Outdoor Uke Intonation

westcoast

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Mine intonates fine. Perfect? Never had one that was perfect, but it is well within "tolerance".
 
That's basically it. The frets are high, so don't mash the strings down as far as they will go. With any instrument, you want the strings to make contact with the fret, and that's as far down as the strings need to go. I've always played that way, and the intonation is fine on my Outdoor Uke. Might I recommend ordering a set of Aquila Reds for your uke? I've tried the stock strings, regular Aquila, Martin M600 and the Aquila Reds. The reds seem to have the best sound and feel for that uke.

Dan
 
That's basically it. The frets are high, so don't mash the strings down as far as they will go. With any instrument, you want the strings to make contact with the fret, and that's as far down as the strings need to go. I've always played that way, and the intonation is fine on my Outdoor Uke. Might I recommend ordering a set of Aquila Reds for your uke? I've tried the stock strings, regular Aquila, Martin M600 and the Aquila Reds. The reds seem to have the best sound and feel for that uke.

Dan

Thanks, are you tuning the Aquila Reds in g c e a or in a d f# b as they suggest on the site? If I order the reds, would they restring the uke or so they just include the new pack of strings?
 
It's ok up the neck. I don't find the frets too high, it's fairly comfortable for a squared neck, the only adjustment I'd like to have seen is the flair at the nut-part of the headstock, should be tapered more. But it's a hundred dollar indestructible uke that plays pretty decent, has a somewhat tubby sound, and can play in the pool or on top of Everest. (I think..)
 
If you have a good ear for intonation you probably won't be happy with it no matter how lightly fingered. If your ear isn't that critical, and you don't want it to get better, the ODU will probably be fine for you.

As for myself, I don't have a heavy hand (don't mash strings) and I couldn't finger the one example I got to play for a while lightly enough to make it anything better than "fingernails on blackboard" level to my ear. All of us that were passing it around were fairly experienced players and we were wincing and laughing our arses off. To be fair, this was a "first generation" - one of the first delivered - and I don't know if maybe they've improved since then.

John
 
I dont recall having issues with intonation and liked the light touch, esp with worth CHs. The hollow neck snap and lack of sustain due to the bendy headstock really turned me off. The headstock could be fixed with an 'x' brace in the headstock bend like the newer japanese mcafferty(?) clone has. Not sure if anyone has tried to fill the neck yet?
 
I think the headstock does have an X-bracing pattern. One of the folks in the ukulele meetup I am a part of has one of the clear ones and it's X-braced. I was going to fill the neck on mine, but it's already a slightly heavy uke, and the hollow neck doesn't bother me, so I decided to leave it as is.

Dan
 
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