Review: Graph Tech Ratio Tune-a-lele tuners on a Fluke

Graph Tech kindly sent me a set of their new Ratio Tune-a-lele black plastic geared planetary tuners for evaluation. I find them to be be very good, light and precise.

None of my eight ukes have peg or planetary tuners, but I recently bought a used plastic fret Fluke from the UU Marketplace with the original Gotoh tuners. Two of them would not stay tight so I had to adjust the knob screws, but would only stay if they were really screwed tight, making them difficult to turn.

I looked around for better ones when I saw posts here in early January about the new Ratio tuners that were going to be shown at the NAMM show. I held off and checked them out when I went and was very impressed and commented about them on those posts, which prompted Graph Tech to send me a set.

I received them a couple of weeks ago and installed them on my Fluke. They're a bit fatter than the Gotohs so the holes need to reamed out a little (I went too far with one and had to tape around the ferule to get it to stay). They also have two small screws to hold them in place. The frame is also slightly wider than the sides of the Fluke head, so they hang over slightly, which doesn't bother me at all.

They work so much better than the Gotohs, very precise with no play in them at all. There's never need to be adjusted and at $30 for a set, are a great buy. I highly recommend them.

Here are some photos I took at NAMM of their sample set, and of my Fluke after I installed them.

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This is Michael Kohan in Los Angeles, Beverly West near the Beverly Center
9 tenor cutaway ukes, 5 acoustic bass ukes, 11 solid body bass ukes, 9 mini electric bass guitars (Total: 34)

• Donate to The Ukulele Kids Club, they provide ukuleles to children in hospital music therapy programs. www.theukc.org
• Member The CC Strummers: YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/CCStrummers/video, Facebook: www.facebook.com/TheCCStrummers

I prefer having the knobs in the rear, rather than sticking out the sides. I wouldn't put them on a good uke with the holes remaining. I have a firefly with Gotohs and a fluke with geared tuners facing rear. I'm not a big fan or direct tuners. I guess you could say I'm a gearhead. : )

Bill1 said:

Thanks for the review. The concept has been proven to work well. It would be interesting to find out what Graphtech plans next, tuners which can be molded in plastic have a lot of scope.

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I just hope they plan to make them widely available soon.

Jerryc41 said:

I just hope they plan to make them widely available soon.

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And a good deal less clunky.

Thanks for the review. Nice to see an option to UPTs. Is the ratio difference between 6:1 and 4:1 noticeable or too close to make much difference in feel?

glennerd said:

Thanks for the review. Nice to see an option to UPTs. Is the ratio difference between 6:1 and 4:1 noticeable or too close to make much difference in feel?

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Considering the price, this could eat into Gotoh's business, especially if we can get them quickly. Making them all black is a smart move. One problem I had with Gotohs was finding the combination I wanted.

Jerryc41 said:

I prefer having the knobs in the rear, rather than sticking out the sides. I wouldn't put them on a good uke with the holes remaining. I have a Firefly with Gotohs and a Fluke with geared tuners facing rear. I'm not a big fan or direct tuners. I guess you could say I'm a gearhead.

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Didn't you have to do a lot of trimming of the plates to get them to fit? Sticking out the sides doesn't bother me at all.

glennerd said:

Thanks for the review. Nice to see an option to UPTs. Is the ratio difference between 6:1 and 4:1 noticeable or too close to make much difference in feel?

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The ratio of the Ratios (pun intended) feels very good to me, doesn't take much to tune them. Like I said, they're very precise.

(Aside; the more I play the Fluke, the less I like the shape of the neck. I may have to reshape it if I decide to keep it.)

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This is Michael Kohan in Los Angeles, Beverly West near the Beverly Center
9 tenor cutaway ukes, 5 acoustic bass ukes, 11 solid body bass ukes, 9 mini electric bass guitars (Total: 34)

• Donate to The Ukulele Kids Club, they provide ukuleles to children in hospital music therapy programs. www.theukc.org
• Member The CC Strummers: YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/CCStrummers/video, Facebook: www.facebook.com/TheCCStrummers

kohanmike said:

Didn't you have to do a lot of trimming of the plates to get them to fit? Sticking out the sides doesn't bother me at all.



The ratio of the Ratios (pun intended) feels very good to me, doesn't take much to tune them. Like I said, they're very precise.

(Aside; the more I play the Fluke, the less I like the shape of the neck. I may have to reshape it if I decide to keep it.)

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This is Michael Kohan in Los Angeles, Beverly West near the Beverly Center
9 tenor cutaway ukes, 5 acoustic bass ukes, 11 solid body bass ukes, 9 mini electric bass guitars (Total: 34)

• Donate to The Ukulele Kids Club, they provide ukuleles to children in hospital music therapy programs. www.theukc.org
• Member The CC Strummers: YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/CCStrummers/video, Facebook: www.facebook.com/TheCCStrummers

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I had to trim a bit of the metal mounting plate from the end so that they would lie next to each other. There's an online "how-to." As a matter of fact, I think it was someone from UU who posted it.

Am I correct, in that the tuners have no way to adjust the friction or holding point?

So they are like open and closed geared tuners in that respect. It will be interesting to hear how well they hold up after a year or so.

Thanks for the review. I'll keep an open mind next time I want to change out some Pegheds or friction tuners.

