Ko'olau Gold

BigD

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So we discuss strings here on a pretty regular basis but who out there uses these strings? Ive said lately how i dislike spruce topped instruments but i just put a set of these on my lanikai quilt and it has made such a huge difference. Ive tried aquilas,southcoast,oasis, and just couldnt take the sound but these have rounded out the bottoms and crisped up the highs, i may have a new favorite set oh strings....plus they are gold and this uke is seriously blingin now!!
 
I stopped by the uke shop this morning and heard Martin's for the first time, EEEK did not like them lol! Everyone raves about them on here, but they have no bass!!!!!
 
ive never heard a martin ukulele in person. Most of the ukuleles ive heard in person are the ones i have, i live pretty far from any music shop worth going to, for ukes at least.
 
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There are a few members who favor Golds and if your ears like what it's hearing, that's all that matters. Play 'em till you feel you want/need another sound.
 
I love them on bright ukes, like mango. You will find (if you haven't already) that they are quite temperature sensitive. If you tune your uke, and then play a couple of songs, you will often be ten or twenty cents sharp. Tune again and you're good to go as long as you keep playing (or at least handling the strings). I have found it helps if I rub my hand up and down the strings briskly a few times before tuning. If I am at an open mic waiting my turn I'll tune and then just keep the uke in my hands with the left hand on the strings and occasionally stroking it softly. I'm sure people think I'm strange... :)

At UWC last year the weather was cool and rainy and windy and I couldn't keep the mango tenor with Gold strings in tune. It went back in the car for the duration and I played my Kiwaya longneck soprano with fluorocarbon strings.

John
 
http://forum.ukuleleunderground.com...-Gold-Series-String-Set&highlight=koolau+gold
Interesting short but informative past thread, started by respected Kanaka, on K Golds.

They are fragile, nick prone. I agree with John, they love to get sharp. They are fatter than other strings, so your nut slots may or may not be ideal for them (and if the nut slots are too narrow, then tuning them will likely cause some pull damage on the strings). The sound is excellent. I ceased using them, mostly because of the hassle. Plus, the yellow color made me wretch. But, that's just me.
 
Ko'olau golds and Fremont Black lines are my favorite strings, and all I use at this point. I haven't experienced any of the problems a few of the members have mentioned, or maybe I'm just not good enough to notice. As always, what's good to you is all that matters.
 
I put a set of Ko'olau Golds on my wife's solid acacia baritone and we're both happy with the sound. We play quite a bit and they seem to be holding up well. I gotta agree with John about re-tuning when they warm up. No big deal, though. My new Boat Paddle ukes came with Worth clear and, with the spruce over Cocobolo rosewood they sound fantastic ; assertive but not sharp or aggressive. Lots and lots of variables when searching for the "holy Grail" of strings and, personally, I hope I never get there. The journey is way too much fun. Enjoy the trip.
 
Ko'olau Gold strings have played and sounded great for me on a couple baritone ukes and on a soprano uke. Retuning was an issue for one of the baritone Gold sets, but this soprano Gold set holds tune very well. I love both the feel (soft, easy to bend notes, comfortable barre chords) and sound (great response across my ukes' frequency ranges) of the Gold strings. As a soprano player, I always try to find strings that get the deepest possible tone---Ko'olau Gold strings do this well.
 
Can someone explain the differences between the Ko'olau Mahana strings and the Ko'olau Golds?
Is it just the color and diameter precision?

Really like the Mahana strings on my TE.
 
Ko'olau Gold strings have played and sounded great for me on a couple baritone ukes and on a soprano uke. Retuning was an issue for one of the baritone Gold sets, but this soprano Gold set holds tune very well. I love both the feel (soft, easy to bend notes, comfortable barre chords) and sound (great response across my ukes' frequency ranges) of the Gold strings. As a soprano player, I always try to find strings that get the deepest possible tone---Ko'olau Gold strings do this well.

I never tried them on a sop, only tenor. Based on your vote, I'm going to lace some up on a sop soon.
 
Can someone explain the differences between the Ko'olau Mahana strings and the Ko'olau Golds?
Is it just the color and diameter precision?

Really like the Mahana strings on my TE.

I've used both. I had Mahana strings on my main uke for a year or so---great strings.

Mahana strings and Gold strings definitely feel different under your fingers---Gold strings are softer, more easy to bend notes. I didn't use them both on the same uke, so no basis for specific sound comparison---both get mellow, deep sound from my ukes without losing sparkle/brightness. My Mahana strings never had that retuning issue.
 
Can someone explain the differences between the Ko'olau Mahana strings and the Ko'olau Golds?
Is it just the color and diameter precision?

Really like the Mahana strings on my TE.

Ko'Olau offers three types (that I know of) - Golds we've discussed pretty thoroughly in this thread. Alohi strings are quite a bit brighter - but not as bright as clear fluorocarbon tends to be. The Alohi exhibit a little temperature sensitivity but nowhere near as severe as the Gold strings. I believe they are the same material as the Titanium strings but in different gages. I like them on KoAlohas. Mahana are almost dull by comparison to either Alohi or Gold - at least that's the way my ears hear them. I don't know if they exhibit any temperature sensitivity because, honestly, I haven't liked them well enough to leave them on any uke long enough to say.

