Ukelele with Floyd Rose?

So today I was messing around with my new eleuke trying to play some mean guitar licks on the ukulele. I was bending the strings pretty far, the worth strings are of pretty low tension, but they would constantly go out of tune after I would come out of the bend.

My question is this:

has there been any ukulele made that someone has seen with some sort of locking nut mechanism like in a Floyd Rose?

Alternatively, has anyone ever seen someone put a whammy bar or the like onto a uke? crazy rocking possibilities out there if they have.

Thanks

Never heard of it, but would like to see a full size Bigsby on a concert!

I once saw a video of a guy who put a bigsby on a really cheap classical guitar. He used masking tape to suspend a single coil pickup over the soundhole.

It looked so bad it was awesome, and it actually sounded pretty cool. Tried finding it the other day to no avail.

Because this is a new uke, is it possible that the strings were going out of tune because they aren't yet broke in?

papplehead said:

Floyd Rose? Alternatively, has anyone ever seen someone put a whammy bar or the like onto a uke?

Click to expand...

It would be so unbalanced it would be called "Floyd the Barber".

Aloha Papplehead,
Yeah Iv'e seen them on electric guitars....but I rather prefer to have the option to adjust them with ease with tuners.
Strings usually have a breaking in period, and it would be easier for me to retune...and whammy bars in my opinion for ukes
won't work as they strech the strings out of tune more...for steel strings on guitars it would benefit that locking
nut mechanism your talking and probally it's what it's for...Good Luck! and Happy Strumming!! MM Stan..

papplehead said:

So today I was messing around with my new eleuke trying to play some mean guitar licks on the ukulele. I was bending the strings pretty far, the worth strings are of pretty low tension, but they would constantly go out of tune after I would come out of the bend.

My question is this:

has there been any ukulele made that someone has seen with some sort of locking nut mechanism like in a Floyd Rose?

Alternatively, has anyone ever seen someone put a whammy bar or the like onto a uke? crazy rocking possibilities out there if they have.

Thanks

Click to expand...

I think with nylon strings, you'd be stretching them enough that they would detune even with a locking nut or locking tuners. It's not so mauch an issue of the string slipping as it that the nylon or floruocarbon or whatever is stretching and it takes it awhile to remember it's regular tension. With steel strings you shouldn't have that problem if you simply have a locking tuners - that's the cheapest option I know of - but locking tuners are heavy so would unbalance most ukes.

You might want to try a Risa electic uke that uses steeel strings - the one's that shaped like a kidney bean and has lipstick singl coil or humbucker pickups - they look like a mini electricl guitar. See if bending these strings still gives you a detuning problem. If so, replace the exisiting tuners with locking ones (they cost around $50 or so from musicians friend), and see if that works.

As to a whammy bar, you might be able to replace the bridge on the same Risa electric with a guitar bridge that has a whammy attachment - these bridges aren't attached all to the body - one end of the bridge actually lifts up and that's what cause the detuning, so you're not actually bending the string - you're doing the opposite. I doubt this would would work on most ukes, but maybe you could modify an eleuke. You'd have two extra slots for the other two strings of the guitar, which might cause rattling or buzzing though - but it would solve the problem of stretching out the nylon or flourocarbon strings... The string spacing would also aprobably be closer together than on your original bridge, which may or may not be a problem...

Now if you're talking about a so-called floating whammy, like a Floyd Rose bridge (as opposed ot the locking nut) which goes both way - closer to and farther away from the nut,, then you'd need the locking nut or locking tuners - plus you'd still have the problem of stretched out nylon or flourocarbon strings - so really only an option for steel strings...

You could check to see if the approproiate hardware is available for electric mandos, like the Firebird. If so, you might be able to adapt that for your ueses (electric mandos usually have only 4 strings instead of 8, but the string spcaing is MUCH closer together, which can mess up uke players...).

Have fun!

It would work, in theory, on a steel string electric ukulele such as the ones made by Risa.
They are built the same way as electric guitars, except uke-fied (4 strings, smaller body, shorter scale).

However, I have not seen a whammy bar on a steel string electric ukulele. I really wouldn't mind having them on my Risa's. I wonder whether they could be custom fitted.

Someone who knew something about metalwork could probably make a maestro vibrola style vibrato for flat-top solid electric ukes.

Can't see it being too hard.

I suggested this idea to Eleuke themselves a while ago. They had a thread up here asking for opinions and ideas for things they would like to see from a solid electric uke. They're devolping one at the minute, prob along the same lines as the Risa models (infact does anybody know when thats due for launch, it was meant to be pretty soon?)...

Anyway, back on subject. I suggested that the ukes could have adjustable wrap around stop bar bridges, like on most Les Paul guitars etc. I then suggested how I'd seen a genuine Gibson after market tremelo system, designed for the Melody Maker, which was simply a rolling stop bar bridge with a handle. That just fitted onto the same mounts and so was easy to fit etc, so I suggested that a similar kind of thing would be a great idea. I'd also seen another interesting idea that another company has come up with, which is making brackets for Bigsbys so that you can attach them to your guitar without having to screw into the body. The uke could come with a standard bridge and then you could by after market upgrades. I also suggested that they could have interchangable pick-ups, again coming with standard basics with the option of upgrading...

Anyway, some links:

The trem idea is here: http://www.zzguitarworks.com/servlet...nts/Categories
The pick up idea is here: http://www.gdk-usa.com/
The original Eleuke thread should be here: http://www.ukuleleunderground.com/f...ng-a-Steel-String-Ukulele...What-do-you-think

papplehead said:

So today I was messing around with my new eleuke trying to play some mean guitar licks on the ukulele. I was bending the strings pretty far, the worth strings are of pretty low tension, but they would constantly go out of tune after I would come out of the bend.

Click to expand...

I bend my strings to the point they have popped out of the nut and never had that problem. Nylon strings take some time to stretch, kind of like a guitar steel string for the first song or two except it takes much longer with nylon.

Here's one with a Bigsby, bottom of the page: http://www.hummingbirdukuleles.com/ukuleles.html