Two more questions about resonators

river_driver

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The earlier thread today got me thinking.

1. Why no soprano resophonics?

2. Why are they all biscuit bridge (i.e. National type)? Why no spider bridge (i.e. Dobro type)?

(The obvious answer is that the mass market ones are all from the same factory, and the market for them isn't so great as to support diversity. But historically, going back to the '30's, have there been spiders or sopranos? I don't think I've ever seen one. Is there a practical answer from the realm of physics? Or is it just an 80 year oversight?)
 
I've seen some recent all metal lower-end resonators in soprano size.
 
Do you remember what the brands were? With the exception of the wood body tenors by Kala and Republic, everything else I've seen in the mass market is concert.

Here's one, Recording King RU998:
http://www.recordingking.com/products/resonators-all-models/resonators-ru-998

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANRGYMP7eDg Soprano scale, soprano reso ukes are a little longer than a regular soprano uke because the biscuit bridge sits over the cone, not the saddle. It's 23" overall, which may mislead some folks, but still a soprano....
 
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I had one of those metal ukes. By the time I had it fixed up well, I had spent several hundred dollars on it.
 
National guitars makes (made?) some soprano size ukes. Beltona makes a uke with soprano scale as well.

Russ Morin made a Dobro-inspired reso uke in soprano size. He told me:

Fernando,
It is tricky to pack a resonator and sound well into a soprano body. Most folks have stopped making soprano resonators because of this. I wanted to give it another try with the dobro tribute. I like the results and will probably make more.

I own a Republic Guitars reso uke. It is sold as a concert but it has a shorter scale than my other concert ukes (but a longer scale than my sopranos). The Recording King RU998 has a similar scale as well.
 
No, the Recording King has a concert scale, 15 inches from nut to saddle.
Photo07181023.jpg
(L-R, Lanikai concert, Recording King reso, Luna soprano)

The Lanikai and Recording King have identical 15" scales. The Luna soprano is a 13.5" scale.
 
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