My Uke is Puke!

musiccityuker · Jan 1, 2009

Folks,

Only been playing a year... need some help here. I'm not experienced enough with any of this to know what I'm doing. I have a tenor Mele (Low G) that I like a lot. If a freight train hit it I swear it would stay in tune. It is sooooo stable. I just purchased a Concert (High G) Pono PCO. I have strummed the heck out of it for over a week and I can't can't keep this thing in tune for more than a minute. I realize there is a break-in period but... good grief... this is rough! All four strings jump waaaay above and waaaay below their mark. There seems to be a lot of slippage on the tuners too. Is this normal? Is this a known problem with a Pono uke? Thanks.

Toucan Mango · Jan 1, 2009

I would give it a little more time, Seems like the Ko'olau Gold strings took longer to stretch on my Pono, but it settled in after a couple of weeks, actually seemed to sound better as well.

wearymicrobe · Jan 1, 2009

Its the strings, it take me a good two weeks to get mine into a groove where they behave.

allinfun · Jan 1, 2009

the grover tuners are usually very solid tuners and not prone to slippage.

My recommendation would be this, change the strings if it's driving you too crazy. I have a pono concert and I was going bananas with the exact same problem. As you play the instrument warmed up and it went sharp. Put it down for a couple hours and it magically went flat. Went through the same thought process, darn near ready to return it. All I did was swap out the strings and suddenly the problem disappeared. Now it's stable and sporting aquilas.

Pippin · Jan 1, 2009

musiccityuker said:
Folks,

Only been playing a year... need some help here. I'm not experienced enough with any of this to know what I'm doing. I have a tenor Mele (Low G) that I like a lot. If a freight train hit it I swear it would stay in tune. It is sooooo stable. I just purchased a Concert (High G) Pono PCO. I have strummed the heck out of it for over a week and I can't can't keep this thing in tune for more than a minute. I realize there is a break-in period but... good grief... this is rough! All four strings jump waaaay above and waaaay below their mark. There seems to be a lot of slippage on the tuners too. Is this normal? Is this a known problem with a Pono uke? Thanks.

Changing strings to your brand of choice is not bad, but, these days, there are guys like MGM putting Aquilas on there before they ship. Be patient, chances are that you are hearing a combination of active top on the uke (solid wood moves a lot with temperature fluctuations) and the strings stretching and settling. Give it a little longer and you'll be happy with it.

My Uke is Puke!

musiccityuker

Well-known member

Toucan Mango

Well-known member

wearymicrobe

Well-known member

allinfun

Well-known member

Pippin

Well-known member

Similar threads