Soprano Uke Wound C String Options

What brand makes strings for soprano ukulele that comes with the third wound C string ? Anyone aware of any?

Thanks.

Kala Reds are wound C and E. I use them only on my Hot-Rod Regal.
It has a Redwood sound board, Rosewood Bridge and a red dyed rock maple saddle.
It was too harsh with Aquillas and tried Kala Reds Perfect and looks great too.

I'd contact Guadalupe and see what they recommend. They may give you a couple/three options and will sell you single strings.

This has been discussed before:
http://forum.ukuleleunderground.com/showthread.php?31145-Wound-C-on-Island-Ukulele-Soprano
http://forum.ukuleleunderground.com/showthread.php?94965-Wound-C-string

Looks like most people are using Concert size wound C strings on their soprano ukes/
I looked for you, but I was unable to find any "true" soprano wound C strings.

Johnson

All great suggestions. I'm researching each. Thanks, folks

Going back to basics, my acoustic nylon-strung guitar has about the same distance from the 10th fret to the bridge as the full-scale length of a soprano ukulele. Coincidently, the D string, when fretted at the 10 fret, plays C !!

ergo: a guitar nylon D string should be perfectly fine as a C string on a soprano ukulele

Great timing! I was just wondering if a wound C string would help with finger picking on my 50's Martin. It's fine strummed, but thuddy when finger picked.

It and my new mystery Martin are off getting some TLC, so I can't play around with any of these strings for a month or more though. Instead I can sit back and wait to see what pitfalls befall Steve and avoid them!

stevepetergal said:

I'd contact Guadalupe and see what they recommend. They may give you a couple/three options and will sell you single strings.

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Do they ever answer their emails or phone? I finally gave up trying to contact them for strings to try on my National.

kypfer said:

Going back to basics, my acoustic nylon-strung guitar has about the same distance from the 10th fret to the bridge as the full-scale length of a soprano ukulele. Coincidently, the D string, when fretted at the 10 fret, plays C !!

ergo: a guitar nylon D string should be perfectly fine as a C string on a soprano ukulele

Click to expand...

Dont forget that on a soprano uke's short scale ~13.5", a wound string will likely only have about 11 lbs of tension, whereas on the typical 25.5" scale classical guitar D string is likely to have about 23-25 lbs of tension, so this needs to be considered as the longer scale of the guitar is still creating more tension since a capo at the 10th fret does not resolve all of the string tension at the 10th fret. You still have another 12" or so of string over the fingerboard to the nut, and another few inches past the nut to the tuners all pulling on said string that is fretted or capo'd at the 10th fret.

Having said that, most classical guitar wound 'D' strings are typically ~ 0.030" in diameter, and might be a bit floppy on such a short soprano scale unless it is an 'extra hard tension' string...and as such, if the tension is too low, intonation will suffer +/- 10-15 cents or more.

I suspect that the strings packaged for soprano uke that have a wound C are in fact cut from the same material used for higher tension classical strings, just like so many other string sets are.

aquadan said:

Do they ever answer their emails or phone? I finally gave up trying to contact them for strings to try on my National.

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Yes, but very rarely. I had Mike from Mainland Ukuleles contact them for me and they finally returned a call.