I am about to buy a Pono Mango Baritone uke, but am considering GCEA strings instead of the DGBE that it comes with. Anyone have recommendations? I am fond of Aquila strings on my other ukes, but am concerned they might be too bright for the Pono. Thoughts or other recommendations?
This is great info, nice find and thanks for sharing. The brilliant part is they have shown the exact strings used, you can order those individual strings from Strings by Mail if you don't want to order that set from the UK.
Jim is also showing you a good set that will work for South Coast. You would not go wrong just ordering that set.
Basically what you need to use are smaller diameter lower tension strings, think concert gauge instead of tenor size. Because the scale length of a baritone is longer it supports the lower DGBE tension well. But that same long scale length tuned up to GCEA would be too high with the thicker baritone strings and quite high with regular tenor gauge strings. I have used concert gauge strings on baritones to achieve the correct tension, just make sure they are long enougn
So the Pono arrived. I had HMS set it up with low GCEA. I really don't care for the sound much, the wound G just seems to clash with the rest of the strings. I may try it with a re-entrant G (once I figure out what string to try), but I'm also going to try i with a couple different types of traditional baritone tunings based on the recomendations here, as well as some Martin clears and Ko'oloau 'Alohi strings. The Alohi strings were what was on the Mango Bari I had a chance to hear and fell in love with that ultimately resulted in me ordering the Pono from HMS.
Discordant low g-aside, I love its look and sound.