Strange Stringing

Stackabones

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I bought an Amigo Tenor Uke (AMT 8) years ago, put it away in storage, and just now pulled it out. It has nylon strings on the 1st and 4th strings and wound ones on the 2nd and 3rd.

I've tuned it like regular C-tuning but the middle strings are one octave lower. So, to use South Coast Uke's chart, this uke is tuned g'cea', rather than the standard g’ c’ e’ a’.

Its sound is unusual, yet beautiful. Since the strings are rather old (the wounds are in terrible shape), I'd like to restring it, but using a similar tuning.

Anyone got any light to shine on this?
 
Hello Bones,

That's unusual all right! Never heard of dropping the center (lowest) strings an octave.

Are you sure you're not being (overly)cautious with the tension on those wounds? Are they extremely thick compared to what you would normally see on an ukulele? To get those notes you'd need something along the lines of high tension guitar 5th & 6th strings!

p.s: Wish I could take credit for that notation. It's simply standard notation, or as some say, Helmholtz notation.
 
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Perhaps I am being a bit too cautious, Dirk! I could probably crank them up, as they are about as thick as a guitar's wound 4th string -- just guesstimating here.

I'd always thought it was just called standard. Helmholtz, never knew that. Still, I think the UU nomenclature should be SCU notation.
 
Hey Bones,

Standard notation does make things quicker and easier to understand.

If those strings are about the size of a guitar 4th, they could just be in the wrong places. You may want to try the thicker as a 4th string, and the other as a 3rd. Could just be an out of place linear C set-up.
 
Good point. Though perhaps the Amigo folks in Romania just do it differently!

Still, I like the sound of it this way. I may just keep it on this uke for a while longer. Call it the Romanian tuning.
 
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