CPG
Well-known member
Who doesn’t love a good string comparison? Yes, these have been done before by the likes of George Elmes and Kalei Gamiao, but let’s be honest, those guys could make a Kleenex box with rubber bands sound good. You’re probably not that good, and neither am I. Wouldn’t you rather hear how strings sound when a normal human plays them?
Okay. I actually wasn’t planning on doing this. I was inspired to do it by my new Pohaku soprano. Usually, when I get a new uke, if it isn’t already strung with fluorocarbon I promptly pull off whatever is on there and throw on a set of Martin M600s. If I feel like want to try something else it’s Worth BMs or Martin Premiums, but it stops there. However, I was amazed by how much I liked the Aquila’s on this instrument since I usually don’t like them at all, and most the string experimenting I had done was early on in my playing on very good for the price but not amazing Kala tenor ukes. My surprise with my fondness for the Aquila’s on the Pohaku combined with the fact that I now really only play a couple of what I find to be amazingly nice soprano ukes made me really want to experiment again.
Over the past few days I’ve been recording sound/video sample of each string I try on this ukulele. In each sample I am in the same room, playing the same thing, and doing my best effort to play a similar distance from the microphone and at a similar volume. However, I don’t have any real recording equipment, so this is done on a simple external pc camera/microphone. Because of that a lot of the nuance will be lost, but you should still be idea to get general idea of how each string impacts the tone of this particular instrument.
So here they are listed one by one or if you’d rather you can just go to the full playlist. I will comment as I add more and also add to the list in this initial post. My comments on each string type are in a post below this one so that you can have a chance to listen to the sound sample before seeing my opinion.
Aquila Nylgut (not sure which type): https://youtu.be/-r5kX4xm-4w
Martin Premium Graphite Gray Polygut (M605): https://youtu.be/G4c_vG-5tbo
Worth Brown Medium (BM): https://youtu.be/r-IipivDMB4
Fremont Blackline Medium Tension: https://youtu.be/HvfVSHwzxvU
D’Addario Titanium (EJ87S): https://youtu.be/ldwOACSsTrM
Worth Clear Medium (CM) [added 09/09/2020]: https://youtu.be/eZ1SjSHOWw0
Worth Clear Medium (CM) - Take 2 [added 09/10/2020]: https://youtu.be/-3PUHy_LUqQ
Martin Premium Graphite Gray Polygut for Tenors (M625)[added 09/11/2020]: https://youtu.be/oHbli-KP6WA
Ernie Ball Clear Nylon (2329)[added 09/23/2020]: https://youtu.be/RSgVUolO51E
Okay. I actually wasn’t planning on doing this. I was inspired to do it by my new Pohaku soprano. Usually, when I get a new uke, if it isn’t already strung with fluorocarbon I promptly pull off whatever is on there and throw on a set of Martin M600s. If I feel like want to try something else it’s Worth BMs or Martin Premiums, but it stops there. However, I was amazed by how much I liked the Aquila’s on this instrument since I usually don’t like them at all, and most the string experimenting I had done was early on in my playing on very good for the price but not amazing Kala tenor ukes. My surprise with my fondness for the Aquila’s on the Pohaku combined with the fact that I now really only play a couple of what I find to be amazingly nice soprano ukes made me really want to experiment again.
Over the past few days I’ve been recording sound/video sample of each string I try on this ukulele. In each sample I am in the same room, playing the same thing, and doing my best effort to play a similar distance from the microphone and at a similar volume. However, I don’t have any real recording equipment, so this is done on a simple external pc camera/microphone. Because of that a lot of the nuance will be lost, but you should still be idea to get general idea of how each string impacts the tone of this particular instrument.
So here they are listed one by one or if you’d rather you can just go to the full playlist. I will comment as I add more and also add to the list in this initial post. My comments on each string type are in a post below this one so that you can have a chance to listen to the sound sample before seeing my opinion.
Aquila Nylgut (not sure which type): https://youtu.be/-r5kX4xm-4w
Martin Premium Graphite Gray Polygut (M605): https://youtu.be/G4c_vG-5tbo
Worth Brown Medium (BM): https://youtu.be/r-IipivDMB4
Fremont Blackline Medium Tension: https://youtu.be/HvfVSHwzxvU
D’Addario Titanium (EJ87S): https://youtu.be/ldwOACSsTrM
Worth Clear Medium (CM) [added 09/09/2020]: https://youtu.be/eZ1SjSHOWw0
Worth Clear Medium (CM) - Take 2 [added 09/10/2020]: https://youtu.be/-3PUHy_LUqQ
Martin Premium Graphite Gray Polygut for Tenors (M625)[added 09/11/2020]: https://youtu.be/oHbli-KP6WA
Ernie Ball Clear Nylon (2329)[added 09/23/2020]: https://youtu.be/RSgVUolO51E
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