123paul
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| Joined: | Mon Jan 7th, 2008 |
| Location: | |
| Posts: | 10 |
| Instrument Interest: | Ukulele |
| Status: |
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apologies if this is an old topic or has been done to death elsewhere, but...
as i said on my 'hi' post, i bought a soprano uke first & it has the geared (i.e. like a guitar) tuning pegs. that's fine & easy to tune (once the strings settle down a bit, that is).
then, last week, i bought a hamano tenor uke made of mahogany with a rosewood fretboard. this was a nightmare to tune at first, until i found out that i could tune it easier if i tightened the screw on the head of the friction peg. it seemed to just hold the string better. are there any guidelines about this? e.g. how 'tight' is tight enough with these friction tuning pegs? if this seems a silly question, just bear with me as i'm new to this. the thing is, i don't want to damage the thing by over-tightening it - if this is possible. any advice appreciated.
i also went into my local guitar, amp & keyboard shop to ask for advice (this is where i learned about tightening the screw in the friction peg head). one of the suggestions that was made was that i could have geared tuners fitted - they have a pro who can do the job for me, ast a cost of about £50 !! seemed expensive to me. the question is, should i bother now that it seems to work ok? is it worth getting them changed? will this affect the performance, or damage the uke in any way? while it wasn't anywhere near as expensive as many of the instruments that i've seen on various web pages, i don't want to mess it up in any way, or spend the money if it isn't worth it in the long run.
are the geared tuners a relatively recent innovation on the ukulele? why friction peg tuners at all? what are the relative merits of the two? what's the general opinion one way or another?
thanks.
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