What's your favorite ukulele body size? why?

Favorite body size


  • Total voters
    103
Been playing a tenor for almost 5 yrs. Recently bought a Romero Creations mahogany ST-Concert for a take anywhere uke and came to the realization that the concert scale fits my hands much better. So I ended up buying a Koaloha concert and debating whether to sell the tenors I own.
 
I like variety (a "right tool for the right job" kind of thing), but if I had to stick to one, I vote concert. My justification is admittedly a little funny: it's not so much about what I prefer but rather what seems right.

Guitar is my primary instrument, so my fingers are happy with a larger instrument. Additional frets make an instrument more versatile to me. And if I A/B ukuleles just on sound, bigger always sounds more guitar-like, fuller, and "better" to my ear. Better resonance and sustain make picking sound better to me. So why concert? Well, I don't want my uke to feel or sound like a guitar. I already have guitars for that. I want my uke to be compact, like I'm playing a toy but taking it very seriously as an instrument. And I want it to sound bright and percussive, what I imagine as characteristically "uke-y" (for the same reason, the strings I use are not the strings that I think sound best). All these reasons point to soprano, but a cutaway concert represents (for me) a nice compromise: still small enough to be cute and islandy, but with a little more sustain and versatility than a soprano.

Hopefully this is not digressing from topic too much, but I really like how in threads like this there is a diversity of opinions without snobbery. That's a real strength of the UU community!

I appreciate your reasoning. I did something similar. Even though I don't care for the traditional ukulele sound, I bought and configured one of my ukuleles to sound more traditional. I bought a traditional ukulele, a Kamaka, and customized it with a spruce sound board to make it sound bright, I use re-entrant strings that are also bright. So it is everything that I don't like. Why? The tradition. Plus, to thwart my opinion. I have strong feelings about music, but I realize that I'm just a blip on the radar of life. I don't really count for much. So my opinion, although I sincerely hold it, is negligible. The Kamaka keeps me balanced.
 
I have no idea. When I bought my first, it was a soprano, as I didn't know there were any other sizes. This was how a ukulele should look like.
I have since bought 2 sopranos, 3 concerts, 2 tenors and a soprano thinline.
My 1 soprano has the best "ukulele sound" but I like the others as well. Then I tried a thinline, and was amazed by the good sound, so I bought it. I recently tried a Banjolele and it sounded so authentic Georg Formby, that I'm tempted to buy one.

When I heard the sound of a Martin Tipple on YT I bought one of those ;-)
 
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Hi,
For players who picked "soprano", I'm wondering, do you use a strap?
 
Nope. I still struggle with it sometimes but for me it's part of the fun and I can't stand strap pins on a soprano ukulele.

IMHO, I don't think you are missing much. I put a strap on my soprano based on suggestions here, but it's not really helped that much (if any) with my playing.
 
I guess that I like concerts. I don't know why, but that is what I have, three of them.
 
I picked concert, which is reflected by my inventory.

But, recently my go-to ukulele is my HF-1L, so I think I'll agree with some other posters and say concert is my favorite scale length.
 
I fell in love with the "baritone" ukulele as I was transitioning from guitar due to arthritis issues. Occasionally I will pick up my sons concert uke because I enjoy the re-entrant tuning but find the tone too high and "plinky" for playing with our band... That said, I am seriously looking at purchasing a nice solid top tenor.
 
I love my Concert size Ukes! The body size offers just enough tone and resonance to make me happy, and the fretboard is just right for my fingers. I have fat fingers, and now arthritic finger/thumb joints. So, stretching out for a Tenor size fretboard, or squeezing in for a Soprano is not as comfortable as it used to be. I always gravitate toward my Concerts.
 
They say the ' bigger the better ' but for me 'less is more' of all my ukuleles..if I had to choose just one? It would be a soprano...for strumming the soprano is best and its a cheerful little instrument..its raining outside and I'm inside with my koa soprano and a glass of powers irish whiskey...Happy days 🙂
 
My personal favorite is my Rebel long neck concert. It has a thinline body and a tenor neck.
 
After a limited audition of the 3 body sizes tenor seemed to be the clear standout so that's what I bought. Since my wife has abandoned her soprano I find that I end up playing it a lot more than my tenor. Even though the tenor isn't really large, the soprano is just more convenient to grab and take outside, handle on the couch, take in the car, etc.

The other benefit of the soprano is I find it more challenging to play, as in I've got to get the D chord shape just right while on the tenor I can get away with being more sloppy. So I think the soprano is a good "trainer."

Maybe a concert would be the best of both worlds.
 
My ears like Sopranos.
My forearm likes concerts.
My fingers like tenors.
 
After playing for a few years I think that I love concert size most. It is most comfortable to play and hold, and still sounds cheerful enough. Also still easy to carry around in a case. I play it most at home and lately also prefer to take it to acoustic jams. That said, for performances I still use and practice arrangements on my linear and six string tenors, as I think they provide more sonic diversity for an audience; I think that listening to me just playing my concert for an hour or two would be very boring.
 
I like the extremes. My bari's my favorite, followed by soprano. Both live in my studio close at hand. The tenor by the bed gets a lot of play because it's at hand and it's easier to match to most lessons than the bari. My concert gets very little play these days.
 
I have to go with tenor for the deeper tone and more comfortable scale. However, body sizes vary a lot between manufacturers and models. I've found that I can't adopt chunkier tenors, with 3" depth or even slightly more than that. I like being able to cradle it comfortably and feel like I can play in any position and setting, and those larger bodies just don't feel ukulele-y enough. My KTM is just right for me.
Baritone is awesome but there is great variation in sizes. I prefer it to be distant from a guitar, and again not 3" thick. The Kanile'a baritones are amazingly sized.
 
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