Low G Soprano Suggestions

UkeDoxie

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Hello Uke friends! Any thoughts on a good sounding low G soprano? I have a low G concert and a low G tenor, and don’t think most sopranos sound too good in low G, but I am trying my hand at chord melody, and would like to give it a go on a smaller instrument. I have really small hands so a soprano might be easier for me. I’d love to hear your thoughts. Thanks!
 
I have smallish hands too but find a concert easier to play chord/melody than a soprano (and the sound is better). I play high G, which much tablature is written for. So you might hold off on the soprano until you decide you need smaller than a concert or might also consider a concert in high G to give you more options since you have two low G ukes already.
 
Solid mahogany would likely sound good in low G on a standard soprano.

I have long neck soprano low G mahogany ukes (Ohana), fitted with low G concert Living Water fluorocarbon strings, & they sound good to me. :)

I've previously had laminates too, a Kala KA-S & Makala MK-P, both with low G strings, & they sounded pretty good too, but I think the solid mahogany ones sound better.
 
I agree: The XS Soprano was basically made for low G. Soft sounding, but great for fingerpicking.
 
Thanks for the suggestions. The Romero Creations looks interesting. I need to do a bit more research. Thanks!
 
Hey Dox, I too have often toyed with the idea of giving low-G a try, but never quite made the jump. Are you thinking "wound" or "unwound"? I hear good things about the Fremont "Soloist", which I believe is a "wound" string (I think I have that right...). I'm a soprano guy, and have always been impressed with Ohta San's soprano rendition of "Hawaii", on which he uses the low-G tuning.
 
Child-sized hands here, and soprano is by far my favorite size. But I never did find a true soprano that sounded good with a low G. My go-to low G uke is a Kamaka HF-1L longneck soprano strung with a Fremont soloist. It doesn't have quite the power that a low G concert has, but it's still better than anything else I've tried.
 
I have a Kala long-neck soprano with spruce top; perhaps it might be worthwhile to take a walk on the wild side and put a Fremont Soloist in that G position!
 
Low G is a bit counterintuitive to the tone you get with Sopranos. The XS might be an exception to that. keep a high G on your soprano, and use low G on a concert. Even with very tiny hands, concert shouldn’t be any more difficult for you to play.
 
I wanted to have a soprano strung low g while I practice a few songs, so I strung this onehttps://reverb.com/item/11430424-anuenue-khaya-mahogany-i-soprano-ukulele-with-gigbag up. I didn't particularly care if it sounded good. I used an Oasis wound that I had around. I was shocked how good it sounded. It helps that I had low expectations, I'm sure, but honestly, I've heard concerts sound much worse. And it's a bargain strung either way. I have it back to reentrant now, and it's a sweet soprano.
 
Another vote for the Romero Creations XS soprano. Its not a very loud uke, especially strummed, but its great for fingerpicking.
 
Romero Creations XS Tiny Tenor. They come stock with Low G and have a big sound.
 
Having gone down this road myself, direct comparison, using the same set of Aquila "Reds" moved from one instrument to the next, to get anything like a reasonable response from the low-G string on a soprano I needed a "pineapple" body, with it's larger physical capacity.
My tests were conducted using "economy" model instruments, certainly below £50. If you're prepared to throw a lot of money at it you might manage to find a very well built "conventional" model that resonates adequately at those frequencies, but I found a concert-size body was so significantly superior, again with Aquila "Reds", that I didn't bother to look any further.

YMMV - Good luck :music:
 
Having gone down this road myself, direct comparison, using the same set of Aquila "Reds" moved from one instrument to the next, to get anything like a reasonable response from the low-G string on a soprano I needed a "pineapple" body, with it's larger physical capacity.
My tests were conducted using "economy" model instruments, certainly below £50. If you're prepared to throw a lot of money at it you might manage to find a very well built "conventional" model that resonates adequately at those frequencies, but I found a concert-size body was so significantly superior, again with Aquila "Reds", that I didn't bother to look any further.

YMMV - Good luck :music:

I honestly don’t know but my suspicion is that, for the purposes of low G working well, the Soprano scale comes with a sufficient variation of body characteristics to make the picture unclear - some work and some don’t. A small percentage of Sopranos come with either 7” lower bouts or a pineapple body, I’d have thought that they had a better chance of working with a low G than something with a narrow waist and 6 & 1/2” lower bout. Of course build and material are other factors that might tip the balance too, again I don’t know but would a design originally tuned in D work well for low G?

Anyway, my rambling thoughts aside, please would you share deatails of the ‘economy’ Sopranos that you found did (or sort of did) and didn’t work with low G.
 
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... anyway, my rambling thoughts aside, please would you share deatails of the ‘economy’ Sopranos that you found did (or sort of did) and didn’t work with low G.

My Mahalo 'UK-185' soprano pineapple works beautifully with a low-G. It's now strung GDAE (mandolin/fiddle) tuning and played very regularly as a "late in the evening" practice instrument. The Aquila "Reds" were removed (replaced with a set of Aquila 5th's strings) and subsequently fitted to a very generic TNA 'U-02-PM-01' pineapple body where they continue to serve their purpose.

The "economy" conventional ukulele I tried was a Vintage 'VUK15N' which continues to serve as a 'knock-around' with a set of hi-G Aquila Nylguts - (Vintage is a brand-name of a UK distributor).

All three instruments are approximately 6.5" wide x 2.5" thick, the Mahalo being just a couple of millimetres bigger in each dimension than the other two instruments.

The concert instrument I settled on is a Kala 'KA-G', which, admittedly, is so far superior to either soprano in low-G tuning that the TNA gets little use ;)

Trust this is of interest :music:
 
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