I’m looking to improve the playability of my cheap ukulele. So far I’ve given it a fairly decent setup (dressed bridge and nut slots). Looking for a solid, cheap set of tuners, maybe craft a new bridge and get some new strings.
Any players out there with suggestions?
I tinker a little on baritone uke, basically a 4 string guitar. Can keep a beat with double bass playing 1s and 5s and a little walking. A little six string. And I took up the square neck resophonic last winter, though I lost most of it this summer. Gettibg that time of the year again to brush up. I’m not any good at any of it but its a fun hobby. I stomp my way through a couple dozen old country songs. The inlaws play old country and bluegrass. Its a hoot when they are here. Nothing makes a little trio soundvlike something like the bass
Uke is fun because it really pushes you to sing and play at the same time, which is something a bit more difficult on the six string. The tabs at doctoruke.com are fantastic. Fun american songbook type songs.
I sing while playing six string (if you call it singing) can’t seem to make it happen on bass though. Not coordinated enough. Geddi and Sting amaze me with that skill. I don’t even try with the dobro unless I’m just playing accompaniment chops
To this day I contest that Les Claypool is human. No human being can play Tommy the Cat and sing at the same time.
Yeah, he’s on a whole different level. Just crazy.
One thing he doesn’t do is play ukulele. [emoji6]
I kid. Never was a big Primus fan. I guess I just never really got into it.
Primus? Is he related to Bocephus?
Yeah, Primus was never my favorite band (though I liked them), but the guy’s talent is beyond belief.
How do I get the time back that I wasted watching a video of the tune? 
Watching or listening to Primus is a chore.
Never forget that “Jerry was a race car driver” who had a bocephus sticker on his 442
And he would light em up just for fun
Do any you guys listen to John Sykes? That’s a name that many older American guitarists have never heard before, but they have heard his work. He recorded the guitar parts on Whitesnake’s U.S. debut album (Whitesnake recorded several albums with Micky Moody and Bernie Marsden before John joined the band). Most Americans believe that Vivian Campbell and Adrian Vandenberg recorded that album because they were in the MTV videos and the original U.S. touring band, but John Sykes did the guitar work on that album. Bernie Marsden wrote Whitesnake’s first U.S. hit “Here I Go Again.” The tune originally appeared on an earlier album called Saints and Sinners. John made the tune much beefier than the original recording.
Here’s John Sykes perfoming the tune “In The Still of the Night” in 1995: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWn_p0jxGMs
Thats cool, but this is more my bag. Gregg Booth showing off a little. Gregg’s kid is a great up and coming bassist playing with Frank Solivan and Dirty Kitchen last I heard.
I can take Americana in small bites. I used to play mainstream rock in my teens, twenties, and thirties, but found myself playing more of a fusion rock, blues, and jazz in my forties. Today, my guitars spend significantly more time in their cases than they do being played. I need to pick my guitars back up, but I would have to go through rebuilding my calluses.
I used to go through periods when I wouldn’t play and then try to get right back into playing 11 gauge strings. I started just stringing with 9 gauge again and just keep it that way. Makes coming back a bit easier after long spells away. Pure Nickel strings help out a bit too, as they are a bit slinkier and keep their tone afters long droughts.
I’m actually a big fan of pre-war blues musicians such as Frank Stokes, Lonnie Johnson, Mississippi John Hurt, etc. There is a real lo-fi magic to those old recordings and the technique is pretty dazzling. I also like the Jazz singers and musicians from that era too. Some of those standards, “Dream a Little Dream of Me” and the like are pretty intoxicating.
I’ve tried 9-gauge strings on my guitars, and can’t stand them. With work/school I’ll typically go months without playing, but I just can’t give in to playing on 9’s. I just have to stick it out and get the callouses back, I much prefer the snap/tension of the heavier gauge strings.
Have you played Nickel strings? If you like big strings, you can often get away with a gauge higher than normal with the nickel, round wound strings. They are a bit mellower and last longer.
I haven’t. I’m interested in trying them and a few other strings types, but I’m still working off a big pack of D’Addario .10’s that I bought years ago. I play so infrequently I usually just deal with the old strings.