As I've posted before, I have a Kala KA-15S that my daughter has taken over. It's not bad but it has some problems.
Yesterday I took my KA-15S to a little local shop to get him to do a setup on it. He looked it over, played a few notes and said it looked good. He said the nut doesn't look too high to him. He said that sopranos are harder to play in tune because you can easily bend the strings while fretting chords and make them play out of tune.
I know this is an entry level uke but it was given to me so paying for a setup didn't seem like a waste of money to me. But is it? I don't know.
Anyway, here's my questions.
- The C string never stays in tune. Tune it and halfway through a song it can be flat or sharp. A few months ago I changed strings because some of you on here said that was the problem.
- Fretted notes are sharp. Not super off... but enough that they are clearly sharp.
Yesterday I took my KA-15S to a little local shop to get him to do a setup on it. He looked it over, played a few notes and said it looked good. He said the nut doesn't look too high to him. He said that sopranos are harder to play in tune because you can easily bend the strings while fretting chords and make them play out of tune.
I know this is an entry level uke but it was given to me so paying for a setup didn't seem like a waste of money to me. But is it? I don't know.
Anyway, here's my questions.
- Should I leave well enough alone and use whatever setup money we were going to spend on a new uke in the future? Is it possible when it was built that the fret (or bridge placement) was slightly off so it will never be in tune?
- If it is worth setting up, is this something I can do? My setup history is all related to electric guitars and bases. I've never had to do any nut filing. It's all been saddle work.
- If I shouldn't tackle this, does anyone know of a good place to take it in the NC Triangle area?