Showing posts with label cheap. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cheap. Show all posts
2 Oct 2022
17 Apr 2022
17 Apr 2022T14:38
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Donner Rainbow Series Soprano Ukulele Starter Kit - REVIEW
There have been a couple of outings for this ukulele brand on Got A Ukulele before, but this one moves to the real entry level. This is the Rainbow Series Soprano Starter Kit from Donner.
8 May 2021
8 May 2021T14:29
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Hamano U30 Soprano Ukulele - REVIEW
From the sublime last week to the... well, let's not judge this ukulele just yet.. This is the Hamano U30 Soprano Ukulele.
31 Jan 2021
31 Jan 2021T14:31
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Everjoys / Eco Soprano Ukulele Beginner Pack (Rainbow) - REVIEW
Back to business with another 'Amazon Choice' ukulele, and one that is clearly marketed at beginners. This is the Everjoys Soprano Beginner Pack, also branded in the USA (I 'think') as Eco. A shorter break than I anticipated, but your kind words mean a lot so let's crack on. Just think I need more regular breaks in 2021!
19 May 2019
19 May 2019T12:53
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Gear4Music Soprano Ukulele - REVIEW
Back from a week off, refreshed and still reeling from the string of superb ukuleles I've had the pleasure to look at recently. They were all certainly 'high end' though and therefore at a price point which is unlikely to suit the absolute beginner. So, let's go to the other end of the scale with this soprano ukulele from Gear4Music.
6 Jan 2018
6 Jan 2018T16:17
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Martin Smith UK-212 Soprano Ukulele - REVIEW
A first for this musical instrument brand on the Got A Ukulele Reviews page, and without wishing to pre-judge things, it's one I've been putting off for quite some time. Say hello to the Martin Smith UK-212 Soprano ukulele.
1 Jul 2017
1 Jul 2017T13:16
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Diamond Head DU-150 Soprano - REVIEW
Soprano time again on Got A Ukulele and another brand that takes it's first steps on the reviews page in the form of the Diamond Head DU-150 Soprano.
15 Nov 2015
15 Nov 2015T16:17
I actually owned one of these years ago when I started the blog and it featured in my video comparing the sound of lots of instruments. It was pretty dreadful to be honest. Sadly, that was before I started writing up regular instrument reviews, and I had since given it away (along with a bunch of other ukuleles) to a charity. More recently though I have been keeping an eye on ukuleles on Amazon and picking out those that have unusually and consistently high user review scores. In fact this model regularly hits the billing as "number 1 best seller" on Amazon UK. So this one certainly fits the bill on that score, yet could I have been wrong about it all those years ago? Let's take a look.
The Vintage VUK20 is billed on Amazon as the 'Vintage Ukulele Outfit' (meaning it comes with a gig bag, a plectrum and a pitch pipe) although it is available in very similar forms called the VUK15 also. To my eyes, they all look very similar and are the same price too.. I was actually intrigued by the Vintage brand as I actually owned a guitar of theirs which was pretty damn good. In fact, their guitars have built a fairly solid reputation as good value and quality in both the acoustic and electric markets. Clearly they chose to dip a toe into the ukulele world. But did they take that decision seriously?
First up, let's take a look at some of the product wording from Amazon for this one. It is billed as being made of mahogany. Err, no, no it isn't. It's made of laminate plywood with a mahogany coloured outer that is spray painted. In fact it doesn't even look like wood as there very little grain showing at all. Pedants may suggest the plywood is made of mahogany pieces, but for me that does not make it a mahogany ukulele. The product descriptions also says it is 'wonderfully finished' and being 'for beginners wanting to spend that little bit more for superior quality'. We shall see. I'm not entirely what this is 'spending more' than, considering it costs just over £20 but there you go. Are people actually spending less than £20??
To be fair, the Vintage website is not quite so gushing, but describes the body as Sapeli Ply. It is certainly ply, but that is far as it goes... But that product description on Amazon must have come from somewhere, and considering it wasn't a third party seller, I'd wager it came from Vintage... For those interested, Sapele (note the correct spelling) is a cheap african wood reminiscent of mahogany and often mistakenly called 'African Mahogany'. So isn't actually mahogany in the first place, but not even laminate with a mahogany outer. It's Sapele... plywood. I would also note that on the UK Amazon store this has a massively high user rating and very few negative comments. Sounds too good to be true?
So as I say, a laminate body ukulele in a kind of spray painted satin gloss finish in a rather dreadful shade of brown. Mahogany does NOT look like this in any way and for that matter, neither does Sapele.. It's in a soprano scale and standard in shape with a double bout. It's made in China (where else?) and can be bought for about £23 in the UK. At first glance it actually doesn't look too bad on the construction front. Cheap certainly and rather bland to look at, but all seems to be in one piece.
It comes boxed with a suitably Hawaiian look to the packaging and arrived with me with one of the worst setups I have ever seen on an instrument. More on that later, but trust me, if you are a beginner, you will not be able to realistically play this from the get go if it arrives like this one did.
The laminate is extremely, in fact MASSIVELY thick and it feels overly heavy for what it is. As I say, generally speaking the body finish is ok, but there are a few scuffs and scratches in the finish here and there which isn't right for a brand new instrument of any price. The issue appears to be a mix of that soft plywood construction coupled with a thin finish with no resilience to everyday knocks. There is no body binding or decoration save for a simple white screen printed double circle around the sound hole. As simple as that decoration is, it is also applied slightly off centre. Annoying. The top and back are made from single pieces of laminate and the back has no curve to it. A pretty basic standard cheap soprano then.
The bridge is a slotted type made from what Amazon claim to be rosewood. At first I thought it may well be, although looking closer, the strings are starting to split and gouge the wood. That would be very unlikely with a good rosewood leading me to think it is either not rosewood at all, or a very cheap piece of it. It is finished ok though I suppose, very simple and held in place by screws covered by a couple of pearloid cover plates. But the impact those strings are having on the slots worries me. On cheaper ukuleles those slots can split to be too wide for the knots rendering them useless and pretty much unfixable. I suspect that is what is going to happen to this one.
The saddle is plastic, straight and uncompensated. One of those cheap saddles that you know has not been shaped in any way whatsoever as you can still see the ridge from the plastic moulding machine running along the top.
A look inside shows it to be very plain. It is neat enough I suppose, but at the end of the day it's a laminate box. The edge kerfing is flat and on one side seems to be splitting with a chunk of wood kind of peeling away from the inside. What surprised me is that there appears to be no bracing at all. I know laminate is stronger than solid wood, but you usually see at least 'some' bracing to give some strength to the thin laminate pieces. But hey, when your laminate is this thick - Vintage clearly don't think you need it.. It genuinely is just a hefty plywood box then. I suspect the strength on the top under the bridge area is achieved by some extra sheets of plywood in that area. Exactly where you want resonance and vibration... Not good.
