OldePhart
Well-known member
I wish I'd picked up a five-string a long time ago. I posted a NUD thread yesterday so I won't reiterate all that.
But, the five string is exactly what I've been looking for in a uke. It overcomes what I've always considered the shortcoming of a low G - boomy finger rolls. With the five string you can get very natural reentrant-sounding finger rolls simply by brushing just the outside high-G string. But you've still got the extra notes for picking a melody and a more full-sounding strummed chord.
BTW, the C string that came on the uke appeared to be defective - Even after a full day it wouldn't hold a tune long enough to even get through a full song and the intonation up the neck wasn't terrible but not as good as I'm used to. I suspect that it was overstretched when it was installed - I accidentally tuned a string up a full octave once when restringing and it behaved exactly like this string.
So, I put on a Thomastik-Infeld chrome flat wound .027 classical guitar string for the C and it's much better. I bought two of those strings - the other went on a soprano (the one I overstretched the string on a few weeks ago). I like the string on the soprano okay but I especially like it on the tenor. I may string my tenors with wound 3rd strings from now on.
John
But, the five string is exactly what I've been looking for in a uke. It overcomes what I've always considered the shortcoming of a low G - boomy finger rolls. With the five string you can get very natural reentrant-sounding finger rolls simply by brushing just the outside high-G string. But you've still got the extra notes for picking a melody and a more full-sounding strummed chord.
BTW, the C string that came on the uke appeared to be defective - Even after a full day it wouldn't hold a tune long enough to even get through a full song and the intonation up the neck wasn't terrible but not as good as I'm used to. I suspect that it was overstretched when it was installed - I accidentally tuned a string up a full octave once when restringing and it behaved exactly like this string.
So, I put on a Thomastik-Infeld chrome flat wound .027 classical guitar string for the C and it's much better. I bought two of those strings - the other went on a soprano (the one I overstretched the string on a few weeks ago). I like the string on the soprano okay but I especially like it on the tenor. I may string my tenors with wound 3rd strings from now on.
John