OldePhart
Well-known member
Okay, so I'd pretty much settled on my "Seaguar CH" set on this uke - but tuned down to Bb since it has a weird resonance-related buzz at around F#-G when those heavy strings are tuned up to C.
A week or so ago I decided that this was the uke I wanted to take to UWC (I'm camping this year and it already has a crack in the back so I'm willing to risk it "in the wild" for a week or so). Anyway, I knew I wasn't going to want to be tuned in Bb during UWC (learning new songs by watching someone else's fingering while transposing on the fly from C to Bb tuning is a bit more than my poor ole' gray-haired brain can handle).
Anyway, I liked Ko'Olau Alohi strings on my KoAloha longneck soprano so I ordered some tenor Alohi strings from HMS.
Bottom line...they've stretched in now and I like them very much. Not quite as much as I like the "Seaguar CH" tuned to Bb, but a very close second. They intonate very well up the neck; again, not quite as good as the CH tuned to Bb but quite good. The tone is nice, and sustain decent. They very definitely have that temperature sensitive thing going on. I don't think it's as severe as with the Ko'Olau golds but it's definitely present and I notice it more on the tenor than I do on the longneck soprano. Still, as long as you remember to retune after the first song that's a minor price to pay for good intonation and tone.
BTW, the resonant buzz thing got my curiosity up (typical engineer type, I guess) so I tuned the Alohi strings up to D and, sure enough, I had a resonant buzz but now it was at E-F. Very interesting. I fooled around for half an hour and I think I may have determined that the buzz is actually originating from the hairline crack in the back (second hand uke that hadn't been properly humidified in Mass. in the winter). It seemed like if I pressed on the crack the buzz stopped.
So, second stop today was at a woodcrafter store where I picked up some hide glue and will try a simple repair of that crack...
John
A week or so ago I decided that this was the uke I wanted to take to UWC (I'm camping this year and it already has a crack in the back so I'm willing to risk it "in the wild" for a week or so). Anyway, I knew I wasn't going to want to be tuned in Bb during UWC (learning new songs by watching someone else's fingering while transposing on the fly from C to Bb tuning is a bit more than my poor ole' gray-haired brain can handle).
Anyway, I liked Ko'Olau Alohi strings on my KoAloha longneck soprano so I ordered some tenor Alohi strings from HMS.
Bottom line...they've stretched in now and I like them very much. Not quite as much as I like the "Seaguar CH" tuned to Bb, but a very close second. They intonate very well up the neck; again, not quite as good as the CH tuned to Bb but quite good. The tone is nice, and sustain decent. They very definitely have that temperature sensitive thing going on. I don't think it's as severe as with the Ko'Olau golds but it's definitely present and I notice it more on the tenor than I do on the longneck soprano. Still, as long as you remember to retune after the first song that's a minor price to pay for good intonation and tone.
BTW, the resonant buzz thing got my curiosity up (typical engineer type, I guess) so I tuned the Alohi strings up to D and, sure enough, I had a resonant buzz but now it was at E-F. Very interesting. I fooled around for half an hour and I think I may have determined that the buzz is actually originating from the hairline crack in the back (second hand uke that hadn't been properly humidified in Mass. in the winter). It seemed like if I pressed on the crack the buzz stopped.
So, second stop today was at a woodcrafter store where I picked up some hide glue and will try a simple repair of that crack...
John