Replacement string advice for Mahalo UE30s steel strings?

Hey,

I've got a Mahalo UE30s steel stringed electric uke that I've really enjoyed playing over the last 5 years or so. It's a bit unusual, since it uses steel strings and has a electric guitar style magnetic pickup rather than a piezo element.

Recently, one of the strings broke. I've searched everywhere for advice on what strings it came with or how to replace them to no avail.

Has anyone actually done this before to a UE30s? Or have advice for how I could figure out what strings to use?

For the curious, here is a link to the uke in question

Coming from a lot of experience with electric ukuleles in general, here are my recommendations:

Get a set of "Light gauge electric guitar strings, also known as 10's.
9's if you want even lighter tension.

For example: Elixir 10-46 Light Electric Guitar Strings

Use the 4th, 3rd, 2nd, 1st strings only (DGBE) and install it on the electric ukulele as GCEA (low-G).

Done.

If you want to do re-entrant tuning (high-G), you'll need another 1st string (E) and tune it up to high G on the ukulele.

Thanks for the thoughtful response. I'll give that a try! Also, thanks for discussing the low vs high G-string - I'm looking to go low and should have mentioned that in my original post.

kissing said:

Coming from a lot of experience with electric ukuleles in general, here are my recommendations:

Get a set of "Light gauge electric guitar strings, also known as 10's.
9's if you want even lighter tension.

For example: Elixir 10-46 Light Electric Guitar Strings

Use the 4th, 3rd, 2nd, 1st strings only (DGBE) and install it on the electric ukulele as GCEA (low-G).

Done.

If you want to do re-entrant tuning (high-G), you'll need another 1st string (E) and tune it up to high G on the ukulele.

Click to expand...

@kissing

Thanks again for your suggestion. I wound up stringing it with Ernie Ball Slinky regular strings, .010 to .046, using the first four as you recommended.

Result is fantastic - much improved over the original set of strings. Feels better, sounds better, and I think I also managed to fix some bad intonation issues I had in the process (though not quite sure how).

Really appreciate the help!

Glad it helped!

kissing said:

Coming from a lot of experience with electric ukuleles in general, here are my recommendations:

Get a set of "Light gauge electric guitar strings, also known as 10's.
9's if you want even lighter tension.

For example: Elixir 10-46 Light Electric Guitar Strings

Use the 4th, 3rd, 2nd, 1st strings only (DGBE) and install it on the electric ukulele as GCEA (low-G).

Done.

If you want to do re-entrant tuning (high-G), you'll need another 1st string (E) and tune it up to high G on the ukulele.

Click to expand...

@kissing - any suggestions for a electric Tenor uke? I have a Soundsmith electric, steel string tenor , Low G - don't like the strings (painful). I'd love silk and steel but not sure what strings I'd use out of a guitar set. (And yes, I realize that these are (mainly?) meant for acoustic guitars - which is where I am currently using them. Maybe not the right sound in this case?). Or - do you think the electric guitar 9's might be nice enough on my fingers?

lakeside339 said:

@kissing - any suggestions for a electric Tenor uke? I have a Soundsmith electric, steel string tenor , Low G - don't like the strings (painful). I'd love silk and steel but not sure what strings I'd use out of a guitar set. (And yes, I realize that these are (mainly?) meant for acoustic guitars - which is where I am currently using them. Maybe not the right sound in this case?). Or - do you think the electric guitar 9's might be nice enough on my fingers?

Click to expand...

A tenor is just a slightly longer scale ukulele.
Guitarists don't bother with such arbitrary names like Ukulele players do - and guitars come in a range of scale lengths despite being tuned the same.

Soprano is just "short scale".
Concert is just "medium scale".
Tenor is just "long scale".


Long story short, just use the recommendations I've already made.

9's if you want it a bit lighter; 10's if you want it slightly heavier.
Feel of the strings on your fingers may depend a lot on your setup as well.