Thumper
Well-known member
I bought a Lanikai LU-21 soprano online for 50 bucks, and have been quite happy with it as a starter uke. It came with Aquila strings, and sounds pretty nice to my newbie ears.
As the inevitable onset of UAS hit me, and I found myself enjoying my ukulele even more than I'd expected, I began to look into some better ukuleles, but realized I'd never tried any other types or sizes. So I went to a local Sam Ash, to see if they had any ukuleles I could try, to get a sense of what the different sizes felt like to play.
I'm really glad I did - I discovered that a concert neck is much easier for my pudgy fingers to play tightly grouped 4-finger chords on. And I also discovered that my uke sounded better than any of theirs. On one hand, this made me feel great, and validated that I'd made a decent choice in buying the LU-21. But it also puzzled me. Most of the ukes in the store were more expensive than mine: they had an Oscar Schmitt concert for about $170, and a couple other Schmitt and Applause/Ovation ukes, only one of which was as cheap as mine. They all sounded muted and quiet, with very little tone. But I noticed that they all had thin black stings - thinner than my Aquilas. So I'm assuming they were a more budget-oriented string (as is always the case in major music stores, there was nobody working there who actually knew anything about the products they were selling, so I couldn't confirm this).
So that leads to my question: is the quality of strings a key determining factor in making a budget uke sound decent? That's certainly my hypothesis after this experience. I'm really feeling lucky to have started out with my Aquila-equipped Lanikai, which I bought pretty much on impulse, never having even touched a ukulele. Because I have to say, if my first exposure to a ukulele had been one of the dead-sounding ukes I encountered in this music store, I might never have even bought one, because the sound would have turned me off.
Whatcha think?
As the inevitable onset of UAS hit me, and I found myself enjoying my ukulele even more than I'd expected, I began to look into some better ukuleles, but realized I'd never tried any other types or sizes. So I went to a local Sam Ash, to see if they had any ukuleles I could try, to get a sense of what the different sizes felt like to play.
I'm really glad I did - I discovered that a concert neck is much easier for my pudgy fingers to play tightly grouped 4-finger chords on. And I also discovered that my uke sounded better than any of theirs. On one hand, this made me feel great, and validated that I'd made a decent choice in buying the LU-21. But it also puzzled me. Most of the ukes in the store were more expensive than mine: they had an Oscar Schmitt concert for about $170, and a couple other Schmitt and Applause/Ovation ukes, only one of which was as cheap as mine. They all sounded muted and quiet, with very little tone. But I noticed that they all had thin black stings - thinner than my Aquilas. So I'm assuming they were a more budget-oriented string (as is always the case in major music stores, there was nobody working there who actually knew anything about the products they were selling, so I couldn't confirm this).
So that leads to my question: is the quality of strings a key determining factor in making a budget uke sound decent? That's certainly my hypothesis after this experience. I'm really feeling lucky to have started out with my Aquila-equipped Lanikai, which I bought pretty much on impulse, never having even touched a ukulele. Because I have to say, if my first exposure to a ukulele had been one of the dead-sounding ukes I encountered in this music store, I might never have even bought one, because the sound would have turned me off.
Whatcha think?
. I played it for a couple of hours with the GHS strings and then swapped back the 3 other Aquila strings because they sounded so much better.
