Downside to super scale necks?

KaminTheWeaver

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I’ve seen a lot of long neck sopranos, as well as super concerts and tenors out there. I’ve read that the benefits are higher tension and better intonation up the neck. What are some challenges or downsides to having a longer scaled neck?
 
They can balance differently. I use a strap for pretty much everything so it isn't an issue for me. I generally like the smaller body/longer neck, especially for reentrant tunings. Of course, you're going to lose some "depth" of the larger body that might be useful for linear tuning.
 
I have both long neck sopranos & concerts, plus I even have a giraffe neck soprano - there are no down sides to them - they're great ukes.

I found regular soprano scale too tight, & regular tenor bodies too big to play comfortably sitting down, so that's my main reason for having them. :D

P.S. All mine have concert scale low G fluorocarbon strings, (Living Water in my case).
 
My main gigging 'uke is a super concert. The "disadvantages" that pop into my head are:

1) Certain chord voicings require wider fretting hand stretches (especially those voicings which combine two normally moveable chord shapes)
2) Fretting hand position changes require your wrist to traverse a longer distance
3) On many low-end ukes, the longer neck results in an unbalanced instrument
 
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Just a thought. It seems that the body volume to neck length ratio is to produce a sound that is resonates with eachother.
 
I play much cleaner on the super tenor scale and can't think of any down side other than cost: long scale designs tend to be expensive since they're somewhat of a speciality product. Well, I suppose a minor downside is once I got used to the longer scale I didn't want to go back to the cramped quarters of the standard scale.
 
You don't have to think of a super soprano as a soprano with a long neck. You can also think of it as a concert with a small body.
I own a Cole Clark Ukelady and from the start it has always been a concert instrument with a small body to me.
 
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You don't have to think of this as a disadvantage, but a longer scale instrument will not sound exactly like the standard scale; it's a slightly different sound. I recently played a Kamaka standard and long neck soprano back to back and they were quite different, although each had a beautiful tone.

Andy
 
You don't have to think of a super soprano as a soprano with a long neck. You can also think of it as a concert with a small body.
I own a Cole Clark Ukelady and from the start it has always been a concert instrument to me with a small body to me.

Anthony makes a great point! I like the combination of the small soprano-style body with the slightly longer concert scale neck. And the little extra bit of string tension associated with the longer neck adds a nice firm "feel" to standard "gCEA" tuning (which otherwise sometimes feels a little "floppy" to me, on a soprano scale).
 
Anthony makes a great point! I like the combination of the small soprano-style body with the slightly longer concert scale neck. And the little extra bit of string tension associated with the longer neck adds a nice firm "feel" to standard "gCEA" tuning (which otherwise sometimes feels a little "floppy" to me, on a soprano scale).
String selection for super tenors is hard
 
I'd have thought baritone strings would work(?).
The selection of strings for baritone tunes as GCEA is small.. but yes that is where I settled
Also super soprano scale is the same as concert, super concert scale is same as tenor but super tenor often is shorter than baritone.. which adds further complications to string tension
 
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One possible downside is some models require a custom longer case. If you’re flying you might not want that extra length. In the case of my longneck soprano it fits in a standard soprano case.
 
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For super tenor strings I wouldn't pay much attention to string labels like concert, tenor, etc. Go with strings gauges that sound and feel good. For example, I'm mainly a finger picker and like a .022" fluorocarbon as an A string on most of my tenors. On the longer neck tenor it's okay but on the tight side. So I use a .0205" and it's perfect. In fact the thinner string sounds better to me: longer sustain and nicer tone. Of course string choice depends on the bracing, string action and your playing style, e.g., if you're a hard strummer or have low action you'd want a little heavier string.
 
I have a Ko'Aloha soprano with a tenor neck that I love for strumming. You get a classic Hawaiian sound but with a neck that is easier to navigate. But if I'm finger picking or doing chord melody it of course doesn't have nearly the sustain of an actual tenor (at least at my skill level). Often I'll take both and switch depending on the song.
 
In some ways long neck/super scale neck ukuleles are really smaller bodied ukuleles. Rather than look at the advantages/disadvantages of the scale, maybe looking at the disadvantages of an undersized sound box. After all the neck doesn’t produce the sound, and getting a soprano size body with a tenor neck is more about the comfort of holding the smaller body than the comfort of the scale. Otherwise just buy a standard tenor.

The disadvantage, sound-wise, is being able to build (soundboard, bracing, etc) a small body that can handle the higher tension of a longer scale without choking out the tone. I think that is the real challenge and potential downside.

John
 
I, personally, would agree, that they are small bodied ukes, but I use the 'general' classification so that everyone knows what I'm talking about. ;)

I have LN sopranos & concerts, as well as my 'giraffe' neck soprano, love 'em all. :cool:

I also have a tenor scale RISA Uke Ellie, effectively a long neck 'soprano', size wise, but very different indeed. :)

Then there are my tenor & concert RISA Solid ukes, they don't even have a body as such. :music:
 
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