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Stretching ukulele strings
Hi
I've recently bought my first uke. A tenor. It's fitted with open geared tuners. I've noticed that it constantly requires retuning. Spoke to the seller who informed me that I need to spend time stretching the strings and retuning. Or replace the stock strings with something such as Aquila Nylgut, which will require less stretching and will stay in tune much better. Does this sound correct. Never had a uke before. Ian
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Taylor GS Mini Mahogany Bautista Iranzo Recording King ROS-16 |
#2
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Yep, if you're used to steel strings you'll notice that when you first put nylon strings on they will take a few days to settle. I would also take off the stock strings ASAP unless they are a good brand. Aquilas are good for one type of sound and you could check out Worths or Living Waters for another type of sound. I normally find that people are with Aquila users or fluorocarbon users.
As I see you live in the UK; living water strings will be a good place to look: http://www.kenmiddleton.co.uk/pages/lws.aspx |
#3
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Quote:
Ian
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Taylor GS Mini Mahogany Bautista Iranzo Recording King ROS-16 |
#4
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uke
As uke strings are mostly nylon as opposed to steel on a guitar, they take considerably more time to 'stretch'.
Just go with it AND keep a tuner handy! |
#5
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Quote:
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#6
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Will do. The Aquilas arrived today. Have ordered a set of the Living Water too.
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Taylor GS Mini Mahogany Bautista Iranzo Recording King ROS-16 Last edited by Yanto; 11-19-2014 at 07:37 AM. Reason: Typo |
#7
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In general, when we as guitar players change our strings, we pull the string thru the hole, leave some slack for the windings, loop the excess over and under, or lock it at the post in some way, and tune up, clip the excess. Then we lift the strings off the fretboard gently to seat and stretch the string. We're good to go in minutes after that is accomplished, with some minor tweaking for a day or two.
Do the same thing with the uke with the exception of leaving slack for the winding. Pull it thru all the way, preferably with the post hole facing mainly down, if not all the way down. This way, when it is tuned, you will have 2-3 windings around the post and the strings will settle much quicker. If you have a lot of windings around the post, it truly will seem to, if not actually, take forever. Also, settled strings will always sound how that particular string will sound on your uke, probably best not to judge a set until that's done. On pulling them gently to seat them properly, I do, directly from the 12th fret, but that may be just superstition and have no basis in the physics of nylon or fluorocarbon. They're usually settled in a day, with the stability to play in tune available pretty quickly. Also, strum the heck out of it for awhile. Not only fun, but helps. |
#8
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Quote:
Ian
__________________
Taylor GS Mini Mahogany Bautista Iranzo Recording King ROS-16 |