Oasis Fluorocarbon Baritone Strings - Sound Sample

Hi folks, I've been flat out renovating our house the last few months & sadly had little time for ukin' & UU, but today it rained & it was a bit dangerous up on the 6 meter scaffolding, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to record a quick video sound sample of the new Oasis Fluorocarbon Baritone Strings. Not really knowing what to expect, I fitted these to my Kinnard Super tenor, which is a 19" scale length. I tuned up & arrived at GCEA which was a happy place for tension & tone, although the A string was a little bit tight. The A string ended up breaking so I replaced it with a slightly heavier gauge string (a standard Oasis E string)
and happy days I'll see how they go over the next couple of weeks, I don't usually use an unwound 4th string, so the jury is still out in that regard Gauges are 4th 0.93, 3rd 0.82, 2nd 0.74, 1st 0.62, I replaced the 1st string with a standard Oasis E string which was 0.67

Interesting. The Elderly page says these are intended for DGBE. Not surprised the "A" string snapped.

I would be very careful about tuning strings designed for DGBE up a fourth to GCEA. That's a lot of extra tension. Some not-so-good things can happen, the least of which is a string breaking. Also, I would never replace a string that broke because the tension was too high with a string that is even thicker--that's even more tension.

My suggestion for a 19" scale instrument would be to use your favorite tenor string set and tune to FBbDG.

Sounds very nice. I bought a set of Oasis GPX+ Carbon Classical DGBE strings for a classical tenor guitar I'm building. If it sounds anywhere near as good as that, I'll be pleased.

BTW, I'd love to be able to fingerpick like that. My playing is less . . . . refined.

Camsuke said:

I tuned up & arrived at GCEA which was a happy place for tension & tone, although the A string was a little bit tight. The A string ended up breaking so I replaced it with a slightly heavier gauge string (a standard Oasis E string)...Gauges are 4th 0.93, 3rd 0.82, 2nd 0.74, 1st 0.62, I replaced the 1st string with a standard Oasis E string which was 0.71

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I know you know what you're doing but none of that makes sense to me. You put a "tenor" E string as a baritone "A" string a fourth higher? And the other 3 strings are also a fourth higher than "recommended". I know the Kinnard is well built, but how is it not just collapsing in on itself?

Jim Hanks said:

I know you know what you're doing but none of that makes sense to me. You put a "tenor" E string as a baritone "A" string a fourth higher? And the other 3 strings are also a fourth higher than "recommended". I know the Kinnard is well built, but how is it not just collapsing in on itself?

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Ha-ha, you're right, it could be fake news! I'll double check the string I used, it may have been mixed up & placed in the wrong packet ( I wonder who would have done that!) The 4th 3rd & 2nd strings feel absolutely fine tuned to Low G on the 19" scale. I reckon I've probably changed enough strings over the last 40 years to know what the right tension & tone feel like, but I'm sure there are many experts out there that would be far more qualified to assess these things than me! Most times we need to let our ears tell us what's right, rather than always relying on the data & also how the strings feel under the fingers Maybe they are supposed to be GCEA rather than DGBE, there isn't much information available & some I've seen is quite confusing. SBM list them as Low G & then show DGBE specs, the internal packaging also has the 4th as G and the 2nd string as E, who knows? That's exactly why I fitted them and just went where they felt & sounded okay, and that was GCEA

Heck, Campbell, I don't know much about string tension theory, I just know they sounded darn good when you played them!