_drafts

Baritone Ukulele stings

[last update: 01 Apr 2022]

Finding strings you like on your ukulele is surprisingly complicated. It is a very personal choice, depending on your ukulele, the sound and feel you like, and your playing style. And it’s hard to find advice (its all conflicting forum-post rant style garbage).

I enjoyed reading this ongoing strings journal “Best Strings for Baritone Uke: A Three-Year Experiment”. So thought I would do something similar for myself. As most of this blog, this is mainly notes to my future self!

p.s. I find this west music how to replace strings helpful for knot diagrams.

Baritone Ukulele Context

I’m a intermediate beginner, not particularly good. I pick and strum, but really just like to strum out campfire jams. I play DGBE, low D. I have two cheaper end baritones:

• Kala Satin Mahogany Baritone KA-B (archived) - traditional, standard cheap baritone with a nice rich tone.
• Ohana Solid Spruce & Round Composite Back Baritone BK-70RB (archived) - slightly larger, slightly more guitar-y sound, crisp distinct tones. low action set up. I really like this weird, unique sounding uke!

I have purchased most strings from Strings by Mail, except Uke Logic on Etsy.

Strings I Have Tried

When I get ready to change strings, I record a video sound check of myself with a few chords and picking greensleeves on the old strings. Once the new strings are fully settled in, I record the same thing. This gives me a chance to listen to the differences. All the strings have been very different, and also distinct on each ukulele. It is hard to characterize without an extensive music vocabulary, but these are my impressions.

Organized from favorite to least favorite.

Uke Logic Baritone “Soft Tension”

These are my current favorite strings! They sound wonderful and seem extra playable.

I choose the “pink” version, which is just cosmetic, a very light pink tint to the clear fluorocarbon strings–but looks nice, interesting at least. For low D you have a choice of fluorocarbon or gold smooth wound–so far I have only used the fluorocarbon with this set (I did use the gold wound in the “Hard Tension” version, and it is a beautiful string!). The fluorocarbon D is a reasonable thickness and the feel seems reasonably balanced with the other strings. All strings easily fit standard nut.

On BK-70RB:

Crisp and clear, ring out beautifully with a rich sound. Pleasant medium tension, similar to PhD (no buzz on low action), but seem easier to play.

After playing on the “hard” version, these seem light and airy–buttery smooth and easy to play, the sound just seems to jump out. Compared to the “hard” they seem to have more sustain. The “hard” have a bit more unique sound, but I love the playability of these strings, and they sound great.

On K-B:

Immediately after restringing, the sound was a revelation! They sound really good, feel really good. Seemed to settle in quickly.

String	Material	Diameter (mm)
E	Pink Fluorocarbon	0.508
B	Pink Fluorocarbon	0.635
G	Pink Fluorocarbon	0.813
D	Pink Fluorocarbon	0.914

Uke Logic Baritone “Hard Tension”

On BK-70RB:

Seemed to settle in quickly. Good volume and sustain. Full, rich tone, mellower than other bright flourocarbon, but still has that crispness.

The gold wound string is smooth, seems very stiff and heavy when installing, but feels good and balanced with other strings when playing. It seems to have a real strong, driving sound giving body to chords without overpowering. This wound string has very good durability–it was still sounding and looking good when I switched out the fluorocarbon strings for being a bit worn out.

The tension is noticeably “hard” compared to other strings. You can really play them hard, dig into the strumming–but I didn’t realize until switching back to “soft” strings that it is more work to actually play these.

I really like the sound and feel of these strings. They seem unique.

String	Material	Diameter (mm)
E	Pink Fluorocarbon	0.584
B	Pink Fluorocarbon	0.711
G	Pink Fluorocarbon	0.914
D	Gold smooth wound	0.762

There is an option for D Flourocarbon at 1.06mm. This seemed too big for my nut, so I didn’t try it.

PhD Strings - Premium High Density

On KA-B:

After using the stretchy Worth Browns, these felt a much nicer balanced tension. They seem to have a full bright tone, with strong sustain and volume. They feel good on fingers, smooth.

PhD doesn’t publish diameters anywhere I could find. The G string seems thicker than other sets, enough to stick in the nut, requiring some extra attention to tune.

Material is “PVDF”, some sort of fluorocarbon.

Worth Brown

On KA-B:

Nice rich, mild sound. Seemed to make the KA-B’s tone crisper and louder than Aquilas.

They have an oddly low tension, or sort of stretchiness, that I didn’t really like. They took forever to settle in and stay in tune.

String	Material	Diameter (mm)
E	Brown Fluorocarbon	0.620
B	Brown Fluorocarbon	0.739
G	Brown Fluorocarbon	0.810
D	Brown Fluorocarbon	0.909

Lots of people repeat that Worth brown and clear are the same–that doesn’t seem true, Worth intends them to have different sound qualities, not just looks.

Aquila Nylgut

Came as stock on both my Baritones (which is very common).

On KA-B:

They sounded okay, nothing particularly noteworthy–flourocarbon strings sound much crisper in comparison. However, I wore out the wound strings very rapidly, leaving cuts at each fret, so I had to change them out soon. Much prefer the durability of fluorocarbon.

On BK-70RB:

They sounded very crisp, very loud, powerful, a bit jangley like a guitar–I liked the sound a lot. There seemed to be wider dynamics possible compared to other strings. The nylgut strings feel uniquely crispy and responsive. They occasionally had a buzz on the wound strings–not enough tension on low action. However, I hated the feel on the BK-70RB–the wound strings feel very different from the nylgut, and the tensions are so inconsistent. It bothered me enough to change them before wearing them out.

String	Material	Diameter (mm)
E	nylgut	0.67
B	nylgut	0.84
G	wound	0.60
D	wound	0.70

I am intrigued by other unique Aquila strings (Sugar and Red), but since they all come with the same two wound lower strings there doesn’t seem like much point to trying them out–not enough durability.

Oasis Fluorocarbon Uke Baritone UKE-8200B

Strings come as double length size, so each pack is really two sets, meaning these are actually the cheapest strings I have tried.

On BK-70RB:

First impression was the tone sounds nice, clear, and distinct. However, I noticed a serious loss of volume and sustain. The surface has an odd grippiness, which feels fine–but when I play creates terrible squichy sounds from my fingers–it drove me crazy. I also had a buzz on the G string, I guess due to lower tension on low action.

After playing these for two weeks I hated them. They felt sort of dead. Bad.

String	Material	Diameter (mm)
E	Fluorocarbon	0.620
B	Fluorocarbon	0.739
G	Fluorocarbon	0.800
D	Fluorocarbon	0.909

String Diameter table