was any different.