Modern Tiples

zac987

zac987

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Many modern day ukulele companies have jumped onto the banjo uke bandwagon. How long do you think it will be before modern Tiples, taropatches, etc start showing up? (if at all)
 
Am not familiar enough with the Taropatch to comment, but as to the Tiple, I'd be surprised if anyone trys to tackle that baby. The North American version we know is one of those mid 20th century "uke gimmicks".

That's not to say they can't be fun - I have one, and on those occasions I pull it out, I have a blast! But the strain of all those metal strings - they are notorious for breaking down, and all the double courses make intonation difficult as well (re-tune after every song).

There are a few folks making them now on a semi-custom basis. I would imagine they address those basic design problems, but doing so would not come cheap.
 
I too think they were more of a novelty instrument.. I have distaste to even tune 6 strings..just think of ten or twelve strings... sheesh...
 
southcoastukes said:
all the double courses make intonation difficult as well (re-tune after every song).
Click to expand...

I've been using my tiple more the last few weeks, but the tuning problem just stuns me. As I pluck a note and hold the instrument in front of the tuner, I can hear the tuning go sharp or flat while the note is sustaining. I spend almost as much time tuning the tiple as playing it.
 
Yasuma%20Tiple.jpg



I like that the Kanile'a tiple wraps the string around a vertical peg. On my Yasuma tiple, the string wraps around a horizontal shaft (picture above). It adds a big unnecessary degree of freedom that makes tuning several times harder.

I like pegs where the only degree of freedom is making the tension greater or lesser. Give a string the possibility of drifting horizontally, and it really hinders tuning. My Fluke concert is the only one of my 5 ukes where the string winds around a horizontal peg, and it's the hardest of my ukes to keep in tune.
 
Going back to Zac's original question, I don't think the tiple has a lot more chance of becoming popular again than the ukelin. It's too unwieldy an instrument. If I hadn't already bought one, I wouldn't buy one.
 
Uke4ia that tiple is beautiful. I'd love one but wouldn't buy one unless I could also afford my own personal uke tech to keep it tuned for me :)
 
That picture isn't my tiple, it's a picture of a Yasuma like mine that I found on-line years ago. I think on E-bay. The look is the problem. I bought it because I kept going into the music store and seeing that beautiful instrument in a beautiful hard-shell case for a reasonable price. Eventually I broke down and bought it. And I've never found a good use for it. It's such a bear to tune, and I find it really limited in terms of what I can play on it, between the problem of fretting 10 strings and the chunky bouzouki-like sound.

But I'm messing around with it more lately. I'm trying it out with various rock songs. (The only tiple I ever heard on a rock song was playing chords in the background of the XTC song "Grass".) I posted a video a few weeks ago of playing Procol Harum and Alan Parsons songs on it. Last night, I was trying Crowded House's "Weather With You" and some New Pornographers songs.
 
I personally really like the sound of a Tiple. I like the idea of a Kanilea Tiple, but I'm sure that's far more money than I'd be willing to pay for a musical instrument lol
 
I showed my tiple some love today. I had a strap post installed on the neck and bought a strap for it.
 
Just for the sake of doing it, I'm planning to bring my tiple to this Friday's open mike instead of my Kawika tenor. I've been practicing several songs on it. By Friday, there should be two out of those that I'll feel confident enough that I can get through without having to stop in the middle of the song to re-turn.
 
zac987 said:
Many modern day ukulele companies have jumped onto the banjo uke bandwagon. How long do you think it will be before modern Tiples, taropatches, etc start showing up? (if at all)
Click to expand...
You never know... it might happen. At NAMM in Los Angeles last January, Louis Wu showed me a prototype of a 10 string uke in the Ohana booth. It had several double courses of strings and one triple course. You might inquire at Ohana, and see if they are planning to go forward with that. It does take a good bit of time to get a new design to market. They did a really great job with their new 5 string tenor, so I know they will wait until everything is right before offering it to their customers.
–Lori
 
Rats. A few nights ago, my tiple stayed in tune for over 30 minutes. Today, I just tried videotaping a couple of songs. In both of them, in the third verse the tuning of the C and G strings drifted noticeably. Razzafrazzin' ruzzafruzzin' tiple.
 
That makes sense. The tiple was originally a Central and South American instrument, pronounced TEE-play. These are still used in Colombia. Then it was used by Martin as the basis for a 10-string ukulele style American instrument, pronounced tipple. So both the viola and tiple may have a common ancestor.
 
While the Brazilian viola and the American tiple both have ten strings, the former has five courses and the latter has four. The viola is also much bigger.
 
I use a tiple all the time for playing out, recording, and at jams and have real no problems with tuning stability -- I use an old Regal mahogany/spruce job.

I removed the (broken) glued-on bridge and set it up with a tailpiece/floating bridge setup. It's extremely stable now and sounds 10x better... and while someone commented on slotted tuners being less stable than solid-headstock tuners -- this is a falsehood. The true problem is that many (cheap) slotted tuners themselves are just of inferior quality. A good set of tuners will remove that issue. This was the case with my old '72 Martin D12-20 -- I popped a set of new StewMac repro '20s tuners on it and the thing hasn't had to be tuned up in 3 months.

RE a modern tiple -- I totally think there's room for improvement on the instrument!

I think an 8-string configuration, with mando-style tailpiece/floating bridge setup, and octaves on all the courses would give it a much richer, more interesting and practical tonality. Also possibly a slightly longer scale and slightly thinner gauged strings for GCEA tuning. It would look like: gG cC eE aA -- 11/24w, 16/40w, 15/34w, 10/20w.

Obviously, I've been thinking about this a lot... :D ...I love these instruments, as they have a totally original voice.
 
Woo Hoo! I brought the tiple to open mike night tonight instead of the usual tenor, and the tuning was well-behaved. It stayed in tune until the ending end of my second song. I played "Fall on Me" by R.E.M., and not only did the tiple stay in tune but I sang all the high notes right.
 
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