What Are The Best Ukulele Strings?

Are you looking for the best ukulele strings? Many good quality strings are available out there, and there are several good brands. I am recommending that I know not to give a wrong tip.

  • Aquila Nylgut: Good string for cheap ukuleles. The Aquila strings are good if you have a laminate Kala, Ohana laminate, Lanikai, Makala, Kalani, or Mahalo Stagg. They will give more volume and improve the tone of your uke.
  • Martin Fluorocarbon: usually cheap ropes. They are made of fluorocarbon (careful not to buy Martin Crystal Nylon!), The same material is used in fishing lines. My favorite type for solid wood ukes. They are thinner than the Aquila.
  • Oasis, Fremont, Worth: String similar to Martin Fluorocarbon. The tone is a little darker. It has strings Low G uncoated. The Worth and Oasis are long and can be cut in half for use in 2 ukes.
  • Southcoast: more high ropes, excellent quality, and various options. This is one of my best ukulele strings.

Buy any of these from the list below if anyone is interested in having a ukulele with an awful sound. I will only mention those I have ever experienced and have already observed the (lack of) quality. Timbres are dead, deleted, with no volume, glare, or sustain. The Strings are as follows.

  • SG Sound Generation: Brazilian brand of poor quality. I believe they are the strings that come in Ukulele Kalani.
  • GX: Chinese rope that costs 99 cents on eBay. Terrible.
  • Mahalo: Ropes are coming in Mahalo ukuleles. If you have a Mahalo, I suggest changing the strings instantly.
  • Alice: Another baratíssima Chinese rope.
  • GHS: This until it is famous, and their steel strings are even correct, but these nylon for Ukuleles are terrible – less sufferable than before, but still bad. The Makala ukuleles and some Kala have them.

They are all cheap options, but no cost-benefit justifies using these. Freely, they are expensive.

The Best Ukulele Strings: All types of Aquila strings for Ukulele

Aquila, the best ukulele string manufacturer on our planet, has different lines of strings, and there is much doubt about which one to buy. Here you will know them, dear ukulelists. The following are all kinds of ropes for Ukulele Aquila.

New Nylgut

New Nylgut strings were the first developed and patented by Aquila strings. It is not made of typical nylon, carbon (fishing line fluorocarbon or PVDF), or a mixture. A piece of plastic is composed of three different components. Compared with nylon, New Nylgut produces a better sound and keeps the tone for longer because the moisture absorption is less than 0.1% against 2.0% nylon typically used for musical strings (e.g., Dupont Tynex, polyamide 6-12).

Due to its high density, similar to the pure gut (1.3 g / cm3), it produces a sound better than nylon and non-metallic so as fluorocarbon PVDF. It is recognized as the first synthetic casing string in the world.

The New Nylgut offers:

  1. Sound better than the nylon, similar to gut strings.
  2. More accurate intonation between homes due to material density being precise and consistent throughout the length of the rope.
  3. Intonation is stable between moisture and heat changes.
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Super Nylgut

Super Nylgut offers a new look and a sound efficiency even higher than New Nylgut. The strings have pearly white and a smooth, polished surface. It stretches less than the previous version of Nylgut, resulting in a faster pitch when new and easy to keep in tune. It is firmer and suffers no damage from sharp edges on the fuse, eyelash, or trademarks of frets or nails. All these improvements come together in a vibrant sound.

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Lava Series

The new Lava series has a different color, a shade of gray next to black colored with a touch of pearl inspired by the volcanic rocks of Hawaii, symbolizing new life. It is a tribute of Aquila to the Hawaiian people that made the great Ukulele worldwide, sharing the joy with thousands of individuals across the globe. They perfectly keep the mechanical characteristics of the strings Super Nylgut.

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Red Series

Red series Aquila has a unique sense of reliable and consistent sound. Until their creation was necessary to increase the density of the string to produce a more severe rating, but increasing the diameter of the rope also increases the internal damping. This makes the string less bright, less responsive, and more muted. The longer the string, the dull sound.

In the new approach, Aquila changed the material’s specific weight progressively to make the diameter almost unchanged. The result is surprising: instruments sound brighter, more powerful, and better return for the whole arm. The strings keep the best intonation because thicker strings must be pressed harder, making them the right tone. These strings offer superior performance compared to the traditional strings for musicians who love bright sounds and high projection for the entire instrument range.

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Bionylon

The bio-nylon is the first environmentally friendly rope made from synthetic material. These strings are made of soft monofilament and rounded bio-nylon – a material discovered by Aquila – that also offers excellent acoustic and mechanical properties.

The real Bionylon, 68%, is derived from castor oil, allowing a reduction of more than 50% of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere during the synthesis of the polymer compared to other nylon strings for musical instruments applied. Warm and velvety performance.

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Best Ukulele Strings – Genuine Gut

When the Ukulele arose, they were the only available gut strings made from the outer membrane of the sheep casing. At that time, there was no one to produce gut strings in the United States, so they had to come from Abruzzi, Italy. Eventually, the production spread to other places like Paris, Offenbach, Lyon, Padua, and Naples, but they all had the exact origin in the same small village in the Majella mountains. So good strings were tough to get and very expensive! The two-string violin came in folded size, the two strings up the guitar.

As we learn in several books of that time and until the 1950s, these two strings from above were made the ukulele chords. That is why he was in tune with the fourth acute rope; they need not look like coated strings that were even more expensive, so they did not need a different technology only for that rope. They were polished by hand with sandstone; they were very rudimentary, and the density was unnecessary. They were often falsified and lasted a few days if you were lucky and touched her gently.

With the modern production of synthetic materials, particularly nylon strings, 1938 instruments became less expensive, more durable, and more stable due to atmospheric changes. But sometimes, something was lost: the special touch and the ability to imitate the human voice that gut strings have. This quality decade could not be recovered.

Handmade as before, the Genuine Gut model gut strings allow you to enjoy the authentic sound of past centuries. Aquila started doing these strings for baroque violin and is one of the few companies still making them, trying to do it the old way. Thanks to the unceasing interest of the founder, Mimmo Peruffo, you can get gut strings that reproduce the first ukulelists Hawaii had. But now accurate density and texture.

These strings interest those who want to recover as well as possible, not only the technology of the time but the forgotten sounds you hear only in recordings. To reach this result, it was necessary to search that included historical features and measures of gut strings used in the different forms of instruments of that time. Suppose you have a ukulele history and would like to play initially or want something special for your Antiguinhos collection. In that case, these strings can offer a unique experience of times past.

Most users will not notice significant differences between the ropes due to the high-quality standards used in all of them. The personal perception of my experiences with these strings shows that there is a little rule that you must use all sounds beautifully in any ukulele. Still, it is crucial to think about timbre in combination with the instrument used.

Solid ukeleles

I recommend using strings with warm or neutral tones for solid ukuleles, which can be found on Genuine Gut and Bionylon. The durability and projection of Genuine Gut string are your weak point, while in Bionylon, the weak spot is the forecast. These points are not present if you want to look at other brands. For example, fluorocarbon strings like the Worth brand have neutral, vibrant, and high-definition projections.

Best Ukulele Strings for Rolled ukeleles

As for the rolled ukuleles, the highlight is the Red Series strings that have a wonderful glow to this type of instrument. Suppose a brilliant sound is something that bothers you. In that case, you get between the ropes between New Nylgut and Super Nylgut, where the second offers more quality in durability issues, definition, and height. If the look is something you consider enough, the Lava strings are breathtaking, have a unique pearly gray color, and are similar to Nylgut.

Here on the site, you can also see this article on how to identify fake strings Aquila, and here you can read about the history of Aquila and its creator.

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