The neck is a fairly generic Chinese factory soprano profile and width. It's coated in the same finish as the body so it's hard to see how it is constructed in full, but I think it is made from three pieces with a joint at the heel and one at the headstock.Vintage claim it is made from Linden wood. Lime or 'basswood' in other words. You know, just because a brand uses the species name of a tree, doesn't mean it's any good for a musical instrument. And basswood is super cheap.
The fingerboard is made of......hang on, what on earth is that made of?? Amazon claim it's rosewood but it certainly isn't. I think it's a cheap slab of mahogany, possibly laminate that looks cheap, rough and unfinished. It's got an orangey colour and has an open grain that I don't like on a fingerboard. It looks like a piece of wood taken out of my garden fence. Looking at it more closely and there are quite a few indentations and gouges in the wood in various fret spaces. Taking a fingernail to the wood and pressing it leaves a mark. You see, there is a reason why denser and harder woods are used for fingerboards and Vintage seem to have ignored that completely. In short I think after a night of playing this, the fingerboard is only going to look worse. The softness, open grain and light colour also are likely to make it a magnet for oils and dirt from fingers and I suspect this will look dirty quite quickly. Quite honestly - horrible.
Set into the fingerboard are brass frets with a fairly standard 12 to the body. The edges are finished ok but the frets themselves look like they have seen better days (bearing in mind this is a new instrument). Most of them are caked in a fairly gunky looking rusty corrosion which is not really to my tastes at all. And surely I am not being fussy there? This is a BRAND NEW INSTRUMENT! "Would you like your ukulele frets corroded or non corroded sir?"
Position markers are provided at the 5th, 7th and 10th spaces in the way of inlaid pearly plastic dots. There are no side markers and the edges of the fingerboard are unbound.
Past the moulded plastic nut (in which we have something I would not describe as 'slots' more 'slight depressions' for the strings) we have a generic crown shaped headstock finished in the same brown as the rest of the instrument. Screen printed on is the Vintage logo in gold (and screen printed quite roughly at that with a fuzzy edge to the print like the transfer came from a bad photocopier).
Tuning is provided by open geared chrome tuners that are of the ultra cheap variety and move in the brackets when you turn them. The buttons are cream coloured plastic and way, way to large for an instrument of this size (unless you like your sopranos to look like it has ears like Prince Charles). They are each held in place by two small screws, but Vintage clearly thought that was overkill, so on one of the tuners, a screw has been missed. This means the whole tuner shifts on the mounting not just the peg. I'm sure it is probably in the packaging somewhere and probably didn't leave the factory like this but the inside of the screw hole looks sheared. No wonder it came out.. A fiddly thing to fix that will involve plugging the screw hole and resetting.. if you can be bothered.
Completing the deal is a black 'gig bag' (of which I have seen bin liners that are thicker), a pletctrum, a pitch pipe and a set of black nylon strings that you REALLY want to swap out (unless you like the feel of strumming rubber bands).
So.. dare I go on? How does it 'play' (I use that word with caution)? Well in the simplest sense it feels like a soprano ukulele I guess. It's overly heavy for what it is, and certainly over built. The feel of the body is not the nicest in the world and the fretboard, as well as being marked and scratched as I say above, actually feels rough under the fingers. The corroded frets are also noticeable against the fingertips. Some people talk about the smell from the sound hole in instruments in their reviews. I never have, but I did not need to get my nose anywhere near the sound hole to know what it smells like. A kind of synthetic, glue /chemical odour. Not enjoyable.
Action at the saddle is unacceptably high although that can be easily adjusted I suppose if you know what you are doing. Action at the nut though is one of the highest I have ever seen which means the notes throw sharp when fretted at the lower spaces on account of the string stretching required to make the strings engage with the frets. That isn't quite so straightforward for a beginner to fix. We are talking MASSIVELY high here. Bearing in mind this is aimed at beginners, and beginners spend most of their time playing chord shapes in the first positions (i.e. near the nut) - well you can see that this sort of setup doesn't make for a good experience. Sure enough, even simple first position chords sound out of tune when the ukulele is actually in tune played open. Classic high nut issue.
Taking a ruler to the neck I noted that the bridge is slightly out of place as well. Not by much, but enough to affect intonation and one of those things I put down to being more in the 'fatal' category of flaws in that it's much much harder to fix. So when it comes to the things that affect action the most - nut height, saddle height and bridge position, all three are flawed. One is easily fixed, one is a more difficult fix and one.... well, honestly, it just wouldn't be worth the bother..
There is something odd going on with the string spacing at the saddle as well. The C and E strings are further apart from each other than they are from the G and A strings. I don't think that is fatal, just odd and badly made. It's more normal at the nut end, so I think the slots in the bridge are cut incorrectly.
Sound wise, the instrument is suitably boxy and one dimensional on account of that excess of thick laminate. It's got poor volume / projection and very little sustain. You can really tell it is not projecting well both with your ears (it is quiet) but in feedback through the body. Lively sopranos vibrate into your chest when you play them. This one feels dead. Hey, I know this is a cheap ukulele, but read my other reviews. You can get sopranos at this sort of price that sound MUCH better. It can be done.
And sure, those strings are truly awful and you WOULD want to change them, but you are not going to get much more life out of this thing regardless of what you string it with. In reviews of other instruments I have been less than impressed with, I quite often receive comments along the lines of 'but if you re-strung it, it would sing!'. Please don't assume that this ukulele is a killer instrument let down by the strings alone. It really just sums up what some people call a 'ukulele shaped object'. Sure you could also call it a 'wall hanger' (i.e. a ukulele for decoration only), but really - with this putrid shade of brown - I'd at least go for something prettier! You could spray paint it I suppose...
This one is heavy, over built, badly built and terribly set up.
Just a final point on ukuleles that get my bad reviews like this one. I know full well that some of the elements I have mentioned on this can relatively easily be fixed. Yes, the strings are bad, but they can be changed. Yes, the action is high but it can be lowered. Heck - you could even swap out the tuners, and some wire wool may work wonders with the frets. I accept all of that but bear in mind the sort of person who is likely to buy one of these. A beginner? A parent buying one for a child? Why should they go through the trouble of having to deal with these things, potentially at further cost in order to make the thing sound even slightly decent. Ukuleles in this state should never reach the customer (and probably wouldn't if you bought one from a good dealer) In fact ukuleles like this should never leave the factory in my view.. So why are these not in the hands of the places I consider to be 'good dealers'? Well probably because far too many of them arrive from China in this sort of state that they are just not worth the hassle!
And those, of course, are just the things that can be adjusted. The thick laminate woods, the boxy sound, the mis placed bridge, the terrible tone - those cannot be fixed very easily.
Some people are bound to say, 'but I got a good one Barry!'. Perhaps you did - that is entirely possible but I have seen enough at this price to know that the quality control is like playing Russian Roulette. You might have had a good one, but how many got a bad one? And there lies the problem I have with them. Why take the chance when there are better alternatives for similar money?
They are the preserve of Amazon and eBay stores, usually accompanied by 'user reviews' by people who have only ever played this one instrument and think they are 'great'. This Vintage is NOT great and I don't care how many five star reviews you will find. It's just a perfect example of everything I don't like about most instruments at this price point. For the record Amazon, I also don't see anything in it that is 'wonderfully finished' or of 'superior quality' as you state.
