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baritone gcea tuning - Baritone Uke - Ukulele - ezFolk Forums
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 Posted: Sat Apr 14th, 2007 02:05 am
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skittles
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a newbie here playing with a cheap mahalo baritone (and an even cheaper soprano that holds its tuning amazingly well)/

One can get gcea strings for baritone. Does one tune to the same pitch as soprano or one octave lower???

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 Posted: Sun Apr 15th, 2007 04:55 am
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Will
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skittles wrote: a newbie here playing with a cheap mahalo baritone (and an even cheaper soprano that holds its tuning amazingly well).

One can get gcea strings for baritone. Does one tune to the same pitch as soprano or one octave lower???

The special gauge gCEA strings for a baritone are tuned to the same octave as a soprano.  However, the larger body of the baritone will give a much deeper sound than a soprano.



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 Posted: Mon Apr 16th, 2007 08:53 am
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Tani
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Hi. I have seen using the four deepest string of a classic guitar (the E A D G ones) on a bari uke, tuned GCEA, an octave lower than the Soprano Ukulele. It was very good, actually, at least for me.  

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 Posted: Mon Apr 16th, 2007 09:31 am
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skittles
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An interesting notuion, Tani. I might give it a try. My cheap  baritone strung to gcea with the Aquila nylguts supposedly specially made for that purpose actually sounds a bit thin or dead unless I whack it with a thickish pick.

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 Posted: Mon Apr 16th, 2007 09:01 pm
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Will
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Because I prefer low-G tuning, I have to use the G (second lowest pitch) from the standard DGBE baritone set in place of the higher octave G that comes with the special gauge gCEA Aquila Nylgut string set for baritone ukes. 



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 Posted: Tue Apr 17th, 2007 12:44 am
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skittles
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Aha!  Mix and match - yes.

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 Posted: Tue Jun 5th, 2007 11:34 pm
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I bought a set of Ko'lua Gold CGEA strings for Baritone by accident (I thought i was buying regular DGBE strings) and man they sure seemed tight when I tuned up. I am afraid it will damange the Uke. Anyone every use these strings?

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 Posted: Tue May 13th, 2008 01:02 am
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Tani wrote: Hi. I have seen using the four deepest string of a classic guitar (the E A D G ones) on a bari uke, tuned GCEA, an octave lower than the Soprano Ukulele. It was very good, actually, at least for me.  

This idea really intrigues me.  Is it re-entrant this way, or low G?  How does the D string (from the guitar) do as a C string.


I just got my first bari uke today , and I am sort of awestruck by its size.  Is 18 frets standard?



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 Posted: Tue May 13th, 2008 03:08 am
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Will
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JimmyJoe wrote: I bought a set of Ko'lua Gold CGEA strings for Baritone by accident (I thought i was buying regular DGBE strings) and man they sure seemed tight when I tuned up. I am afraid it will damange the Uke. Anyone every use these strings?
If those strings are specifically labeled as "GCEA Strings For Baritone" then they are of the correct gauge and tension to work correctly on a baritone without excessive string tension.  They are mostly likely re-entrant tuned, gCEA.  If you want the low-G tuning, you will need to borrow the normal G string from the original baritone string set and use it in place of the high G string.



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 Posted: Tue May 13th, 2008 05:48 am
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musicguymic
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A note  Koolau does not make a gcea set for baritones and a small batch of sets went out with the wrong labeling in back   do not use them for reentrant high g baritone tuning. 



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 Posted: Tue May 13th, 2008 07:41 am
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Tani
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Hello Bartlebysuke.

Let me explain:

Because of the shorter lenght:

The E bass string of the Guitar is up to Low G in Bari Uke

The A string of the Guitar is up to C in Bari Uke

The D string of the Guitar is up to E in Bari Uke 

The G string of the Guitar is up to A in Bari Uke.

I hope this makes things clearer. All the Best.

Tani.

