Thread: Spruce Top + Low C -- Make Sense?

ukemunga

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I like the sounds of what I'm reading about spruce tops and I think I'd like to replace the OS-OU2 with a spruce top concert.

The OS is strung with an unwound low g and that's how I'd like to keep a concert.

But I'm associating a spruce top with a "brightness" vs a "mellow" mahogany. If this is correct, does it make sense to string a spruce top with a low g?

I don't know why not but the idea of bright with a mellower low g sound doesn't compute.

I think it would sound great, though!

As an aside, I was trying to pick up a fingerstyle "Hallelujah" today and the version I was trying just could not be done on a high g. Well, I suppose it could be done, but not by me!
 
Body size, not topwood is what you look at in determining a tuning. I wouldn't put a low G on a Concert body. I know I'm in the minority on this (Ohta, Ohta), but it will sound much better on a bigger body.

If you're going to do it anyway, the top doesn't make much difference.
 
Instead of asking for advice, just go for it and let us know what you think and how you like it. The only one you have to please is yourself. A friend of mine has a Kala Spruce top and he's always played with a low g, says brings out the bottom end a little more.
 
I'm kind of with Dirk on this one. We string our tenors with a low G unless asked otherwise, and our concerts with a high G unless asked otherwise.

Spruce works fantastically well for a tenor top.
 
Damn! I was afraid of that...

My problem is that I have no frame of reference. I've never seen, let alone played, anything other than those I have. And they've all been ordered online based on reading and YouTube.

I was just kidding lol.
Low-G works fine on a spruce uke. It doesn't matter if you put it on a concert.
 
No! Youre breaking the laws of ukephysics

Hello kissing,

Although you went back on this later - this post was actually correct. I've tried to explain this ad infinitum - without much success. Recently I saw a post by Dave Means of Glyph Ukuleles making the same point. He is probably better than I am in his explanation of "ukephyisics":

Without getting too technical, it is the resonances present in the body of the instrument that help transfer the energy in the vibrating string to the job of moving sufficient air to produce adequate volume. A low note requires moving much more air than a higher one to produce the same volume (that's why woofers are bigger than tweeters). Without the support of body resonances, lower notes will sound at a significantly lower volume than higher notes.

The problem is, certain minimum physical dimensions are necessary to produce resonances that will support lower notes (this again is basic physics). The lowest resonance the body of an acoustic instrument can produce is the air (or Helmholtz) resonance that is generated by the interaction of the soundboard, the volume of air inside the body, and the soundhole, and the pitch and magnitude of that resonance is determined almost entirely by the dimensions of the body and the soundhole. On a well-designed instrument, this resonance is fairly broad (encompassing several musical steps), but it must be fairly close to the pitch of the lowest note available on the fretboard in order to prop up the volume of the lowest bass.

Think about it,.... If small instruments were capable of adequately producing bass notes, why would string bass players carry around bass viols. They'd just string violins to do the job... much more convenient to schlepp around.

Of course, with the miracle of electronics, it is possible to boost the bass end electronically, substituting that reinforcement for what what is missing acoustically.

I can think of one psychoacoustic phenomenon that may partially explain what you are hearing with your instruments. Any note on a stringed instrument is composed of a mix of it's fundamental (lowest) pitch along with harmonics at multiples of the fundamental (at octave intervals). When an instrument (or a loudspeaker, for that matter) is incapable of adequately producing the fundamental of a low note, the harmonics of the note may actually be louder than the nearly nonexistent fundamental (and it doesn't take nearly as big an instrument to properly support those harmonics). Studies have shown that the ear is fooled into thinking it is actually hearing the bass note as long as a little bit of the fundamental is audible. As the harmonics fall into place musically (or "harmonically") there is no dissonance... the sound is just thinner than if the fundamental were really there at full volume.

I've noticed you like amplified instruments. As Dave mentioned, that can change everything. But I think "ukephysics" (I like that word) puts limits on acoustic tunings that too many ignore. A lot of this can be fun, and it doesn't mean you can't produce good sounding music with tunings that aren't the best choice. Still it seems to me that truly resonant tuning choices are the most fun of all!
 
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I totally agree, and really big thanks for that valuable information.

The only point I'm making is that - yes, it is not ideal to put lower notes on an instrument with a small body.
But for a little fun of what is called music, it still works to some point.

But I really do heed your advice that it would not be the ideal.
Even on amplified instruments, it is better to use a longer scale for the lower notes.
My short scaled bass does not have as much depth as a long scale bass. My short scaled electric ukes don't have as much bass response and sustain as a long scaled guitar.

But I do get a smaller instrument that I can just take around and have fun with :)
And it does allow me to have the ukulele playability, which is quite different from guitar playability.

Although, in my opinion, I think you can get away with a smaller body size for a low-G.
A violin and a mandolin is similar in size to a concert/tenor uke. Yet they both have a low-G as part of their ordinary tuning.
 
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