bluesey sound

after some weeding out and selling, i am down to my Ko'olau Koa concert with worth brown (a terrific instrument) and my Kala laminated mahogany KA-S with aquila (turned out to be a fine soprano).

Now i find myself playing more and more jazzy bluesy old standards. The Ko olau is a little too bright for where i want to take the music and the Kala is- -well, a soprano. I need a rich, full,warm bluesy sound.

I plan on searching out BIG K tenors to listen to. I am thinking solid mahogany or mahog mix maybe what i need. I like my ukes simple, high quality without too much bling. Tried a Kiwaya KTS-4, it was'nt The One.

1) Do you know of a quality concert that i should hear or should i concentrate on tenors? i am thinking less than $1000

2) which tenor would you suggest?

For a bluesy sound you may want to consider a resonator uke. Some Nationals come in at around $1k. UkeRepublic as has Ohana as well.

If you're using worths and things are a bit too bright with the Ko'olau and you want "bluesy", I would try downgrading your strings. Just some standard Hilos would at least be something to try before you fork out an extra 1k.

I think its mele makes a cedar topped mahogany sided/backed tenor -- a set of worth or fremont blacklines in low g ought to do the trick. course look at HMS they have a kala cedar and the sound bites are really good, used to have a low g sound byte on that uke think its gone though.

This may put a spanner in the works.

I would say that getting a bluesy sound has got almost nothing to do with the uke you are playing. It is the notes you play and the way you play that matters.

Having said that, I would say you are probably right going for a tenor size and an all-solid instrument will usually sound better, no matter what style of music you play.

When I play in a bluesy style, I generally choose my old mahogany tenor, but I use this as first choice for classical, celtic, bluegrass and rock too.

The strings you use are irrelevant really: nylon, Nylgut, fluoro-carbon. Use a good quality one though: D'Addario, Aquila, Worth, etc.

In the end, get the tenor you like the best. One which has a good sound, feel, tone, price, etc.

Sorry.

I actually like the way my Kamaka concert with Worth browns sounds when I try some blues licks. I am hoping to be able to string a few together before I die.. :/ But it's got a smokey woody sound I love, and the stings are very bendy.

Ken Middleton said:

This may put a spanner in the works.

I would say that getting a bluesy sound has got almost nothing to do with the uke you are playing. It is the notes you play and the way you play that matters.

Click to expand...

I have to second Ken. Getting the right "blues sound" is all about timing, bending, sliding, etc. Somebody who has the right touch can play great blues on a Dolphin - those of us who don't can't be helped with equipment, unfortunately. You can't just play a lot of 7 and 9 chords on a resonator and expect it to sound like real blues (unfortunately for me ).