Open strings tuned fine, notes played on frets badly out of tune

"They said it's quite hard to find a soprano uke with good intonation at a low price"

This statement is quite wrong. I have several very cheap soprano ukuleles and they all have acceptable intonation. It's only a matter of having the nut, saddle and frets in the right places, and decent strings with good action (height).

Of course, it might be that you have unusually acute tone perception. Mine is average, at best.

John Colter.
 
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Hi, anthonyg,

thanks again for your advice. I've discussed my problem with the dealer, which is a reliable company I've been a regular customer of (for non-ukulele musical needs). They said it's quite hard to find a soprano uke with good intonation at a low price and advised me to get a tenor uke, but they only have one electro-acoustic tenor in the same price range and that has really ugly design. So I'm thinking of getting a concert uke: either a Fender Grace Wanderwaal Signature or a Lanika MA-CEC. Both have high-quality electronics (Fishman Kula) and have received good reviews. So I'll probably plump for one of them.
I will also ask the dealer to get one of its guitar experts to make sure it's intonation is good before they send it to me, as well as attaching a strap button if I get the Grace Wanderwaal Signature, because that doesn't have any strap button, for some reason, and I certainly find it easier to play with a strap on (not a strap-on).

Thanks again,

Pete

There is a degree of truth to the claim that the shorter the scale length, the harder it is to get good intonation but only a degree. The shorter the scale length the larger % a 0.5 mm fault will be but still, even long scale guitars will have intonation problems with a 0.5mm fault, so when it comes down to it, all instruments need to be built to a high degree of accuracy.
Money is probably a greater indicator yet not always. Cheap instruments can be built accurately and not all expensive instruments are built accurately either.
 
I finally had some time to tune the soprano up to D and it is a noticeable improvement. While intonation is still far from perfect at least it is now playable and sounds and feels better with higher tension too. I definitely recommend this as an easy and reversible fix, and soprano is historically tuned in D anyway.
 
I would have thought most people could notice a tone that's 20% sharp when it's played together with notes at the correct pitch. My tone perception is not particularly special, I don't think.

Maybe I'll get a soprano again once shops have reopened...
 
There is a degree of truth to the claim that the shorter the scale length, the harder it is to get good intonation but only a degree. The shorter the scale length the larger % a 0.5 mm fault will be but still, even long scale guitars will have intonation problems with a 0.5mm fault, so when it comes down to it, all instruments need to be built to a high degree of accuracy.
Money is probably a greater indicator yet not always. Cheap instruments can be built accurately and not all expensive instruments are built accurately either.

Oh well. I just pray my replacement has good intonation. I don't want to keep sending ukuleles back to the shop!

Cheers, Pete
 
I finally had some time to tune the soprano up to D and it is a noticeable improvement. While intonation is still far from perfect at least it is now playable and sounds and feels better with higher tension too. I definitely recommend this as an easy and reversible fix, and soprano is historically tuned in D anyway.

I’ve heard this before but I’m sceptical about what’s going on in that situation. The nut, saddle and frets are all fixed so how does higher string tension (for D tuning with C tuning strings) impact in intonation? Volume might go up due to higher string tensions driving the sound board harder and a smaller body Soprano might be more acoustical suited to having D as it’s lowest note. There’s a lot more to this than meets the eye.
 
I would have thought most people could notice a tone that's 20% sharp when it's played together with notes at the correct pitch. My tone perception is not particularly special, I don't think.

Maybe I'll get a soprano again once shops have reopened...

Oh well. I just pray my replacement has good intonation. I don't want to keep sending ukuleles back to the shop!

Cheers, Pete

A 20cent intonation fault is ridiculous, and clearly a sign of an inaccurately built instrument, however ukuleles being ukuleles a 5cent intonation error is quite common and most people put up with it yet others are quite sensitive to a 5cent intonation error. Eliminating the last 5cent of intonation errors takes a bit of fine adjustment and you can't fix it at every last fret. There will always be a fret or two that is out somewhere.
 
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A 20cent intonation fault is ridiculous, and clearly a sign of an inaccurately built instrument, however ukuleles being ukuleles a 5cent intonation error is quite common and most people put up with it yet others are quite sensitive to a 5cent intonation error. Eliminating the last 5cent of intonation errors takes a bit of fine adjustment and you can't fix it at every last fret. There will always be a fret or two that is out somewhere.

Thank you for confirming that 20% is not an acceptable deviation and that I'm not being over-precious about this. If there's an intonation error higher up the fretboard I won't mind so much. I'm not yet at the stage where I would use the higher ranges of the fretboard for chords or runs.

I think I mentioned earlier in this thread that I'd written a slightly sarcastic e-mail to Ortega, the manufacturer. Unexpectedly, I got a reply from them today. They said it was "unusual" for their "Timber Series" to have bad intonation and said it might be the cold weather that's to blame. Sure, it's minus 15 at the moment in Prague, but the ukulele lives in my heated flat - I'm hardly busking on street corners.

Funnily enough, though the idea that soprano ukuleles should not necessarily have worse intonation than larger versions was slightly undermined by the Ortega employee's suggestion that I buy essentially the same ukulele in a concert size. Not sure what to make of that.

That's all academic anyway, as my concert Lanikai MA-CEC is due to be delivered tomorrow, with Aquila 7U strings - can't wait!
 
