Re-stringing Ubass with round wounds...

Any advice? They're a lot different than the Pahoehoes. I've read in various places to cut 2" and 4"-5" past the tuner post, then stick the end down in the hole in the tuner. I put them on by just wrapping around, but have 6" of excess and afraid to cut off too much!

Has anyone done this before?

Flatwounds on the ME-bass, so not exactly the same, but maybe enough similar to help?

UkerDanno said:

Any advice? They're a lot different than the Pahoehoes. I've read in various places to cut 2" and 4"-5" past the tuner post, then stick the end down in the hole in the tuner. I put them on by just wrapping around, but have 6" of excess and afraid to cut off too much! Has anyone done this before?

Click to expand...

Saw your post on Talk Bass, I'll answer here too. I've done that with flat wound strings, but I cut only the threaded part about 4", not the wound part, I think you should be able to cut any part of the Kala strings and not worry that they will unwind. I make sure I leave enough to get about 4 winds around the spool, one thing to consider are the fatter spools, so be sure you leave enough.

---

8 tenor cutaway ukes, 5 acoustic bass ukes, 10 solid body bass ukes, 7 mini electric bass guitars

• Donate to The Ukulele Kids Club, they provide ukuleles to children's hospital music therapy programs. www.theukc.org
• Member The CC Strummers www.youtube.com/user/CCStrummers/video

Thanks, guys...

So, what I did was wrapped 4 wraps, left another inch or so of string and cut it off there. I bent a "J" in the end with about a 3/4" overlap and stuck that "J" end into the hole in the center of the tuner. Then wound it all up and it seems to be working fine. It still has a nice mellow sound, I was thinking it would have a more metallic sound, but they are nylon core with silver windings. Look kind of cool with the all black, I'd prefer the sunburst SUB, but this was a great deal. It will work for what I wanted (something different) my electric/acoustic with Pahoehoes will still be my main player.

Downside is there's more fret noise, probably from my sloppy playing, maybe practicing with this will make me a better player?! ;-D


leftovers...


PS, the only thing I might do is get a nut made that fits these wounds better, there's a lot of slop...

Interesting. I'm also surprised you're not getting a more "electric bass" sound. That was definitely the case with the flats on the ME. Also surprised the E string goes onto the wound part on the tuner. That was NOT the case with the flats.

It would be interesting to get a plugged in sample of the pahoehoes against the rounds. Even with the pahoehoes being on the acoustic, that should tell you "something".

Did you adjust the height of the bridge? On the ME, it had to come WAY down vs the Thunderguts to get the action back down to something playable. And I agree a new nut would have helped in that regard as well.

UkerDanno said:

Downside is there's more fret noise, probably from my sloppy playing, maybe practicing with this will make me a better player?

Click to expand...

I and the other bass player in my group put round wound nylon core on our bass ukes, Pyramid and Kala, but no matter how we tried to work them, they always made fret and slide noise, so much so that I decided I'll never use them. I use either Pahoehoe or LaBella flatwound, but have left Thunderguts on my newest basses because I didn't want to go through the trouble of changing them, until they get too sticky or sausage too much.

---

8 tenor cutaway ukes, 5 acoustic bass ukes, 10 solid body bass ukes, 7 mini electric bass guitars

• Donate to The Ukulele Kids Club, they provide ukuleles to children's hospital music therapy programs. www.theukc.org
• Member The CC Strummers www.youtube.com/user/CCStrummers/video

kohanmike said:

I and the other bass player in my group put round wound nylon core on our bass ukes, Pyramid and Kala, but no matter how we tried to work them, they always made fret and slide noise, so much so that I decided I'll never use them. I use either Pahoehoe or LaBella flatwound, but have left Thunderguts on my newest basses because I didn't want to go through the trouble of changing them, until they get too sticky or sausage too much.

---

8 tenor cutaway ukes, 5 acoustic bass ukes, 10 solid body bass ukes, 7 mini electric bass guitars

• Donate to The Ukulele Kids Club, they provide ukuleles to children's hospital music therapy programs. www.theukc.org
• Member The CC Strummers www.youtube.com/user/CCStrummers/video

Click to expand...

LaBella flatwound on a Ubass? 20" scale?

UkerDanno said:

LaBella flatwound on a Ubass? 20" scale?

Click to expand...

See some of Mikes other threads on this. It is possible but you have to put "anchors" on the back of your bass to accommodate the extra string length since you can't cut off enough excess at the top or it will completely unravel. They work on the ME because of scale is 23" but that is as short as you can go without the anchor technique.

UkerDanno said:

LaBella flatwound on a Ubass? 20" scale?

Click to expand...

Jim Hanks said:

See some of Mikes other threads on this. It is possible but you have to put "anchors" on the back of your bass to accommodate the extra string length since you can't cut off enough excess at the top or it will completely unravel. They work on the ME because of scale is 23" but that is as short as you can go without the anchor technique.

Click to expand...

What Jim said. Depending on the body of the uke, I either use an anchor on the back, or string through ferrules near the tail of the body. The only acoustic bass uke on which I used the flatwounds is a 23.6" Aquila ShortBassOne-60 and added a trapeze tailpiece.

---

8 tenor cutaway ukes, 5 acoustic bass ukes, 10 solid body bass ukes, 7 mini electric bass guitars

• Donate to The Ukulele Kids Club, they provide ukuleles to children's hospital music therapy programs. www.theukc.org
• Member The CC Strummers www.youtube.com/user/CCStrummers/video