Cuatro tuned as a Ukulele

Gaetan

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Hi everybody,

I'm french and i'd like to beguin the Ukulele but it's difficult for me to get one because I live in Venezuela. So i'd like to know if I could buy a cuatro and tune it like a Ukulele to have the typical hawain sound?

Would I have to change the string order, or the strings themselves?
 
How about you send me your cuatro, and I'll send you a uke? :)

If your cuatro has a 511 mm (20") scale length like the one Cordoba makes, you could use baritone uke strings. And tune to DBBE like the top four strings of a guitar. However, these would not be re-entrant (the outside strings are both high-pitched), which is a distinct part of the "ukulele sound". If you want a re-entrant string set, you would have to specifically order one. You might try southcoast strings. Dirk over there knows a lot about cuatros and strings is general.

http://www.southcoastukes.com/ukulele.htm
 
Thanks for the answer. Well it would be a pleasur to interchange a cuatro for a Ukulele but it's not easy to send something to USA.

Regarding your suggestion I'd like to keep the re-entrant tuning so if will have to get some special strings witch fit with the cuatro.

I'm already exploring 2 option:
- the 1st would be to buy a Ukulele from Amazon but it's a little complicated to send it to Venezuela and I don't like to buy an instrument without testing it.

- the other is to find a luthier here in Venezuela, there are a lot but they only manufacture very expensive instrument and as a beguiner I can't spent so much money in my 1st Ukulele.

I keep searching....
 
(of course the following is assuming a quatro is the size of a barritone uke)

To get a Quatro tuned like a ukulele, keep the middle two strings and buy a couple of classical guitar #1 strings to tune the outer two of your quatro to High A (in the #1) and High G (in the #4).

I just restrung a smaller instrument to sound like a quatro today... neat.
 
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To get a Quatro tuned like a ukulele, keep the middle two strings and buy a couple of classical guitar #1 strings to tune the outer two of your quatro to High A (in the #1) and High G (in the #4).

I could easily try that.
 
Also consider Living Water baritone re-entrant dgbe strings. They're great.
 
would this require changing out the nut due to the strings size difference? that's the only thing I can think of.
 
would this require changing out the nut due to the strings size difference? that's the only thing I can think of.

a valid point... I went the other way without changing the nut on my Uke. Going to non-wrapped strings, the diameter of the string itself might not be different enough to warrant it.
 
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