Yes - of course you could just 'send it back', but my advice would be to not put yourself through the waste of time in the first place.
And finally, reviews such as this also tend to cause some people to claim the 'snob' card and suggest that I only like expensive instruments. Regular readers of Got A Ukulele will know that is not the case. I just don't like 'cheap' being used as an excuse to make something that is awful and doesn't fulfil the basic requirements of a musical instrument. More importantly, it need not be this way. I understand that for many people money is extremely tight and this may be as much as they can justify on a ukulele. There are good options though. Take my advice - if this is your maximum budget level, get a Makala Dolphin, Makala Shark or an Octopus brand... The Stagg is not a ukulele you should trouble yourself with.
Avoid.
Be sure to check out my full range of ukulele reviews on this page!
Horrible soft fingerboard
Corroded frets
Cheap tuners that are not screwed on properly
Bridge misplaced, and slots mis cut
Woeful setup out of the box at both bridge and nut
Terrible strings
Pointless gig bag
Depressing spray painted colour
Fit and finish - 3 out of 10
Sound - 3.5 out of 10
Value for money - 5 out of 10
( DIRECT LINK )
© Barry Maz
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Vintage VUK20N Soprano Ukulele - REVIEW
I am often accused of only reviewing 'expensive' ukuleles. I clearly don't (just go to the Reviews section and see...) so here we go with another one at the low price end. Say hello to the Vintage VUK20N Soprano.
I actually owned one of these years ago when I started the blog and it featured in my video comparing the sound of lots of instruments. It was pretty dreadful to be honest. Sadly, that was before I started writing up regular instrument reviews, and I had since given it away (along with a bunch of other ukuleles) to a charity. More recently though I have been keeping an eye on ukuleles on Amazon and picking out those that have unusually and consistently high user review scores. In fact this model regularly hits the billing as "number 1 best seller" on Amazon UK. So this one certainly fits the bill on that score, yet could I have been wrong about it all those years ago? Let's take a look.
The Vintage VUK20 is billed on Amazon as the 'Vintage Ukulele Outfit' (meaning it comes with a gig bag, a plectrum and a pitch pipe) although it is available in very similar forms called the VUK15 also. To my eyes, they all look very similar and are the same price too.. I was actually intrigued by the Vintage brand as I actually owned a guitar of theirs which was pretty damn good. In fact, their guitars have built a fairly solid reputation as good value and quality in both the acoustic and electric markets. Clearly they chose to dip a toe into the ukulele world. But did they take that decision seriously?
First up, let's take a look at some of the product wording from Amazon for this one. It is billed as being made of mahogany. Err, no, no it isn't. It's made of laminate plywood with a mahogany coloured outer that is spray painted. In fact it doesn't even look like wood as there very little grain showing at all. Pedants may suggest the plywood is made of mahogany pieces, but for me that does not make it a mahogany ukulele. The product descriptions also says it is 'wonderfully finished' and being 'for beginners wanting to spend that little bit more for superior quality'. We shall see. I'm not entirely what this is 'spending more' than, considering it costs just over £20 but there you go. Are people actually spending less than £20??
To be fair, the Vintage website is not quite so gushing, but describes the body as Sapeli Ply. It is certainly ply, but that is far as it goes... But that product description on Amazon must have come from somewhere, and considering it wasn't a third party seller, I'd wager it came from Vintage... For those interested, Sapele (note the correct spelling) is a cheap african wood reminiscent of mahogany and often mistakenly called 'African Mahogany'. So isn't actually mahogany in the first place, but not even laminate with a mahogany outer. It's Sapele... plywood. I would also note that on the UK Amazon store this has a massively high user rating and very few negative comments. Sounds too good to be true?
So as I say, a laminate body ukulele in a kind of spray painted satin gloss finish in a rather dreadful shade of brown. Mahogany does NOT look like this in any way and for that matter, neither does Sapele.. It's in a soprano scale and standard in shape with a double bout. It's made in China (where else?) and can be bought for about £23 in the UK. At first glance it actually doesn't look too bad on the construction front. Cheap certainly and rather bland to look at, but all seems to be in one piece.
It comes boxed with a suitably Hawaiian look to the packaging and arrived with me with one of the worst setups I have ever seen on an instrument. More on that later, but trust me, if you are a beginner, you will not be able to realistically play this from the get go if it arrives like this one did.
The laminate is extremely, in fact MASSIVELY thick and it feels overly heavy for what it is. As I say, generally speaking the body finish is ok, but there are a few scuffs and scratches in the finish here and there which isn't right for a brand new instrument of any price. The issue appears to be a mix of that soft plywood construction coupled with a thin finish with no resilience to everyday knocks. There is no body binding or decoration save for a simple white screen printed double circle around the sound hole. As simple as that decoration is, it is also applied slightly off centre. Annoying. The top and back are made from single pieces of laminate and the back has no curve to it. A pretty basic standard cheap soprano then.
The bridge is a slotted type made from what Amazon claim to be rosewood. At first I thought it may well be, although looking closer, the strings are starting to split and gouge the wood. That would be very unlikely with a good rosewood leading me to think it is either not rosewood at all, or a very cheap piece of it. It is finished ok though I suppose, very simple and held in place by screws covered by a couple of pearloid cover plates. But the impact those strings are having on the slots worries me. On cheaper ukuleles those slots can split to be too wide for the knots rendering them useless and pretty much unfixable. I suspect that is what is going to happen to this one.
The saddle is plastic, straight and uncompensated. One of those cheap saddles that you know has not been shaped in any way whatsoever as you can still see the ridge from the plastic moulding machine running along the top.
A look inside shows it to be very plain. It is neat enough I suppose, but at the end of the day it's a laminate box. The edge kerfing is flat and on one side seems to be splitting with a chunk of wood kind of peeling away from the inside. What surprised me is that there appears to be no bracing at all. I know laminate is stronger than solid wood, but you usually see at least 'some' bracing to give some strength to the thin laminate pieces. But hey, when your laminate is this thick - Vintage clearly don't think you need it.. It genuinely is just a hefty plywood box then. I suspect the strength on the top under the bridge area is achieved by some extra sheets of plywood in that area. Exactly where you want resonance and vibration... Not good.
The neck is a fairly generic Chinese factory soprano profile and width. It's coated in the same finish as the body so it's hard to see how it is constructed in full, but I think it is made from three pieces with a joint at the heel and one at the headstock.Vintage claim it is made from Linden wood. Lime or 'basswood' in other words. You know, just because a brand uses the species name of a tree, doesn't mean it's any good for a musical instrument. And basswood is super cheap.
