Another Baritone Question or2

Another Ukulele

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Most of my ukuleles are tenors. I’ve been noodling around thinking that my next one would be:
Acoustic/electric cutaway with an upper sound hole (to hear in group playing) and a radiused neck.

I also considered buying a mandolin and twinking and moving strings around to make it play CGEA

But then,....
I’ve been playing with some baritones and I love the sound, deep warm and rich.

I’ve read some good reviews on the Kala KASSEBYBCE
Which is Spruce top, Ebony back, side and fret board
Cutaway acoustic/electric.

~$490, available for ~$390.

$350 seems to be a reasonable price range.

So, does anyone have experience with this model or similar in this price range? $350 - $400
Also, my tired brain was ecstatic when I read that Kala offers baritone strings in a CGEA package.
Playing by myself - who cares how it is tuned. But with a group, without a capo, I want CGEA.
Any experience with these strings?
 
I have a Kala solid mahogany baritone, and excellent uke for the money. If you like the sound and features of the KASSEBYBCE, go for it.
 
I have a Kala baritone that was in the same price range, the model ID is shown in my signature below. I love it. It's by far my favorite of the three ukes I have. Very strong, rich sound, and keeps its intonation all the way up the fingerboard.

Sorry I don't have experience with Kala GCEA strings, but I do have experience with baritone GCEA strings from another outfit (Guadalupe Custom Strings, I believe), and I didn't care for them. They are wound (basically they're classical guitar strings sized for a baritone uke) and had windings on the ends that unravel very easily.

IN any event, good luck with it! I love baritones.
 
I have a Kala cedar top bari, it has a great tone, especially with fluorocarbon strings, but I find the 20.125" scale length too much for my comfort, I have another bari (a Lani) with a 19.5" scale, that feels more comfortable, to me, but would prefer the old 19" scale myself. :)
 
I have a Kala Cedar top. It's the only baritone I own. I love the sound and it looks pretty good too. I've had it about a year and consider it a great buy. At the moment I'm using Living Waters strings with a high D but I'll probably go back to a low D on the next re-stringing.
 
Spruce top is always nice for a baritone, clear and articulate but still with warmth. Kala are a quality built instrument so that model should do you very well in that price range.

I have strung some of my baritones GCEA using concert gauge string with a wound fourth for low G tuning. It works, sounds like a super tenor, a little bigger and more resonant then a normal tenor. I am sure the Kala strings set would do the same, Living Water makes a set as well.

Here is the thing, we fall in love with the sound of a baritone because of the lower, deeper and richer DGBE tuning. When you change it to GCEA you lose that sound, the thing that drew you to the baritone in the first place. But strings are cheap so the experiment is worth a try.
 
Not sure if it still matters to the OP, but I should have mentioned, in my reply above, that the Guadalupe GCEA strings I tried on baritone were an octave lower than the GCEA used for concert/tenor ukes. So they also were lower than the DGBE range of strings on a typical baritone.
 
I have a Kala SMHB solid mahogany bari and I really like the deep sound with the DGBE tuning. If I want to play in CGEA, I just capo at the 5th fret. I prefer the sound to that of my tenor.
 
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