Uke setup - post purchase

I have a question regarding Uke setup.

First some background info:
I purchased my Ukulele a few months ago and recently it started to have a Buzz on the C string on the 4th and 7th frets. Now I think a good part of this might have to do with the temperature and humidity shifts in my region (Ontario, Canada). My uke sits on his stand and the house humidity is probably too low. Now I am not too concerned about my Uke as it is an inexpensive 150$ all laminate Uke (Oscar Schmidt OU4). But I am wondering if this has anything to do with it. Right now the Uke is in a room with a humidifier and I will see if this improves.

Now to my question:
I never had a proper setup done to this Uke. I picked it at a store and tried a couple of the same model before buying it. It sounded great, had Aquilla strings, and stayed tuned up properly (after the strings settled in). Now the Uke stores in my area are very limited and the store where I bought it is a very good guitar store. I asked them about setting up a Uke and they admitted they have never setup a Uke before. Should I be concerned? They setup tons of guitars and are very well rated. Should I get it done at this store? My other option is a Big box store and I am not too keen on trusting them on an instrument that was not purchased there.

Let me know what you think.

I doubt that humidity is the problem since the uke is laminated. Laminated ukes have one thing going for them, short of dunking them in a bathtub or sticking them in an oven they tend to be pretty immune to environmental issues.

You metnion it has Aquila strings - if they are pretty old you may just need to replace them. Aquila strings are actually nylon wrapped with a very thin layer of gut (hence the name NylGut) and with playing the gut coating sometimes loosens or frays.

As for getting it set up, the first thing I would do is determine if it needs a setup. If you have a good tuner you can check this yourself. (You need a tuner with a precise display - most inexpensive clip-on tuners are not really adequate for this task because, while accuracy may be specified as +/- 1 cent or even finer, they don't have the capability to display with that precision. I.e. the little Kala tuners will show "green and centered" from several cents below to several cents above the correct pitch.) You don't need a super-expensive tuner, something like the small Korg CA-30 chromatic tuner will work fine.

Okay, you tune the string to pitch, then fret normally at the first fret. On a perfect instrument, including expensive handbuilt ukes and ukes set up by people like MGM, you should still be "spot on" the correct pitch. I.e. the C string should read exactly C# and so on. Typically, inexpensive instruments will "fail" this test on at least one string, and usually on all of them. If all four strings pull sharp by less than 5 cents you hit the lottery. Unless you or someone you play with has really good pitch sense I'd call that "good enough" and not bother with a setup.

Typically, though, you won't be that lucky. I've seen many inexpensive factory instruments pull as much as 20 or 25 cents sharp on most of the strings. The cause of this is the nut being too high. The fix is to gradually file the slots in the nut deeper until the intonation is perfect. Unfortunately, you sometimes can't go that low without buzzing because the frets are not even. I'm usually content if I can get within about five cents at the first fret on all strings, though I have a blind friend with perfect pitch who cringes even at 5 cents. LOL

You can also check intonation at the twelfth fret but you usually can't do much about it unless the bridge saddle is very, very high. This is because intonation issues at the twelfth fret usually have a different cause. 12th Fret intonation is primarily set by the string tension so the only way to correct it when you have a fixed bridge is to try different strings.

John

OK just did that test on my uke and the only string fretted at the 1st fret that does not come out as a # is the E string. It comes out as an F. I tuned within 5 cents.

The buzz on the C string is very strange. It only sounds when I fret from 2-5. Anything higher sounds fine. Even weirder is I hear the buzz/rattle at the bridge.

Would love to learn how to fix this myself as I am very much a hands-on kind of guy. Should I look into changing strings? They do not look worn out as far as I can tell. There are no indentations in them when I pass my pinky under them (as per J. Hill comment about changing strings). I have only had this Uke for 2 months (although I play it about 2 hrs/day).

Yes, you should get an F at the first fret of the E string because F is one half step above E. If, when the open string is tuned spot on, the first fret is no more than five cents sharp on any string, I'd say you've got a pretty decent uke - probably not worth paying for a setup.

60 days at 2 hours a day is 120 hours - that's quite a bit of play on Aquila strings. I think the first thing I would do is change them. It's cheap and easy, and probably needed anyway, so you're not out anything if it doesn't fix the buzz.

John

Alright. Just ordered new strings tonight. Thanks very much for the help.