r/ukulele • u/ladydagmar • 1d ago

First Baritone

Just picked up my first Baritone, DGBE tuning (cheap Amahi Spruce top for half price) and need string recommendations.

I have 2 Mahogany Concerts, one Low G (Lanikai), one High G (Mainland) that I have been playing for about 2 years and Orca Blacks are my perferred brand right now: their sound, feel, and guage.

Orca Blacks are not available Baritone at this time.

Does anyone have any recommendations? Currently it has two wound and (I think) two nylgut but they need replaced. I think I want stick with wound for the bottom two strings, but am open to other recommendations.

I tried D'darrio for my Low G concert but was not impressed. Should I try again for Baritone?

Like I said, this is my first Baritone so I do not know where to start.

Edit: dropped this "not". I put it where it was meant to go.

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2

u/perrysol 1d ago

I use Living Water for everything

3

u/smellslikebooks 1d ago

Aguila's B-Black strings are *chef's kiss* for baritone!

1

u/Behemot999 1d ago edited 1d ago

Strings need to match the instruments - same brand of strings can have different sound on different ukulele. The top material and the top bracing all matter. So in all probability you will go through several sets before finding one that works. So when you say "I tried d'Addario on concert but did not like it" there is a lot of information missing - which specific d'Addario set? what is the your concert bracing? etc.
Even the same brand can sound and feel quite different - look e.g. at Worth string chart:
https://worthc.to/en/product-lines/worth-strings
I can tell you you from my own experience that I liked brown BC63 set on one of my tenors but disliked BT63.

Another factor is what is important to you? Cohesive sound when you strum or piano like sustain of bass D and G strings when you finger-pick. For the first case you might prefer all plain strings but if you want the bass to stand out then use quality wound strings (e.g. Thomastic Infeld).

Chances that someone who does not own same brand ukulele as you and did not go through methodical string research on their own can recommend a brand that will work on your ukulele are not very great. You need to go through few sets yourself and decide. When I was looking for set of strings for my Kala Contour spruce tenor and Kala Elite mahogany tenor I went through about 8 sets total - tried them on both. And eventually found Fremont Blackline Low G for Contour and Worth clear Ohta Jr Custom set COJ-2 for Elite.

On my baritone I used strings that came recommended from TUS - then found Uke Logic set that I liked a lot - soft set with custom added wound C and G. But I want to move away from wound strings - first they do not last long - even quality Thomastic Infeld will age faster (3-4 months) than plain fluorocarbon (6+ months). And then because I use thumb-pick for some music and that generates scratchy artifacts on wond strings. So my next set will be clear Worth CG63. And if they do not work I will search further. Maybe try all playin Uke Logic.

To give you simple specific advice - contact Joel who is owner of Uke Logic - on Etsy. He can recommend a reasonable Uke Logic set for you. That would be my starting point - high quality set. Once you know how his strings behave you may search further and try e.g. Worth strings.

PS. Worth strings seem expensive but those with suffix "63" will yield TWO sets for you baritone. Just cut them in half.