Last edited on Tue May 13th, 2008 07:42 am by Tani

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 Posted: Tue May 13th, 2008 01:35 pm
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Will
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BartlebysUke wrote: Tani wrote: Hi. I have seen using the four deepest string of a classic guitar (the E A D G ones) on a bari uke, tuned GCEA, an octave lower than the Soprano Ukulele. It was very good, actually, at least for me.  
This idea really intrigues me.  Is it re-entrant this way, or low G?  How does the D string (from the guitar) do as a C string.

I just got my first bari uke today , and I am sort of awestruck by its size.  Is 18 frets standard?

I'm not sure that using the 4 lowest (EADG) classical guitar strings is a good idea on a baritone uke, because those strings are way too thick to fit into the nut sluts, and at least 3 of them will have metal windings on them.  You're better off buying the special gauge GCEA baritone strings, which are made of the correct gauge for this purpose.

18 frets on a baritone is fairly standard; since it has the same tuning as a guitar.



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 Posted: Sat May 31st, 2008 01:33 am
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OK, so this what I have done.

I got my Aquila gcea strings today, but I was bit surprised to find that they were High-G, which I wasn't sure I wanted.  So I saved the dgbe g string, moved it up to the top position, and used the  other three aquila strings.  So far so good!  For the few seconds that the tuning  on the new strings holds, it sounds great.



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 Posted: Sat May 31st, 2008 02:10 am
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BartlebysUke wrote: OK, so this what I have done.

I got my Aquila gcea strings today, but I was bit surprised to find that they were High-G, which I wasn't sure I wanted.  So I saved the dgbe g string, moved it up to the top position, and used the  other three aquila strings.  So far so good!  For the few seconds that the tuning  on the new strings holds, it sounds great.

That's the way to do it.  Those special C-tuned strings for baritones are almost always in high-G, and I use the G from the baritone set to replace the re-entrant string.



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 Posted: Fri Jun 6th, 2008 12:20 am
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This is great info. I'm fairly new to the bari uke. I have two. My first (and now practice uke) by HiLo, and an LU21-BE by Lanikai. I have the practice uke tuned to GCEA using classic guitar strings, and it sounds pretty dull. I like the GCEA tuning better than the DGBE, because the GCEA sounds richer to me, and it feels like DGBE is just playing part of an instrument (guitar) and not a whole one.

I have a few ques
tions, if someone could answer, it would be great! Is it worthwhile to bother with GCEA on a bari uke? Do the g/GCEA strings sound as nice as the DGBE or would I be better off with a tenor uke? Also, I'm using a guitar strap, would it be better to invest in a strap that clips onto the sound hole?

-Jus
ti

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 Posted: Fri Jun 6th, 2008 04:00 am
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Will
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JustiVal wrote: This is great info. I'm fairly new to the bari uke. I have two. My first (and now practice uke) by HiLo, and an LU21-BE by Lanikai. I have the practice uke tuned to GCEA using classic guitar strings, and it sounds pretty dull. I like the GCEA tuning better than the DGBE, because the GCEA sounds richer to me, and it feels like DGBE is just playing part of an instrument (guitar) and not a whole one.

I have a few ques
tions, if someone could answer, it would be great! Is it worthwhile to bother with GCEA on a bari uke? Do the g/GCEA strings sound as nice as the DGBE or would I be better off with a tenor uke? Also, I'm using a guitar strap, would it be better to invest in a strap that clips onto the sound hole?

-Jus
ti

Only you can decide what sounds better to you.  It's not a big investment to make to buy a set of special gauge strings for one of your baritones and try out gCEA/GCEA tuning.   The bigger body of the baritone will accentuate the lower tones.   I prefer low-G tuning for my own playing style, so I keep the 2nd lowest baritone string and put it in the lowest position to get GCEA.

A guitar strap works fine for a baritone, as long as you have a way to shorten the strap length so that you can hold the uke up higher than you would a guitar.

Last edited on Fri Jun 6th, 2008 04:01 am by Will



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