Why are ukuleles so hard to tune? Well, they have
a very short scale (short neck) and nylon strings.
In the beginning, ukuleles used friction tuners… basically, a round
piece of wood friction fit into a hole on the headstock. They slipped a
lot, and with a 1:1 ratio (one turn of the knob meant one revolution of
string post) both getting in tune and staying in tune was difficult.
Today, most ukes
use machine heads designed for guitars, with a 14:1 or 16:1
gear ratio. It was a step in the right direction, as they don't slip like a
friction tuner, but a 14:1 or higher gear ratio was too high resulting
in a lot of turning and not a lot of tuning…. And they are heavy...
they weren’t made for such a small instrument, so most ukuleles are
unbalanced, headstock heavy and harder to play.
Introducing
Tune-A-Lele The Machine Head For Ukuleles – the World's first
machine head designed specifically for
ukulele
It was time for a machine head tuner
designed specifically for the ukulele and Graph Tech took on
the challenge to make the ukulele easy to tune, stay in
tune and balanced.
Graphtech designed a machine head from the ground up!
Tune-a-lele’s are a breakthrough in uke tuning and playing. Tune-a-lele tuners
are an easy upgrade and deliver a natural, intuitive feel when tuning -
accurate, and stable. With a concentric 6:1 gear design, Zero Backlash and Zero
Back-drive,tuning has never been easier!
A set of Tune-a-lele’s are a featherlight 20 grams a set,
compared to 120+ grams for guitar machine heads. You’ll feel an immediate
improvement in balance and feel.