Well, I got the Lanikai MA-CEC concert uke, but the dealer forgot to replace the generic strings with the Aquila 7U strings, the C and E strings are again around 20% sharp on the first and second frets, the instrument seems to me to have a very dull tone and there's some low booming and buzzing sound (probably the C string, but it's hard to tell) when I try to play loud. It seems that the C string really dominates the other strings.

Maybe I'll take up the drums. Or send the Lanikai back as well and get the Fender Grace Vanderwaal Signature concert uke as a last try. My only concern about that model is that it doesn't have a strap button, but I could buy one of those horrible neck straps that looks like a referee's whistle strip, maybe attach a strap button if there's a suitable block inside the uke or learn how to play without a strap, though I have no idea how people manage that.
 
Welcome to factory made ukuleles. At this point send it back simply because they are holding you in contempt by not even testing it themselves before sending it to you.
May I suggest that you hold off on another ukulele until you can get back into the store yourself.
 
Hi anthonyg,

thanks again for responding, I really appreciate it.
Unfortunately, I live in the Czech Republic where the pandemic is getting worse and vaccination is proceeding really slowly. So I have no idea when shops will reopen - it will probably be several months.
I am going to send this one back as well and have one last try with the Fender.
 
..... I've discussed my problem with the dealer, which is a reliable company I've been a regular customer of (for non-ukulele musical needs). They said it's quite hard to find a soprano uke with good intonation at a low price and advised me to get a tenor uke ...

"They said it's quite hard to find a soprano uke with good intonation at a low price"

This statement is quite wrong. I have several very cheap soprano ukuleles and they all have acceptable intonation. It's only a matter of having the nut, saddle and frets in the right places, and decent strings with good action (height).



I would echo John Coulter’s (Ukantor’s) earlier comment. IMHO either the dealer doesn’t know quite enough about Ukes or he’s not being completely honest with you.

This afternoon I set-up a second hand Soprano that must be at least a decade old and it would have cost very little when it was new - it (the make and model) was quite likely the cheapest Uke in most ‘music’ shops. So it’s an inexpensive instrument that’s both been owned by a few people and (very likely) supplied by a ‘music’ shop, none of those people understood and acted upon the need to set it up before use. Initially that Soprano’s intonation was rubbish but the open strings sounded good enough. After sorting out the string heights in the nut and at the saddle, sorting the compensation at the saddle and replacing the strings with basic Aquila’s the Uke sounds just great and I am delighted with it. [The strings that it arrived with (as fitted by some earlier owner) had to be changed because they were for D tuning and not all of them would intonate properly in ‘standard’ C tuning.] All of those set-up tasks I’ve done on other sizes of Uke too, and more importantly all sizes of Uke need setting-up - expect for someone to have to do that work. How much work is needed on a Uke is most likely to be a function of its price and is not really a function of its size. Set-up work is not difficult or highly skilled, but it is time consuming and so an expense to businesses...

Sopranos are the original size of Uke, they were created as a perfect instrument and built by craftsmen. Sopranos are still a very popular size of Uke - perhaps the most popular - and can play perfectly well, like all of the common sizes of Uke Sopranos do need setting-up properly. Shop-keepers, occasionally you do find good ones but IMHO too many are blaggers, too many are rogues and too few do either little or no more than process a sale of whatever they happen to have in stock.
 
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I would echo John Coulter’s (Ukantor’s) earlier comment. IMHO either the dealer doesn’t know quite enough about Ukes or he’s not being completely honest with you.

This afternoon I set-up a second hand Soprano that must be at least a decade old and it would have cost very little when it was new - it (the make and model) was quite likely the cheapest Uke in most ‘music’ shops. So it’s an inexpensive instrument that’s both been owned by a few people and (very likely) supplied by a ‘music’ shop, none of those people understood and acted upon the need to set it up before use. Initially that Soprano’s intonation was rubbish but the open strings sounded good enough. After sorting out the string heights in the nut and at the saddle, sorting the compensation at the saddle and replacing the strings with basic Aquila’s the Uke sounds just great and I am delighted with it. [The strings that it arrived with (as fitted by some earlier owner) had to be changed because they were for D tuning and not all of them would intonate properly in ‘standard’ C tuning.] All of those set-up tasks I’ve done on other sizes of Uke too, and more importantly all sizes of Uke need setting-up - expect for someone to have to do that work. How much work is needed on a Uke is most likely to be a function of its price and is not really a function of its size. Set-up work is not difficult or highly skilled, but it is time consuming and so an expense to businesses...

Sopranos are the original size of Uke, they were created as a perfect instrument and built by craftsmen. Sopranos are still a very popular size of Uke - perhaps the most popular - and can play perfectly well, like all of the common sizes of Uke Sopranos do need setting-up properly. Shop-keepers, occasionally you do find good ones but IMHO too many are blaggers, too many are rogues and too few do either little or no more than process a sale of whatever they happen to have in stock.

+1 what Graham said.
 
I have a inexpensive concert that's having the same issue as your soprano. I just ordered some files to adjust the nut slot depths. If that doesn't work, I'm going to try a new saddle to move the point of contact of each string farther as appropriate (thanks to the advice from this forum.)

On the other hand, I saw this: https://www.hosco.co.jp/en/accessories/sos-us1.html it seems like a fancy version of the toothpick trick. It's tempting to try.

Lastly, If you have the heat on you may need to humidify your instrument. The heat dries out the air, and in turn dries wood out. This is less of an issue with laminate instruments. I use an inexpensive sound hole humidifier, but I've also used a sponge in a soap dish drilled with holes in a guitar case before.
 
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