Some ukelele questions

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Bryan Bear
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Some ukelele questions

Post by Bryan Bear »

A work acquaintance and I were talking and it came up that he is learning to play the uke. He is a musician and has a good ear but as a brass player, he has no real experience with stringed instruments. He has some complaints about his inexpensive uke that (near as I can tell form our quick conversation) fall into two categories 1) intonation issues which annoy the trombonist in him and I doubt I can do much about and 2) bad fretwork. According to his description and sketches it seems these have bar frets of some kind. There is apparently no crown to them and his sketch of the cross section shows no tang. He complains the tops of the frets are not rounded and the flats are not in the same plane from fret to fret (this may be a small part of his intonation problem). He is going to bring it to me in two weeks for me to look at. I figure at the least, I can level the frets and crown them for him (assuming there is enough meat there) but since I have no experience with ukes or nylon stringed instruments I have some questions:

1) Since I don't have a truss rod to work with and this is out of my realm of experience, can someone give me a general idea of how much relief I should put in when I level the frets?
1a) what is a good way to do this? normally I would do it with the neck flat and adjust from there but I don't expect the strings to pull much if any relief.
2) Generally speaking, how high should the action be?
3) Should we decide to re-fret, can guitar sized wire be used assuming a new nut and saddle height are properly fitted?
4) Any general tips about uke intonation?

Thanks.
PMoMC

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Chuck Tweedy
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Re: Some ukelele questions

Post by Chuck Tweedy »

What size Uke?
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Bryan Bear
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Re: Some ukelele questions

Post by Bryan Bear »

Good question Chuck, I'm almost certain it is a tenor, so I figure 17" scale. I know he also has a concert, but I'm pretty sure we were talking about the tenor. I won't be able to talk to him again until he comes back in two weeks.
PMoMC

Take care of your feet and your feet will take care of you.
Chuck Tweedy
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Re: Some ukelele questions

Post by Chuck Tweedy »

I can only contribute 2 things:

Guitar fretwire will work on a tenor - though it is a bit big.
Mando wire would be better.

Uke intonation is a bee-ach - its worse on short scales (soprano), and almost reasonable on tenors.
Its because the strings are so slack, and pushing on the string behind the fret sends everything all over the map.
Which argues against the tall guitar fretwire.

Then there's Nylgut strings where you don't know if its intonation of just the string stretching - some more, and more, and more, and more .........
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Bryan Bear
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Re: Some ukelele questions

Post by Bryan Bear »

Thanks Chuck, I already warned him that the intonation will always bother him since ukes are like that and he can't just slide to the pitch he wants. I really want to avoid the re-fret, but if the frets are bad enough and the instrument is nice enough to warrant it, I'll order some mando wire. He admitted that he really clamps down when fretting so. . .
PMoMC

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Jon Whitney
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Re: Some ukelele questions

Post by Jon Whitney »

I'm going to state my opinion - and it's my opinion only - on the relief and action questions. 1) you're right that the strings are not going to pull much relief. 2) A nylon string instrument can have a higher action than a steel string instrument. Nylon, being much more elastic than steel, is more forgiving of larger amounts of string stretch when fretting (won't raise the pitch as much). 3) A nylon strung instrument MUST have a higher action than a steel string instrment because the vibrational excursion of nylon strings is greater than of steel strings. 4) The higher action means that relief is not very necessary. Conclusion: don't worry too much about filing in much relief during the fret leveling process. Any at all will be a bonus. Get them level and crowned and he'll be happier. Also, I would think that the lower the fret height, the better, since he is mashing down on the strings so much.

I stand by for correction...

P.S. tell him for me that as a trombone player, he would really enjoy a fretless low strung banjo.
Chris Reed
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Re: Some ukelele questions

Post by Chris Reed »

I'd put no relief at all into the board - this is standard for ukes.

If this uke has bar frets then it's almost certainly quite old, not a modern mass-produced uke. If so, it's also likely to be a soprano rather than a tenor. Mandolin fret wire is the best in either case - guitar wire will be impossibly fat on a soprano.

The gotcha will be if this is a Hawaiian uke from the 20s or 30s like a Kumalae. If this is the case it may have a one-piece bridge, ie no saddle, which means there is almost nothing you can do about the intonation at that end. If it's a Chinese cheapie, like a Mahalo, almost certainly it's under-compensated. On these I find that simply reversing the saddle so that the peak is at the tail side, not the neck side, is often enough to get it close.

For a soprano you want 2.5mm to 3mm compensation, a fraction less for a tenor (except the C string which may even want more than 3mm). If this is a tenor then it should have (or have made) a compensated saddle (compensated for the C string) to get decent intonation.

The most important thing, though, is to get the action right at the nut. If you can get this to work then even a hugely high action at the 12th (say 5mm) can still be fairly playable. Ideally I'd be looking for 2.5mm at the 12th - much lower and it will surely buzz.

An important contributor to your friend's intonation problems are his death-grip fretting. Low frets will reduce, though not eliminate, this, but will make the uke harder to play. Better to install mandolin-size wire at its normal height and persuade him to learn how to fret it properly!

[Edited to add: if it is an old uke with bar frets, save them by levelling and re-crowning if you can. They're part of the instrumnet's history.]
Tim Detzer
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Re: Some ukelele questions

Post by Tim Detzer »

Chris, when you say 2.5 to 3 mm compensation for a soprano is that for every string equally?
Chris Reed
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Re: Some ukelele questions

Post by Chris Reed »

Tim Detzer wrote:Chris, when you say 2.5 to 3 mm compensation for a soprano is that for every string equally?
Yes, but that doesn't give perfect intonation. It's a kind of compromise.

You could compensate the C string a bit more, but hardly anyone bothers to. The short scale (13 to 13.5 ins) and low string tension means that intonation above the 7th fret is affected more by the fretting technique than the saddle position. Plus Aquila Nylgut strings require different compensation from nylon strings, which are different from fluorocarbon strings.

So I just set the saddle in a close enough place and leave it to the player to adjust on those rare occasions that the dusty end of the fingerboard is visited.

After all, it's a soprano uke. It's supposed to go plinkerty-plonk and to make a jolly and reasonably tuneful noise. If you want perfectly in-tune notes, then it's probably better to play something else!
Tim Detzer
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Re: Some ukelele questions

Post by Tim Detzer »

After all, it's a soprano uke. It's supposed to go plinkerty-plonk . . .

Excellent point! I hear out of tune anyway.
Chih-Wei Liu
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Re: Some ukelele questions

Post by Chih-Wei Liu »

Compensate both nut and saddle probably helps, if it has some kind of intonation-off pattern.
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