The fingerboard is made of......hang on, what on earth is that made of?? Amazon claim it's rosewood but it certainly isn't. I think it's a cheap slab of mahogany, possibly laminate that looks cheap, rough and unfinished. It's got an orangey colour and has an open grain that I don't like on a fingerboard. It looks like a piece of wood taken out of my garden fence. Looking at it more closely and there are quite a few indentations and gouges in the wood in various fret spaces. Taking a fingernail to the wood and pressing it leaves a mark. You see, there is a reason why denser and harder woods are used for fingerboards and Vintage seem to have ignored that completely. In short I think after a night of playing this, the fingerboard is only going to look worse. The softness, open grain and light colour also are likely to make it a magnet for oils and dirt from fingers and I suspect this will look dirty quite quickly. Quite honestly - horrible.
Set into the fingerboard are brass frets with a fairly standard 12 to the body. The edges are finished ok but the frets themselves look like they have seen better days (bearing in mind this is a new instrument). Most of them are caked in a fairly gunky looking rusty corrosion which is not really to my tastes at all. And surely I am not being fussy there? This is a BRAND NEW INSTRUMENT! "Would you like your ukulele frets corroded or non corroded sir?"
Position markers are provided at the 5th, 7th and 10th spaces in the way of inlaid pearly plastic dots. There are no side markers and the edges of the fingerboard are unbound.
Past the moulded plastic nut (in which we have something I would not describe as 'slots' more 'slight depressions' for the strings) we have a generic crown shaped headstock finished in the same brown as the rest of the instrument. Screen printed on is the Vintage logo in gold (and screen printed quite roughly at that with a fuzzy edge to the print like the transfer came from a bad photocopier).
Tuning is provided by open geared chrome tuners that are of the ultra cheap variety and move in the brackets when you turn them. The buttons are cream coloured plastic and way, way to large for an instrument of this size (unless you like your sopranos to look like it has ears like Prince Charles). They are each held in place by two small screws, but Vintage clearly thought that was overkill, so on one of the tuners, a screw has been missed. This means the whole tuner shifts on the mounting not just the peg. I'm sure it is probably in the packaging somewhere and probably didn't leave the factory like this but the inside of the screw hole looks sheared. No wonder it came out.. A fiddly thing to fix that will involve plugging the screw hole and resetting.. if you can be bothered.
Completing the deal is a black 'gig bag' (of which I have seen bin liners that are thicker), a pletctrum, a pitch pipe and a set of black nylon strings that you REALLY want to swap out (unless you like the feel of strumming rubber bands).
So.. dare I go on? How does it 'play' (I use that word with caution)? Well in the simplest sense it feels like a soprano ukulele I guess. It's overly heavy for what it is, and certainly over built. The feel of the body is not the nicest in the world and the fretboard, as well as being marked and scratched as I say above, actually feels rough under the fingers. The corroded frets are also noticeable against the fingertips. Some people talk about the smell from the sound hole in instruments in their reviews. I never have, but I did not need to get my nose anywhere near the sound hole to know what it smells like. A kind of synthetic, glue /chemical odour. Not enjoyable.
Action at the saddle is unacceptably high although that can be easily adjusted I suppose if you know what you are doing. Action at the nut though is one of the highest I have ever seen which means the notes throw sharp when fretted at the lower spaces on account of the string stretching required to make the strings engage with the frets. That isn't quite so straightforward for a beginner to fix. We are talking MASSIVELY high here. Bearing in mind this is aimed at beginners, and beginners spend most of their time playing chord shapes in the first positions (i.e. near the nut) - well you can see that this sort of setup doesn't make for a good experience. Sure enough, even simple first position chords sound out of tune when the ukulele is actually in tune played open. Classic high nut issue.
Taking a ruler to the neck I noted that the bridge is slightly out of place as well. Not by much, but enough to affect intonation and one of those things I put down to being more in the 'fatal' category of flaws in that it's much much harder to fix. So when it comes to the things that affect action the most - nut height, saddle height and bridge position, all three are flawed. One is easily fixed, one is a more difficult fix and one.... well, honestly, it just wouldn't be worth the bother..
There is something odd going on with the string spacing at the saddle as well. The C and E strings are further apart from each other than they are from the G and A strings. I don't think that is fatal, just odd and badly made. It's more normal at the nut end, so I think the slots in the bridge are cut incorrectly.
Sound wise, the instrument is suitably boxy and one dimensional on account of that excess of thick laminate. It's got poor volume / projection and very little sustain. You can really tell it is not projecting well both with your ears (it is quiet) but in feedback through the body. Lively sopranos vibrate into your chest when you play them. This one feels dead. Hey, I know this is a cheap ukulele, but read my other reviews. You can get sopranos at this sort of price that sound MUCH better. It can be done.
And sure, those strings are truly awful and you WOULD want to change them, but you are not going to get much more life out of this thing regardless of what you string it with. In reviews of other instruments I have been less than impressed with, I quite often receive comments along the lines of 'but if you re-strung it, it would sing!'. Please don't assume that this ukulele is a killer instrument let down by the strings alone. It really just sums up what some people call a 'ukulele shaped object'. Sure you could also call it a 'wall hanger' (i.e. a ukulele for decoration only), but really - with this putrid shade of brown - I'd at least go for something prettier! You could spray paint it I suppose...
This one is heavy, over built, badly built and terribly set up.
Just a final point on ukuleles that get my bad reviews like this one. I know full well that some of the elements I have mentioned on this can relatively easily be fixed. Yes, the strings are bad, but they can be changed. Yes, the action is high but it can be lowered. Heck - you could even swap out the tuners, and some wire wool may work wonders with the frets. I accept all of that but bear in mind the sort of person who is likely to buy one of these. A beginner? A parent buying one for a child? Why should they go through the trouble of having to deal with these things, potentially at further cost in order to make the thing sound even slightly decent. Ukuleles in this state should never reach the customer (and probably wouldn't if you bought one from a good dealer) In fact ukuleles like this should never leave the factory in my view.. So why are these not in the hands of the places I consider to be 'good dealers'? Well probably because far too many of them arrive from China in this sort of state that they are just not worth the hassle!
And those, of course, are just the things that can be adjusted. The thick laminate woods, the boxy sound, the mis placed bridge, the terrible tone - those cannot be fixed very easily.
They are the preserve of Amazon and eBay stores, usually accompanied by 'user reviews' by people who have only ever played this one instrument and think they are 'great'. This Vintage is NOT great and I don't care how many five star reviews you will find. It's just a perfect example of everything I don't like about most instruments at this price point. For the record Amazon, I also don't see anything in it that is 'wonderfully finished' or of 'superior quality' as you state.
Yes - of course you could just 'send it back', but my advice would be to not put yourself through the waste of time in the first place.
And finally, reviews such as this also tend to cause some people to claim the 'snob' card and suggest that I only like expensive instruments. Regular readers of Got A Ukulele will know that is not the case. I just don't like 'cheap' being used as an excuse to make something that is awful and doesn't fulfil the basic requirements of a musical instrument. More importantly, it need not be this way. I understand that for many people money is extremely tight and this may be as much as they can justify on a ukulele. There are good options though. Take my advice - if this is your maximum budget level, get a Makala Dolphin, Makala Shark or an Octopus brand... The Stagg is not a ukulele you should trouble yourself with.
