Hi Gary52,
Low-g is fine on a concert. The MYTH
ology about lower volume in a smaller body has a lot to do with wood used for the instrument, strings, body shape (figure-8, pineapple or other), playing style and other factors.
You have to compare side-by-side. I have heard nice cedar and koa concert ukes that are in fact LOUDER than mahogany and spruce tenor ukes. LOUDER is not always better. Sometimes CLARITY is more important, or as you have said you are seeking 'warmth', which might be achieved with a simple string change to strings of a different composition.
Sometimes laminated construction can be plenty loud, if braced properly inside, but sometimes that great volume sounds 'muddy'.
My concert Flea is strung with Worth Browns Medium low-g and is VERY loud and sounds great. Plastic body and pine soundboard. With these strings it is very bright and CLEAR.
My concert Epiphone Les Paul is strung with a DaKine Fluorocarbon clear low-g and the trebles from a classical guitar D'Addario Ej27H (high tension) string set, and is not quite as loud as the Flea, but it has a Mi-Si pickup in it, and the main function of this uke is to be plugged in for using an amp or for recording. These strings really drive the top well, and if I really dig in with a flamenco style of strumming, it can in fact get nice and loud.
My concert Aileen SG solid-body uke is in fact strung with D'Addario T2 Titanium High-G right now since I like to keep one in each scale size with a high-G. This uke has minimal acoustic sound since it is all solid body and looks like a mini Gibson SG electric guitar. The acoustic sound is similar to that from an Eleuke, or RISA stick, but plugged in, it sounds very sweet.
I am not sure how you derive 'warming sounding' and linking that to the tone of a concert scale.
Is there a specific instrument that you heard that you have this perception of?
The sound depends on MANY factors, not just the size of the body, i.e., the sound box.
It is simple physics that a larger sound box and larger soundboard or 'top' will be able to resonate lower frequencies better than a smaller one. The wavelength of the bass tones are longer and need a larger 'vibrating diaphragm' to get a full cycle of the frequencies wavelength to project outward, otherwise the sound energy is impeded and some of that energy is therefore lost.
On a concert scale, you will not have as large an area of resonant surfaces, and because of the laws of physics, will simply not produce the same deeper bass frequencies.
Think of the difference with the way speaker components are made:
- something like a 12" SUB-woofer is typically for deeper bass, i.e., frequencies below 200hz.
- something like an 8" WOOFER typically is used to reproduce frequencies from about 300hz up to about 5khz.
- something like a 5" mid-range driver is typically used to reproduce frequencies from about 4.5khz up to about 10khz,
- finally, a tweeter is used for frequencies from 10khz up to the limit of human hearing which tapers off significantly after 20khz.
Note that the above examples are for a highly articulate and very CLEAR reproduction of the sound coming through the speakers and would typically be used in a 3-way speaker box, with a sub-woofer in it's own cabinet.
An example in a musical group, might be to have a bass player, an acoustic guitarist playing the rhythm chords, and then a ukulele playing the melody lines. Doing a recording of these folks with a single microphone in just the right place, with all other things be set just right, you should not have to equalize the sound much if at all. The reason for this is that each instrument is putting out most of it's power in a certain frequency range, without stepping on the frequencies of the other instruments.
The sound reproduction and projection across the spectrum of scales of ukuleles while not exactly the same, is proportionally similar to the considerations for building speakers and the enclosure dimensions that you mount the components inside of, i.e., 'the box'.
I have always heard others describe most concert scale ukuleles to have LESS bass, and LESS warmth when comparing the sound to a tenor ukulele, EVEN if that tenor is strung with a high-G, and because of physics the bigger body can resonate bass frequencies more accurately.
Conversely, I had heard others describe and also experienced myself that a standard soprano figure-8 shaped ukulele tends on average to sound, (for lack of a better word) 'shallow', when compared to larger instruments of the same construction.
This is not to say that a soprano can not sound sweet or have a nice sound, but you can tell sometimes that the wood is really struggling to resonate lower frequencies that are beyond the ability of the soundbox, and the sound gets 'muddy' and note clarity is lost.
This is typically heard in the cheaper instruments. I am not sure why as of yet.
You might want to either go to a store and listen to as many instruments as you can.
Unless you have a good set of studio monitors on your computer, put on some headphones (and not listen via laptop speakers or smartphone speakers, or from you iPad speaker), and go on YouTube and look at the videos on the channels from
Uke Republic, Hawaii Music Supply and
Zen Ukes.
The reason that I suggest these specific channels is that they ALL use a consistent professional recording setup that will capture the sound of the instrument in the SAME environment (the same for one channel with each instrument they demo, but each channel may be different from the others).
For example you can see that David from Zen Ukes is in a soundproof booth with what looks to me like an AKG C414 professional studio condenser microphone for
EVERY SINGLE ONE of the recordings, and that the 200 hundred or so videos that Zen Ukes has put up on YouTube, every single ukulele demo is played by the
SAME PERSON (David), with the
SAME song, with the exact
SAME room acoustics, and the exact
SAME microphone. This is by design and the folks at Zen Ukes have provided a great service to the community.
I am not affiliated with Zen Ukes, but I am a fan of the service that they provide.
If you look at videos capture by 10 different people on their smartphone camera, you are going to get 10 different 'sounding' recordings with way to many variables to make any kind of meaningful comparison.
Hopefully I've given you some food for thought to help you in your quest.
If you have any further questions, feel free to fire away...
-Booli
