Black strings users ... anyone?

patico

patico

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I don't see much black strings in ukulele videos. Usually see clear nylons or those white (Aquila?) strings.

Any black strings users here ?????

I once tried Fremont Blackline in a Soprano, and loved them, so i decided to go all black.
Recently got a used Koaloha with original strings, that felt like high tension clear nylon (i'm guessing). Played for a while, then decided to change'em for the blackies. I'm now practicing something beatiful to upload a NUD video with the Koaloha Tenor.

here's my old Collings with blackies
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJST5JaULGE
 
Got a Makala Dolphin soprano, all Dolphins are sopranos, duh, and strung it with Fremont Black Lines. Wow!! That thing sounds so good I bought a case for it that cost more than the uke. They are fabulous.
 
I use Fremonts or Worth browns exclusively and I do it for cosmetic reasons. I think dark strings look better against the dark wood of the fret board
 
I've used Fremont hard-tension blacklines on soprano when I wanted to be in "gCEA" tuning but wanted a little stiffer feel. I'm currently groovin' on "aDF#B" tuning on the soprano, so I've ordered a couple of sets of Fremont medium-tension blacklines, and hoping they'll work well with that higher tuning!
 
mangorockfish said:
Got a Makala Dolphin soprano, all Dolphins are sopranos, duh, and strung it with Fremont Black Lines. Wow!! That thing sounds so good I bought a case for it that cost more than the uke. They are fabulous.
Click to expand...

Another Fremont Blackline supporter here. I’ve used the medium tension BL’s on a Dolphin and on a Kala KA-P and found them fine, certainly better than the Aquilas that they replaced - Aquila’s are a good and reliable product but for me others are better. Without respect to looks I prefer Martin M600’s over the Blacklines and find them all around better (in the U.K. the M600’s cost less too), but having said that IMHO there’s not that much of a gap between the two in use and I’d be very happy to use Blacklines again. I find that the Blacklines are easier to see and that can be a handy feature.

IIRC Mike at Uke Republic is a fan of Blacklines, seems a good enough recommendation to me.

Edit. There are black nylon strings about but for me and on my instruments they haven’t been a success, clear nylon seemed slightly better and Aquila products better again. Strings, a lot is down to the instrument they are matched (mismatched?) to, a player’s objectives and how the player uses them. I’ve tried Black GHS strings and feel that they have an unfairly bad reputation, just because some poorly performing string is both nylon and black does not mean that it’s a GHS string.
 
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When I first started playing ukulele a lot of lower priced ukulele were coming from the factory with black GHS strings and everyone here was trash talking them, saying that people should change to Nylguts . Back then Nylguts were the magic string that made even cheap ukes sound good. I noticed recently that people are changing out their Nylguts with GHS strings and loving them. I don't know if they are still black.
 
Beautiful music you make with that Collings!
 
I really like the look of black strings but they don't like me back. Tried the fremonts but they were either too high tension or too thin for my liking (or both). Reading some of the above comments, maybe I could have got a lower tension set. I also tried some black nylon strings once, probably D'addarios, but I've never got on with nylon. Might have to look into what fremonts I got and see if there's a lower tension version. Otherwise I'll stick with Worth clears.
 
When I bought my all bamboo Aklot tenor cutaway uke late last year, I knew just by looking at the photos that I was going to not only change the strings to black, but also the nut, saddle, fret markers, string end beads and strap buttons with gold screws to match the tuning machines. I have to say, it looks and sounds really good now. I like the strings, D'Addario.

Aklot bamboo cutaway.jpg


This is Michael Kohan in Los Angeles, Beverly Grove near the Beverly Center
9 tenor cutaway ukes, 4 acoustic bass ukes, 12 solid body bass ukes, 14 mini electric bass guitars (Total: 39)

Donate to The Ukulele Kids Club, they provide ukuleles to children in hospital music therapy programs. www.theukc.org
Member The CC Strummers: www.youtube.com/user/CCStrummers/video, www.facebook.com/TheCCStrummers
 
Last year I bought a 47 year old Kamaka, which I believe had the original black nylon strings on... Or very old strings at least, proving that nylon strings can indeed get too old. I guess those dont count.

I have tried a lot of dark strings for the look of them.
Fremont Blacklines sound good to me, but I am not a fan of the waxy touch of them. I prefer Worth Browns, but Yes, they are not black.

I also tried a few gray strings.
Aquila Carbonblacks, which I dont like the texture of.
Aquila Lava strings, which are perfectly fine for nylon/nylgut strings, but doesnt offer the qualities of fluorocarbon.
 
I definitively prefer dark colored strings. However, I have a few ukes that seem to love clear fluorocarbons.
 
Rllink said:
When I first started playing ukulele a lot of lower priced ukulele were coming from the factory with black GHS strings and everyone here was trash talking them, saying that people should change to Nylguts . Back then Nylguts were the magic string that made even cheap ukes sound good. I noticed recently that people are changing out their Nylguts with GHS strings and loving them. I don't know if they are still black.
Click to expand...

I'm guessing the people switching from nylguts to "GHS" strings mean they're switching to fluorocarbon which is the more common modern option. Before nylguts existed, nylon was probably the more typical choice (I'm guessing since I didn't play uke back then).

I find discussing string colour specifically a bit odd since you can have black strings that are made out of nylon or fluorocarbon, or even nylgut actually. The sound properties between these vary drastically so the material of the string is much more important than the colour, although I do get the aesthetic aspect as well. I'm not that fussy about string colour myself but I do happen to generally prefer black (or brown) strings in terms of sound when it comes to fluorocarbon. Although on certain ukes I might prefer clear fluorocarbon. It highly depends on the uke for me. Same thing with nylon although it's the reverse, I usually prefer clear nylon but on certain ukes I use black nylon.
 
My pre-owned Ko'olau had black GHS strings on it when I bought it and it sounded fine to me. I changed to Worth browns after I got tired of chasing the tuning around as the temperature changed. Going from the car to indoors during the Winter was the worst.
 
That Aklot is a beauty. Black strings look great against the bamboo. Now, remove that QC sticker. :cool:
 
My Pohaku Resonator came the GHS HT-10's. Sound wise I've been satisfied with them so far. Bought a back up set. Someday I'll try some other strings perhaps. I'm not one to change strings back and forth frequently. IF something works I tend to stay with it. I'll say getting used the color took more than a few days. Most of the other strings I've used are whitish or opaque in color. I found myself looking down at the strings more or missing a bit more with my fingers. But after about a month my vision with them has settled in.
 
I use Aquila Lava 110U
 
My used KoAloha and Kamaka ukes came with some black strings most likely Nylon. They were terrible on the KoAloha with poor intonation and got replaced quickly with fluorocarbon. The ones on Kamaka were not too bad but also got replaced with Nylguts after some weeks.
 
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