Avoid.
Be sure to check out my full range of ukulele reviews on this page!
UKULELE PROS
Not really any I can think of - I suppose it is 'ukulele shaped', and cool if you like the colour 'dysentry beige'UKULELE CONS
Scuffed body finish and misleading product descriptionHorrible soft fingerboard
Corroded frets
Cheap tuners that are not screwed on properly
Bridge misplaced, and slots mis cut
Woeful setup out of the box at both bridge and nut
Terrible strings
Pointless gig bag
Depressing spray painted colour
UKULELE SCORES
Looks - 3.5 out of 10Fit and finish - 3 out of 10
Sound - 3.5 out of 10
Value for money - 5 out of 10
OVERALL UKULELE SCORE - 3.8 out of 10
UKULELE VIDEO REVIEW
( DIRECT LINK )
© Barry Maz
24 Oct 2015
24 Oct 2015T14:38
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Luna Tattoo Concert Ukulele - REVIEW
Another beginner ukulele review for you in the shape of an instrument that seems to be incredibly popular. The Tattoo Concert from Luna musical instruments.
29 Mar 2015
29 Mar 2015T10:22
There are a variety of factors that come in to play that influence how a ukulele is going to play and sound, and it certainly goes beyond the usual suspects that people focus on of 'solid tone woods and strings'. You see no matter how nice a piece of tone wood has been used in the construction of the instrument, it is always going to let you down with its sound if it has been badly and heavily built. And 'Over Built' is a term I use to describe the heavier built ukuleles, most commonly put out by the cheaper end ukulele brands looking to provide a solid wood offering (because people assume they are 'better' - so they do it to improve sales).
Now we have talked before on here about the huge myth that surrounds solid woods and laminates (and the horrible tendency for some to buy cheap solid wood ukes and immediately claim they are automatically better than any laminates) so we won't go over all that again. But it does tend to be the preserve of those cheaper 'buy me!!! LOOK I'm SOLID WOOD' types of instrument that exist.
Generally speaking a good sounding ukulele needs a nice mix of tonal clarity and volume projection and those things come in a large part from the way it has been built, not just the wood. More specifically in how the sound board wood has been finished and then braced. In a perfect world a ukulele would have very thin woods in the soundboard and the bracing that keeps the soundboard in one piece, but it's a balancing act between keeping things light and not creating an instrument that will implode and split under the tension from the strings. This is why good laminate ukes can be much thinner, as the laminate wood is naturally stronger than solid.
Think of the sound box of the ukulele as a taut drum, and in part it is the tension of the strings keeping the sound board top (the bit that does most of the work) tight and resonant that makes them project. It's the vibration of the strings travelling down through the bridge and creating vibrations in that taut sound board that gives the ukulele it's tone and projection. Consider an over built ukulele as being like a drum that has a bunch of old rags stuffed inside it... Alternatively, you would never buy a drum whose head was made from thick plastic.
So how do they over build them? Well, the most obvious casualties are seen in the thickness of the soundboard (and to an extent, the back and sides) and in the thickness of the bracing. I have found that at the cheapest end some of the main culprits of this practice have used noticeably thick sound board woods and bracing that look like pieces of skirting board taken from a house! Add on top of that there is the common tendency for these sort of instruments to come with an extremely heavy gloss finish (these makers seem more concerned at how they will look on the wall of a music shop than how they actually sound) and you have another factor in killing that tone and volume. The more 'stuff' you add to that vibrating body and the more you are going to dampen the sound.
Hang on Baz.. we are talking cheap ukes here -why would they use MORE materials? Surely they would skimp on materials wouldn't they? Well, no actually. The use of a thick soundboard or heavy braces is not, in the bigger scheme of things, really any more expensive than thinner / smaller ones. In fact the process of getting a thin soundboard made to a standard that will not split yet sound resonant and a brace into a nice thin delicate scalloped shape takes time, effort and skill. And that time effort and skill costs money.
And there is is the other reason this tends to happen (and, indeed where I see many examples of this from the 'guitar makers ukes' - you know - the famous guitar brands who have stuck their name on the headstock of a generic Chinese instrument in order to climb on the ukulele bandwagon...). You see the heavier a uke is, the less likely it is to split and crack and that means less chances of a return or bad reviews appearing online thus damaging their reputation. Any ukulele can split with the wrong treatment, and even the highest end ukes can suffer if there is an inherent flaw in the finely balanced woods it is made from. But if you work on a numbers game, importing factory made ukuleles at a budget from China the last thing you want is a flood of returns and a bad rep.
So for such builders, it's not only cheaper and quicker to build a ukulele without much care and attention to tone and volume, but it's safer for reputation too - despite the impact on projection and life of the thing.
So how can you tell? Well first of all, bear in mind that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Do your homework and compare prices at all ranges in the uke world. If something stands out far too noticeably in the 'how can they make a solid ukulele at that price' stakes, then chances are you may want to take some care. But most of all you are really best advised to play the thing before you buy it. How does it feel compared to other ukes? Does it feel heavy in the hands? Warning sign! It should not be heavy! Does it feel resonant? Tap the soundboard with your fingers - does it sound like a drum or does it sound dead? I would argue that a ukulele body that doesn't function as a half decent hand drum with some snappy response from the fingers will never really sound great as a ukulele. Play the thing - ukuleles are not really known for their sustain, but you should get some. Do the notes just die off very quickly? How is the volume? A well made ukulele can get a surprising amount of projection and volume, but that will quickly be sapped by heavy woods and braces. And it won't matter if it is solid or laminate.
I'm no luthier who would be able to explore all sorts of other factors that come in to play, such as brace placement, bracing shapes and patterns. In fact there are also plenty of armchair enthusiasts who will debate this subject until the cows come home (time better spent playing the thing I say). But the general rule of thumb has to be this. If the uke is built with too much wood and too heavy a construction, it will kill the tone and resonance. There was a reason why, as children, we strung rubber bands around tissue boxes and not around bricks....
And finally, to repeat an old theme. Just because it says solid wood does not been it's 'better'. If you are in a shop and play a few and the laminate model projects and sounds better - get the laminate. Because after all, eye candy and misconceptions are not what playing a ukulele is all about. Surely it should be about sound and playability. So to the builders who just throw them together with little care other than making sure they are shiny and that your makers logo is applied in sparkly mother of pearl... Shame on you. Why not direct your efforts into making a good sounding instrument instead?
(Also note, that whilst the over built cheap uke is almost certainly the most common, there are also some cheaper end models where they have gone for ultra thin cheap woods in order to make that projection stand out. Sadly, I've seen countless examples of these that have split or bowed. I think it says more about their quality control standards on building and lack of expertise than anything else. A nicely made, thin, light solid wood ukulele takes the skill of a master builder to pull off. Go carefully!)
© Barry Maz
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What Do You Mean by 'Over Built' Ukuleles?
