Tenor Ukulele muted note

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johnparchem
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Tenor Ukulele muted note

Post by johnparchem » Sun Apr 14, 2019 3:01 am

I had a niece build a tenor ukulele in my shop. We ended up with an interesting wolf note on the high G string or the A string tuned to a G. Actually a little flat or a little sharp no problem. We put strings on the Uke and strung it up with the neck clamped in a vice as shown in the picture and all of the strings sound great. I took it out of the vice and the G string sound awful it died right away and there was a rattle. Trying to track down the problem I cleaned up the rattle tightening the tuners and cleaning up the nut slot but the G note still just died. It was weird as everything I touched around the neck made the problem go away. Interesting enough while playing a C cord (just fretting the A sting on 3 fret) all sounded great again. A capo clamped on the headstock cleaned it up as well.

With this information I took a spectrum plot tapping the neck with the strings tuned to pitch muting the strings and lightly holding the neck. I have a steep peak right on 392 Hz (that G string).

It is a spanish heel neck. Sort of in the middle of the road for neck thickness. Other than telling her to always have a capo on her headstock, are there other clever solutions. Most of the ones I thought of are invasive, like replace the flat 4 mm rosewood fretboard with an ebony fret board, maybe making it 5 mm sloping to 4.5 mm at the 12 fret to get it heavier and maintain my setup. Or pull the fretboard and install a metal bar in a truss rod slot.
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Allen
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Re: Tenor Ukulele muted note

Post by Allen » Sun Apr 14, 2019 6:38 am

I'd try a different brand of strings first off.

I've seen this often enough to not jump to too drastic solutions before trying something easy.
Allen R. McFarlen
https://www.brguitars.com
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johnparchem
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Re: Tenor Ukulele muted note

Post by johnparchem » Sun Apr 14, 2019 8:02 am

Thanks Allen,

I did calm down, I went over the instrument fixed a few unrelated things, One change that might have helped was close to the nut the neck was a little squared off so I took that wood off to match the rest of the neck and I went to a different brand of strings. Sounds good now.

Paul Henneberry
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Re: Tenor Ukulele muted note

Post by Paul Henneberry » Mon Apr 15, 2019 12:57 pm

Hi John,
nice looking uke. Just out of interest what strings did you originally have fitted?
regards
Paul

johnparchem
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Re: Tenor Ukulele muted note

Post by johnparchem » Mon Apr 15, 2019 2:06 pm

Paul Henneberry wrote:
Mon Apr 15, 2019 12:57 pm
Hi John,
nice looking uke. Just out of interest what strings did you originally have fitted?
regards
Paul
Aquila Nylgut strings. I switch to D'addario strings Titanium strings.

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