Bulletin Board: Baritone - Too Mellow for this Fellow

Original Post By: Busby Mims Date: 4/12/2010 7:28:02 AM Have a Pono mahogany baritone tuned D(low)GBE. Wonderful instrument but it's too mellow for my taste. Have tried Aquila, D'Addario, Hilo and Martin strings. Aquila's are the brightest, but still not enough. Anybody got an idea how I can liven up the sound without going to high D tuning? Thanks, Phil, aka, Busby Mims Posted By: Phreddcatt Date: 4/12/2010 7:35:37 AM Try MGMs GCEA soprano tune set for Baritone. It will give your bari new life. Posted By: Jim Lenn Date: 4/12/2010 8:55:56 AM Phreddcatt is correct,,, both Hilo and Aquila have hi-g, C,E,A sets for Baritones... It's like a tenor strung hi-g uke on steroids !!! Posted By: Phreddcatt Date: 4/12/2010 9:04:04 AM Yes, its a super tenor! =] Posted By: ChefJeff Date: 4/12/2010 7:53:00 PM   (Updated: 4/12/2010 7:55:31 PM) If you haven't yet bought other strings, try tuning your current ones up to E A C# F# first. That may brighten things up a bit and as long as you don't play with others no chord transposition is necessary. However, although I don't believe the extra string tension will faze the Pono it may not be to your liking. If you do buy a set for C tuning, try tuning them to my favorite bari tuning, Bb (F Bb D G) before taking them up to C. It's a nice compromise that I believe brings the best out of many baritones. You can always go higher but some players don't believe strings take to lower tuning once they've settled in at a higher one. Whatever you try, be sure to give the strings two or three days to settle down before passing judgment. One last comment - I've owned only one Pono bari (a wonderful rosewood and spruce model) but if I remember correctly it had an exceptionally long scale, 23 inches I believe. If I'm right, that's three full inches beyond the 19" considered normal for a baritone ukulele. In fact, it puts you at the same scale length as many tenor guitars. I played around with different sizes of classical guitar strings until I found a sound I liked, one that was full and rich with clear, ringing highs. Although I liked the way it sounded, the overall tone was still nothing I'd call bright. Good luck. Edit: PS - All my tunings were "low 4th" using a wound 4th and usually a wound 3rd as well. I never tried re-entrant tuning. Posted By: earnest Date: 4/14/2010 7:56:45 AM I tune my bari aDF#B, an octave below my concert uke. I move the D,G,&B strings over a notch and add a tenor G string in the 4th slot. It gives you that low D note that sounds real good on a baritone uke, and the reentrant tuning which makes it sound more like a uke and less like a guitar. gCEA, an octave down, would probably work too, but I play in D tuning. eck Posted By: MR Bulk Date: 4/15/2010 4:49:56 AM Try Worth Clear Lights. Posted By: southcoastukes Date: 4/18/2010 12:05:49 AM   (Updated: 4/18/2010 1:09:05 PM) I may have a solution for you. There are some strings that I call "hybrids". They are made by Thomastik-Infeld and technically are metal strings. They have very soft, flexible cores, however, and are very low tension compared to "steel strings". They are designed for classical concert guitars - instruments that, like ukuleles, cannot stand the stress of standard metal strings. They make two different sets in their "Classic S" series. On a 4 string instrument, I like a first string from the "KR" set with the other three coming from the "KF" set. The KR strings are flat wound, creating much less finger hiss than you get out of any standard classical wound string. On a 20" scale, these work best in B flat. It is definitely a different sound, brighter than normal to be sure, but much darker and less metallic than steel strings. Our website, southcoastukes.com has a bunch of tuning samples. We do not make a standard baritone. Our "Tenor", however, could be called a "baritenor" as it has the 20" scale found on a standard baritone. Our "Baritone" has the same scale, but with a body configuration that is different from a standard baritone. If you go to our "Instruments" page, and click on either of these two instruments, you will find tuning samples at the bottom, including a B flat hybrid set-up. These samples should give you a pretty good feel for how they would sound on your standard baritone. p.s. We also sell our own strings. On the same pages you will find samples of these instruments with a low 4th (or "linear") C tuning that uses our linear set - no wound strings. Posted By: Busby Mims Date: 6/6/2010 7:20:10 AM CLOSURE: I tried just about everything you good folks suggested and here's what hit my fancy: Tuned DGEA with Aquila 1st, 2nd and 3rd string and a Hilo 4th string tuned to hi D. Thanks again for your ideas. Busby. Posted By: TwoLegPete Date: 6/7/2010 11:57:00 AM hi busby, I have a Ohana BK-20 and I've had the same problem... too mellow... at the moment I've put on a set of Worth Brown Fats, (reentrant dGBE) which is almost what I want. It gives it a low but crisp voice. I'd prefer a thicker G-string with more punch, though... and I don't like the sound of wound strings on a uke... Posted By: ichadwick Date: 6/8/2010 8:18:00 AM You might consider replacing the saddle with a brighter, more responsive material. I have had good success using Tusq saddles. It's a fairly easy upgrade to make. Just be careful not to disturb the piezo pickup under the saddle when you remove the old/insert the new one. Tusq saddles really brightened my Pono mango and cigar box ukes.

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