You may have noticed me use the term 'Over Built' when describing my thoughts on particular ukulele models. What do I mean by that and why should you be concerned?
| Martin T1K - an example of a well made, thin resonant solid wood ukulele. Bags of volume! |
Now we have talked before on here about the huge myth that surrounds solid woods and laminates (and the horrible tendency for some to buy cheap solid wood ukes and immediately claim they are automatically better than any laminates) so we won't go over all that again. But it does tend to be the preserve of those cheaper 'buy me!!! LOOK I'm SOLID WOOD' types of instrument that exist.
Generally speaking a good sounding ukulele needs a nice mix of tonal clarity and volume projection and those things come in a large part from the way it has been built, not just the wood. More specifically in how the sound board wood has been finished and then braced. In a perfect world a ukulele would have very thin woods in the soundboard and the bracing that keeps the soundboard in one piece, but it's a balancing act between keeping things light and not creating an instrument that will implode and split under the tension from the strings. This is why good laminate ukes can be much thinner, as the laminate wood is naturally stronger than solid.
Think of the sound box of the ukulele as a taut drum, and in part it is the tension of the strings keeping the sound board top (the bit that does most of the work) tight and resonant that makes them project. It's the vibration of the strings travelling down through the bridge and creating vibrations in that taut sound board that gives the ukulele it's tone and projection. Consider an over built ukulele as being like a drum that has a bunch of old rags stuffed inside it... Alternatively, you would never buy a drum whose head was made from thick plastic.
So how do they over build them? Well, the most obvious casualties are seen in the thickness of the soundboard (and to an extent, the back and sides) and in the thickness of the bracing. I have found that at the cheapest end some of the main culprits of this practice have used noticeably thick sound board woods and bracing that look like pieces of skirting board taken from a house! Add on top of that there is the common tendency for these sort of instruments to come with an extremely heavy gloss finish (these makers seem more concerned at how they will look on the wall of a music shop than how they actually sound) and you have another factor in killing that tone and volume. The more 'stuff' you add to that vibrating body and the more you are going to dampen the sound.
Hang on Baz.. we are talking cheap ukes here -why would they use MORE materials? Surely they would skimp on materials wouldn't they? Well, no actually. The use of a thick soundboard or heavy braces is not, in the bigger scheme of things, really any more expensive than thinner / smaller ones. In fact the process of getting a thin soundboard made to a standard that will not split yet sound resonant and a brace into a nice thin delicate scalloped shape takes time, effort and skill. And that time effort and skill costs money.
And there is is the other reason this tends to happen (and, indeed where I see many examples of this from the 'guitar makers ukes' - you know - the famous guitar brands who have stuck their name on the headstock of a generic Chinese instrument in order to climb on the ukulele bandwagon...). You see the heavier a uke is, the less likely it is to split and crack and that means less chances of a return or bad reviews appearing online thus damaging their reputation. Any ukulele can split with the wrong treatment, and even the highest end ukes can suffer if there is an inherent flaw in the finely balanced woods it is made from. But if you work on a numbers game, importing factory made ukuleles at a budget from China the last thing you want is a flood of returns and a bad rep.
So for such builders, it's not only cheaper and quicker to build a ukulele without much care and attention to tone and volume, but it's safer for reputation too - despite the impact on projection and life of the thing.
So how can you tell? Well first of all, bear in mind that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Do your homework and compare prices at all ranges in the uke world. If something stands out far too noticeably in the 'how can they make a solid ukulele at that price' stakes, then chances are you may want to take some care. But most of all you are really best advised to play the thing before you buy it. How does it feel compared to other ukes? Does it feel heavy in the hands? Warning sign! It should not be heavy! Does it feel resonant? Tap the soundboard with your fingers - does it sound like a drum or does it sound dead? I would argue that a ukulele body that doesn't function as a half decent hand drum with some snappy response from the fingers will never really sound great as a ukulele. Play the thing - ukuleles are not really known for their sustain, but you should get some. Do the notes just die off very quickly? How is the volume? A well made ukulele can get a surprising amount of projection and volume, but that will quickly be sapped by heavy woods and braces. And it won't matter if it is solid or laminate.
I'm no luthier who would be able to explore all sorts of other factors that come in to play, such as brace placement, bracing shapes and patterns. In fact there are also plenty of armchair enthusiasts who will debate this subject until the cows come home (time better spent playing the thing I say). But the general rule of thumb has to be this. If the uke is built with too much wood and too heavy a construction, it will kill the tone and resonance. There was a reason why, as children, we strung rubber bands around tissue boxes and not around bricks....
And finally, to repeat an old theme. Just because it says solid wood does not been it's 'better'. If you are in a shop and play a few and the laminate model projects and sounds better - get the laminate. Because after all, eye candy and misconceptions are not what playing a ukulele is all about. Surely it should be about sound and playability. So to the builders who just throw them together with little care other than making sure they are shiny and that your makers logo is applied in sparkly mother of pearl... Shame on you. Why not direct your efforts into making a good sounding instrument instead?
(Also note, that whilst the over built cheap uke is almost certainly the most common, there are also some cheaper end models where they have gone for ultra thin cheap woods in order to make that projection stand out. Sadly, I've seen countless examples of these that have split or bowed. I think it says more about their quality control standards on building and lack of expertise than anything else. A nicely made, thin, light solid wood ukulele takes the skill of a master builder to pull off. Go carefully!)
© Barry Maz
11 Mar 2015
11 Mar 2015T20:09
To my ears, with a solid wood uke, assuming a good build (and that's a key point here!), I have a good idea what it's tonal character will be, whether mahogany, Koa, Spruce etc. With a laminate I won't necessarily have a clue. Doesn't mean it won't make music though and it also doesn't mean it won't sound nice either.
But as with so many things in the ukulele world, myths spread and soon become realities in some peoples heads, especially if they are people who have a tendency to being pompous about what they own - the 'my uke is better than yours' brigade. And that one myth that really irritates me is the thinking that 'oh I bought a solid wood / top uke and therefore it must be better than your laminate one'. Total and utter rubbish. Get off your high horses.
You see there is much more to it than one being naturally being better than the other. For that to be true one must totally ignore other critical factors, most notably the quality of the actual build of the rest of the instrument. You see, whilst there are indeed many poor quality laminates (which literally are nothing more than cheap thick plywood) there are many good laminate builds too. Likewise I have come across a great many 'solid wood' instruments with terrible build quality. In the world of solids, that is usually signified by thick, heavy tone woods, fat bracing and a general shabby approach to the instrument. Such things can kill a solid wood instruments tone and projection stone dead. These solid woods are built with solid for the sake of it in order to make them appear attractive to the buyer. Often though, these cheap solid ukes don't actually bring with them the benefits that people expect or deserve. And it's because they are cheap builds with poor quality tone-woods that are often under-seasoned, that they make them thick and over brace them. If they didn't they would quickly split or deform.