The Graph tech tuners look great on the Fluke. If I were MFC I’d adjust nect depth to fit and standardize on these. So much better than friction at not much of price upgrade. I upgraded my tenor Fluke to pegheds as I hated the friction tuner that came with Fluke. See like a no brainer match. Are these available yet. Or are they still tweaking the design?

Kenn2018 said:

Am I correct, in that the tuners have no way to adjust the friction or holding point?

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Not that I can see.

M3Ukulele said:

The Graph tech tuners look great on the Fluke. If I were MFC I’d adjust nect depth to fit and standardize on these. So much better than friction at not much of price upgrade. I upgraded my tenor Fluke to pegheds as I hated the friction tuner that came with Fluke. See like a no brainer match. Are these available yet. Or are they still tweaking the design?

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I had the same thought. I think the wholesale price is $14, I don't know what the low end Gotohs go for.

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This is Michael Kohan in Los Angeles, Beverly West near the Beverly Center
9 tenor cutaway ukes, 5 acoustic bass ukes, 11 solid body bass ukes, 9 mini electric bass guitars (Total: 34)

• Donate to The Ukulele Kids Club, they provide ukuleles to children in hospital music therapy programs. www.theukc.org
• Member The CC Strummers: YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/CCStrummers/video, Facebook: www.facebook.com/TheCCStrummers

Bumping an old thread...

@kohanmike - how have these Tune-a-lele tuners held up over the last couple of years? Are you still a fan?

I am signing up for a similar project, wondering which tuners to pick

Has Kala adopted/rebranded the Graph Tech tuners? They look exactly the same.

Poul Hansen said:

Has Kala adopted/rebranded the Graph Tech tuners? They look exactly the same.

Kala Ukulele Machine Heads BK

Machine Heads Set For Ukuleles With a 6:1 gear ratio especially developed for ukuleles, Fits most enclosed headstocks, No static friction and no countermovement, Tested traction capacity: up to 34 kg, Light composite material which guarantees a...

www.thomann.de

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My 2020 Kala Elite Custom (koa) came with Graph Tech Ratio tuners. Three of the tuners failed within the first couple weeks: would spin freely and not hold pitch for even one second. Initially HMS replaced the failed tuners with new Graph Tech Ratio tuners and they also failed quickly, so they installed a set of Gotoh UPT and all has been well since. I assume the Graph Tech Ratio tuners were a defective early batch. I observed their failure on 2020 Kala Elite Doghair Tenors as well. With that said, they felt very smooth when they actually worked—a notch smoother than the UPT—but look really cheap and plastic.

kerneltime said:

I am signing up for a similar project, wondering which tuners to pick

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I have a custom uke with the GraphTech Ratio tuners on. I think they are excellent for smaller ukes because they are so light. And of course they're really easy to use. Not quite as smooth as Gotoh planetary tuners but tuning is precise enough and restringing is easy and fast. Some people dislike the bulky look on the back of the tuners but I quite like it. Seems like a sort of vintage look to me. I also like that there are no metal parts on the tuners and the tuning pegs have a sort of matte look to them. Another aspect that makes them look a bit vintage which is why I chose them on my custom.

That being said, one should definitely take into account the issues mentioned above. Early examples of the Ratio tuners were prone to breakage. I haven't experienced that and I would bet that the newer batches are much more reliable but they certainly are not as reliable as more expensive tuners. I had to have one tuner replaced on my uke because it started to rattle. It didn't fail completely and was still perfectly usable but something inside the tuner was causing a rattle. The positive - for me at least - is that they are fairly cheap and easily replaceable. I do like them but if you want a more reliable tuner I'd consider either Gotoh or Der Jung planetary tuners if the cost isn't an issue.

Yes, I had a post snap off on the early version, later versions have been fine. IMO, they work great, but they should offer a shorter post version too, since the posts are very long, and stick way up high on thinner headstock ukes, looking weird, especially on sopranos.

Poul Hansen said:

Has Kala adopted/rebranded the Graph Tech tuners? They look exactly the same.

Kala Ukulele Machine Heads BK

Machine Heads Set For Ukuleles With a 6:1 gear ratio especially developed for ukuleles, Fits most enclosed headstocks, No static friction and no countermovement, Tested traction capacity: up to 34 kg, Light composite material which guarantees a...

www.thomann.de

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The price is listed as 222 KR, which is $24.41, but the US site for Thomann lists them for $28, the same as the Graph tech tuners. Amazon, too.

The regular, geared black Ratio tuners on that Amazon page, listed at $115 and $136, have identical-looking twins on Ali Express for $3 and $7, plus shipping. Of course, they're not actual Ratio tuners. I ordered three sets of the $7 tuners. With shipping, they are cheaper than the $2 ones - different sellers on AliExpress.

Ukecaster said:

Yes, I had a post snap off on the early version, later versions have been fine. IMO, they work great, but they should offer a shorter post version too, since the posts are very long, and stick way up high on thinner headstock ukes, looking weird, especially on sopranos.

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I've been hesitant to buy them or to use the original set I got because of bad reports here. I have one set on a Fluke - so far, so good.

Ukecaster said:

Yes, I had a post snap off on the early version, later versions have been fine. IMO, they work great, but they should offer a shorter post version too, since the posts are very long, and stick way up high on thinner headstock ukes, looking weird, especially on sopranos.

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I have to agree on the tuner posts. They are a tad too long. I don't think they look bad but when restringing you can clearly see they're longer than standard tuning posts.