John
 
Ko'Olau offers three types (that I know of) - Golds we've discussed pretty thoroughly in this thread. Alohi strings are quite a bit brighter - but not as bright as clear fluorocarbon tends to be. The Alohi exhibit a little temperature sensitivity but nowhere near as severe as the Gold strings. I believe they are the same material as the Titanium strings but in different gages. I like them on KoAlohas. Mahana are almost dull by comparison to either Alohi or Gold - at least that's the way my ears hear them. I don't know if they exhibit any temperature sensitivity because, honestly, I haven't liked them well enough to leave them on any uke long enough to say.

John

John, there definitely is a difference of materials between the Mahana and Alohi. But it appears the Golds and Mahana's are both nylon with different color and gauging.
Maybe the colorant and gauging variation make enough differences in the resulting nylon strings. The Alohi's really shrink with temperatures. Mahana's are not quite as sensitive to temps.
In the past I have not been satisfied with the Mahana strings on acoustic ukes. But, on my Pono TE with a MiSi they are great, both in clarity and resonance (amplified sound makes a difference).

This is how the Ko'olau strings are described at Elderly

ALOHI SERIES - Made of a dense, hard monofilament material instead of nylon

GOLD SERIES - Gold nylon ukulele strings

MAHANA SERIES - Similar to the Gold series, but made of a very high quality CLEAR nylon material. Gauging is slightly different than the Gold.
 
The Mahana and Alohi strings are sourced from D'Addario but made to Ko'olau diameter specs. The Alohi/T2 (brighter Monofilament) and the Mahana /ProArte (warmer nylon). The Golds (nylon) are still sourced from an Argentina string company and are basically a Flamenco string, again to Ko'olau specs.
 
I love the sound and feel of the Golds, but last summer I put them on both my 'ukes and I won't do that again! I, too, find them extremely sensitive and it was very difficult to keep them in tune in the summer. Also I found in the hot weather the sound seemed a little muddy, especially on my Dolphin. I know a lot of people don't like Golds on a Dolphin, but prior to that I had liked them. I'm not completely objective because yellow is my favorite color, and I bought a blue Dolphin 'cause it would look nice with yellow stuff (it does), and I love the look of the Golds. But I can set that aside enough to say that I probably won't use Golds on this 'uke again.

I do think they're very nice strings, but right now I'm using Worth Browns on the mango and Aquilas on the Dolphin and I'm happy with those.
 
Digging up this old thread because I have recently tried Golds on a soprano and agree with this previous post. The Gold's feel easy to play/ soft on the fingers/ I think if you had delicate fingers or maybe for a child, these would be good. They're pretty mellow but boomy. I guess that's from being full nylon strings(?)... One plus is at least they are something different than all of the other fluorocarbons out there that I normally buy/use (Worth, Living Waters, Martin - all which are great). But these Gold's were cheap so I figured why not try them out. I don't think I love them though. But at least it's cool to try a different type/material

Also, I do notice they tend to go sharp, which is really strange/odd. I don't think I've seen strings do that before.


Ko'olau Gold strings have played and sounded great for me on a couple baritone ukes and on a soprano uke. Retuning was an issue for one of the baritone Gold sets, but this soprano Gold set holds tune very well. I love both the feel (soft, easy to bend notes, comfortable barre chords) and sound (great response across my ukes' frequency ranges) of the Gold strings. As a soprano player, I always try to find strings that get the deepest possible tone---Ko'olau Gold strings do this well.
 
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Thanks for digging up the thread: until reading it I thought I was the only person who has ever had any love for golds. My Pono Acacia Concert came with mahana strings and a Fremont wound low G, and I wasn't happy with the C or E, both of which sounded slightly dead, so I swapped to golds (keeping the Fremont) and have been happy ever since. The comments about golds being temperature sensitive are totally accurate, so I leave my ukulele out of the case so the strings can acclimatise a while before playing gigs (then they hold their tune much better) but it's worth it for me because they are so much softer to play and produce a sweet mellow sound which is exactly the tone I want. Interestingly, my Pono Mango Baritone came with mahanas on it, and I've just ordered some more (an international online order as I couldn't find any in the UK & nothing else would do!) because I love them on that - 2 wound strings in the baritone set, producing a totally different sound from the golds on an acacia concert. As people have said so many times before, string choicedepends on the ukulele and the player, and is very subjective. Hope you find some you love on your soprano Igorthebarbarian.
 
Thanks for sharing your experience, Igor. Nice resurrection of zombie thread here.

I agree with all that you wrote. Plus, for many of my soprano, they were too fat to fit in the bridge slots.

I find them too fragile (nick-prone), too soft (on a soprano, which is low tension by nature, I prefer harder strings, like Fremonts) and they tend to go sharp all by themselves even when "settled". I stopped using them; never loved them either.

Postscript: word on the street is that there is a UUer somewhere that loves these strings. A respected UUer, too. Hard to imagine, but... Wait, I'm told their UU name begins w "W". Hmm. ��
 
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Postscript: word on the street is that there is a UUer somewhere that loves these strings. A respected UUer, too. Hard to imagine, but... Wait, I'm told their UU name begins w "W". Hmm. ��

Haha, as I've said before on another thread, I know I'm :deadhorse: when it comes to the Golds. As long as they keep making them just for me I'll stay happy :D
 
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