I would go further and state categorically that I have seen many laminate bodied ukes that have played better, sounded better, projected better (and just felt better) than many cheap 'solid' wood ukes. Laminates are actually used by terrific guitar makers such as Taylor and Martin who use 'professional instrument grade laminate' which really is rather sublime. Sadly you don't see it much on ukuleles as manufacturers tend to revert to cheap plywood at the lower end, but on models such as the Kiwaya KS5 and the Kiwaya KSU-1, you will see what I am talking about. And it doesn't always come at great cost either - the Baton Rouge Sun models are a great example of thin, tidy laminates coupled with a great general build that will knock the spots off a cheap 'solid top' ukulele that has been over built, over braced, or just has no character to the build because they went solid for the sake of it and used poor wood. Sure, there are woeful laminates too (far too many to name!) but they are not a guarantee of bad instrument in every case.
And then you have that ever present scattering of brands that sell laminate ukuleles and claim they are solid wood. YES these brands still exist, and YES they are doing this because they are tapping into the myth in an even lazier way. They assume 'solid' is more saleable, only in such cases they don't even make them solid. That's fraud actually... One new, utterly awful, example I am seeing is the term that they are made from a 'solid sandwich'. You read that right. Sandwiching several layers of the same wood together and then claiming it's solid wood. It really isn't.
So new players should, I feel, understand more of what goes into making these instruments before shouting that 'I bought a solid wood uke so it MUST be good' nonsense. There are a great many bad, bland and average solid wood ukes out there - some of them truly terrible and no amount of using the word 'solid' is going change that. They are just no good.
Are there laminates I don't like? Yes, plenty of them. The cheap, thick, heavy rough and boxy models that we have all seen. But they could not be further away from good quality laminates. Look at the edge of a sound hole for a clue - it should be thin and the uke should be light and resonant. The cheapest ukes like entry level Mahalos are thick as you like and heavy too, and that affects the sound. But that poor quality control on these lower end models is really part of why all laminates seem to be tarred with the same brush. This is why we can't have nice things...
There is no shame in a lot of laminate bodied ukes - they work for a certain price point. Sure, I own many solid wood ukuleles, some at the very high end, and given the choice and budget I would always buy them, but I also have laminate instruments too. It's horses for courses. One thing you won't find me doing is looking down on laminates as a whole other than looking down on badly made instruments as a whole. It doesn't matter what they are made of, if it's bad, it's bad.
And as the myth perpetuates, so confusion remains the order of the day when shopping for ukes. If it's a laminate - just say so please. If it's a bad laminate, then improve your ukulele rather than trying to hide the fact. If it's a solid or solid top instrument that is NO guarantee it's going to have any character whatsoever either.
So what do I advise? Well, same as I always advise - take advice, read impartial reviews, and spend as much as you can reasonably afford on your ukuleles. If you can get into solid wood uke territory, bear in mind that you are looking at the intermediate to high end before you can guarantee yourself a killer tone, so don't overlook laminates. And certainly don't overlook laminates in place of cheap solid wood ukes with no tone whatsoever, that is just madness. As I tell anyone, I would take a good laminate uke over a cheap solid wood instrument any day of the week.
© Barry Maz
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There's Good And Bad in Ukuleles Whether Solid Or Laminate
Something I am seeing more and more of lately is the misconception that a laminate bodied ukulele is automatically 'junk' and a build made of solid wood, even a solid top is somehow a ticket to guaranteed 'great' quality musical instrument. Wrong, wrong, wrong. You are buying the myth if you think that.
I touched on this in my recent blog post about badly described ukes on dealer websites but wanted to go further. What prompted that post, and indeed what I think prompts sellers to be somewhat 'economical' with the truth is that they are riding on the myth amongst many buyers that laminate equals bad and solid equals good. It doesn't. You see, as with most things in life, there is good and bad in both of those types of uke construction.
Let's go back to basics though first. A laminate uke means the body is not made from solid pieces of timber, but rather from thin pieces of wood that has been sandwiched together from much thinner pieces. Plywood for want of a better term in the worst examples. A solid wood uke means that the wood pieces, as thin as they are, are simply very thin slices of wood from a solid piece of timber. Nothing has been glued or bonded together, it's just the same piece of wood front to back. There is a lot of stuff and nonsense about the differences, but VERY generally speaking, laminates usually cost less and tend to be the preserve of many bargain basement ukes, though not always. The theory with solid woods is that they provide their own character to the sound of the uke - the character of the tone wood itself, in a way that is impossible for laminates to do. They are said to vibrate more freely as the wood grains and fibres are still in one piece, unlike a laminate which is a sandwich that involves some bonding materials. Solid woods will also supposedly age in time and get mellower through 'opening up' - although that is a huge point of debate in musical instrument circles. For laminates, they tend to be more one dimensional in sound, and don't carry the character of whatever wood is veneered on the outside. Oh it does get me down when I see people talk about the 'lovely zebra wood tone' of their laminate uke, or that the 'cedar really imparts a nice voice' to their laminate cedar uke... but that is beside the point I am making. Laminates are however far stronger than solid woods and favoured by players in harsh climates as they are less prone to splitting, bowing or bellying.
To my ears, with a solid wood uke, assuming a good build (and that's a key point here!), I have a good idea what it's tonal character will be, whether mahogany, Koa, Spruce etc. With a laminate I won't necessarily have a clue. Doesn't mean it won't make music though and it also doesn't mean it won't sound nice either.
| Baton Rouge - a great laminate that won't break the bank |
But as with so many things in the ukulele world, myths spread and soon become realities in some peoples heads, especially if they are people who have a tendency to being pompous about what they own - the 'my uke is better than yours' brigade. And that one myth that really irritates me is the thinking that 'oh I bought a solid wood / top uke and therefore it must be better than your laminate one'. Total and utter rubbish. Get off your high horses.
You see there is much more to it than one being naturally being better than the other. For that to be true one must totally ignore other critical factors, most notably the quality of the actual build of the rest of the instrument. You see, whilst there are indeed many poor quality laminates (which literally are nothing more than cheap thick plywood) there are many good laminate builds too. Likewise I have come across a great many 'solid wood' instruments with terrible build quality. In the world of solids, that is usually signified by thick, heavy tone woods, fat bracing and a general shabby approach to the instrument. Such things can kill a solid wood instruments tone and projection stone dead. These solid woods are built with solid for the sake of it in order to make them appear attractive to the buyer. Often though, these cheap solid ukes don't actually bring with them the benefits that people expect or deserve. And it's because they are cheap builds with poor quality tone-woods that are often under-seasoned, that they make them thick and over brace them. If they didn't they would quickly split or deform.
I would go further and state categorically that I have seen many laminate bodied ukes that have played better, sounded better, projected better (and just felt better) than many cheap 'solid' wood ukes. Laminates are actually used by terrific guitar makers such as Taylor and Martin who use 'professional instrument grade laminate' which really is rather sublime. Sadly you don't see it much on ukuleles as manufacturers tend to revert to cheap plywood at the lower end, but on models such as the Kiwaya KS5 and the Kiwaya KSU-1, you will see what I am talking about. And it doesn't always come at great cost either - the Baton Rouge Sun models are a great example of thin, tidy laminates coupled with a great general build that will knock the spots off a cheap 'solid top' ukulele that has been over built, over braced, or just has no character to the build because they went solid for the sake of it and used poor wood. Sure, there are woeful laminates too (far too many to name!) but they are not a guarantee of bad instrument in every case.
