Anyone play octave lower GCEA baritone

uketanzon

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Thinking of restringing my baritone to octave lower GCEA with some Guadalupe strings. Never play it as dgbe. Anyone do this....interested in comments
Thanks
 
Tried them and sold them again. Too floppy to play, the sound was too muddy for my ears and the baritone just couldn't handle the lower notes. 'Normal' gCEA or GCEA felt just like I was playing an oversized tenor. I'm sticking with DGBE.
 
Curious as to why you dont play it in DGBE? I am thinking of getting a Baritone, as I love the deeper tone, but am a bit worried that will not play it as much, if all my sheet music is for GCEA, and not as much available for DGBE.

I did read about those Guadalupe strings to string a low GCEA for a baritone , and wonder if they are less floppy and sound ok. If you do try them, love to hear your experience. Thanks.
 
Curious as to why you dont play it in DGBE? I am thinking of getting a Baritone, as I love the deeper tone, but am a bit worried that will not play it as much, if all my sheet music is for GCEA, and not as much available for DGBE.

I had the same worries once, but it works out much better than I thought. There are baritone resources, and there are zillions guitar tabs available that work quite well. Chords are as easy to learn as they were on GCEA. Also you can just play your GCEA sheets on DGBE, if you're playing alone.
And the longer I play baritone, the more I learn about keys, scales, etcetera, which brings all kinds of new possibilities.
 
I have the Guadalupe strings on a Giannini baritone. I love the sound, but the strings are weird, especially the A string. It's a strange kind of white material (unlike the others), feels a bit plasticky, and is very thick. I sometimes have a hard time fretting it cleanly. Having said that, it's one of only three ukes that I leave out all the time so it's always ready to be picked up and played. I think it's neat.
 
I have my baritone tuned GDAE (an octave below a mandolin). The bass string is an ordinary wound nylon guitar "E" string and working up from there, specifically .043"w .036"w .035" .026" ... that's two wound and two plain. Figuring a set for GCEA should be straight-forward enough, especially if you've got a local friendly retailer with a stock of single guitar strings ... good luck :)
 
PSA: Make sure the guitar string singles are classical/nylon strings, not acoustic guitar strings.
 
I tried it and found it sounded ok in a group, but lacked as a solo instrument.
 
It works OK, but it also depends a lot on how the ukulele is setup. To avoid buzzing and a better tone, slightly high action accomodates the low gcea.

I dont have a baritone tuned like this at the moment, but here is a video I did a while back on an Oscar Schmidt baritone with Guadalupe strings. You don't even need to order the Guadalupe strings - you can just use the EADG strings from a regular classical guitar string set and tune it GCEA on a baritone (and ADGB strings for regular DGBE on baritone)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCyLRHl0wEY

Mostly for fingerpicking. Not ideal for strumming due to muddiness
 
I have heard it on a Mainland baritone. When it was played as part of an ensemble, it gave some unexpected tones. Some of the notes boomed in such an odd way, I thought somebody was humming along. As a solo instrument, it was muddy. I like my baritone in DGBE.

–Lori
 
Thanks for all the comments and videos.....I have decide to leave well enough alone....
Make it a reentrant high d gbe. Thanks for all the input.
 
An awful lot of bari players here seem to be very happy after they switched to Southcoast strings.
 
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