And then you have that ever present scattering of brands that sell laminate ukuleles and claim they are solid wood. YES these brands still exist, and YES they are doing this because they are tapping into the myth in an even lazier way. They assume 'solid' is more saleable, only in such cases they don't even make them solid. That's fraud actually... One new, utterly awful, example I am seeing is the term that they are made from a 'solid sandwich'. You read that right. Sandwiching several layers of the same wood together and then claiming it's solid wood. It really isn't.
So new players should, I feel, understand more of what goes into making these instruments before shouting that 'I bought a solid wood uke so it MUST be good' nonsense. There are a great many bad, bland and average solid wood ukes out there - some of them truly terrible and no amount of using the word 'solid' is going change that. They are just no good.
Are there laminates I don't like? Yes, plenty of them. The cheap, thick, heavy rough and boxy models that we have all seen. But they could not be further away from good quality laminates. Look at the edge of a sound hole for a clue - it should be thin and the uke should be light and resonant. The cheapest ukes like entry level Mahalos are thick as you like and heavy too, and that affects the sound. But that poor quality control on these lower end models is really part of why all laminates seem to be tarred with the same brush. This is why we can't have nice things...
| When laminates are bad - cheap, thick, horrible... |
There is no shame in a lot of laminate bodied ukes - they work for a certain price point. Sure, I own many solid wood ukuleles, some at the very high end, and given the choice and budget I would always buy them, but I also have laminate instruments too. It's horses for courses. One thing you won't find me doing is looking down on laminates as a whole other than looking down on badly made instruments as a whole. It doesn't matter what they are made of, if it's bad, it's bad.
And as the myth perpetuates, so confusion remains the order of the day when shopping for ukes. If it's a laminate - just say so please. If it's a bad laminate, then improve your ukulele rather than trying to hide the fact. If it's a solid or solid top instrument that is NO guarantee it's going to have any character whatsoever either.
So what do I advise? Well, same as I always advise - take advice, read impartial reviews, and spend as much as you can reasonably afford on your ukuleles. If you can get into solid wood uke territory, bear in mind that you are looking at the intermediate to high end before you can guarantee yourself a killer tone, so don't overlook laminates. And certainly don't overlook laminates in place of cheap solid wood ukes with no tone whatsoever, that is just madness. As I tell anyone, I would take a good laminate uke over a cheap solid wood instrument any day of the week.
© Barry Maz
7 Jan 2015
7 Jan 2015T13:52
It's 7 January 2015 and I have already read two mainstream articles THIS YEAR that jump on the bandwagon of flying the flag for the uke. Please don't assume this piece is one of those 'yeah but I liked the ukulele before it was cool' rants, it really isn't. I'm sat here writing what is a totally mainstream blog aimed at beginners and nothing pleases me more than promotion of the instrument. I don't want it to be cool only for the cool kids. But these articles to me, fell in to the typical lazy method of picking up general clippings from the world of media and just putting them together again in a different order. Saying nothing new. Continuing to breed the myths.
Jake Smimabukuro mentioned? Check! Reference to a small guitar? Check! And then there is the price thing.... One article loved the fact that 'ukuleles are cheap', even claiming it to be a 'good thing' that they could be cheaper than 'a Disney Frozen Playset'. Ugghh.. What is that about?? Sorry parents but if you want to introduce your little Jimmy to playing the ukulele then price should not be your top priority, and certainly not getting it lower than a lump of chinese manufacutured plastic aimed at filling the coffers of Disney... What happened to people realising that a musical instrument is a technical 'thing' that requires a certain amount of care to be made correctly? When do you see people wanting, no, 'expecting' a violin / flute/ guitar / saxophone for school practice at the price of a couple of McDonalds? You don't. In fact why are people not writing about that in anything other than the specialist media?
If the uke is selling as well as we are told it is (some stores saying they are outstripping guitar sales), then where are the articles that focus on the serious side of the good instruments?
Yet even by the close of 2014 the general market seemed to be stuck with the assumption that because the ukulele is small then it MUST be cheap to buy. (I'd just slip in at this point that a harmonica is even smaller and for a decent one you will pay more than you will for one of the glut of cheap bright Chinese ukes on the market..). Read forums and uke groups and you will see much the same from the new players. The questioning post of 'hi, I am looking to buy my first ukulele, and my budget is $25)....
At this point no doubt the internet haters typing fingers will be getting twitchy. How dare you tell us what to spend (i'm not), how dare you claim that you must spend top dollar on a ukulele (i'm not), My cheap Mahalo is superb (I'm pleased for you but many are not).... All I wanted to 'spout' at the start of another year was that, isn't it about time that the market started to help the new market in education on what these things are about?
As a prediction, I personally think things are going to get a whole lot worse for brand new players on this front. The Chinese factories will up their production and we are going to see even more £20 ukulele brands hitting the shelves and ending up in new players laps. Some good ones may get through of course (see footnote!), but generally speaking I would expect two main things will happen:
1. The majority will be put off by the horrible, thin sound, the tuning issues and the rough builds (at best) and never play them again - they'll put it down to experience and then the cycle just continues..
2. Those who want to commit to the instrument will buy a better one soon after. No bad thing you may say, but to me it just says 'a waste of £20 in the first place'.
But in the ukulele circles I move in (for what they are worth..) I do sense there could be a change coming. A great many people I know have been through this process and are now looking to upgrade quite significantly. Better put, they have worked out that a good intermediate instrument or above DOES actually bring more to the table than the £20 fans say they do. They DO sound better (sweeter, better tone, sustain, volume, build quality), but they also just play better. And not necessarily for top dollar either. There are some great starter ukes of high quality out there for about £100 upwards if you take the right advice. (And advice is surely something anyone buying a musical instrument should take right?)
So should we as players start exclaiming this fact - shouting from the rooftops what we learned from our development with the ukulele? Why the hell not? The uke community helps itself out in all sorts of ways and I have lost count of the times I have heard that it is the 'friendliest around'.
So if a friend is considering a uke, advise them carefully. When they raise an eyebrow when you suggest that there are better models out there if they spend a little more, explain why. When they say 'yes but I am just testing the water' explain that the £20 models may actually put them off without them ever really having experienced what a uke has to offer. Tell them that its a myth that they MUST be cheap. Hell, just tell them that they can't expect miracles for something costing a round of drinks in the pub... And music shops should also take note. My readers will know that I believe there are some superb music stores around who take the instrument seriously, but for every one of those, yet another music store jumps on the bandwagon and fills their wall with nothing but cheap nasty instruments. I was in a very well known music store with multiple city outlets only the other day and their uke selection was woeful. Some instruments I had never even heard of, and when inspected, pretty dreadful. In fact, a wall of ukes chosen to suit the price myth rather than playability and I think that is a disgrace. See one of these shops? Tell the sales assistant that you demand more.
As for wishes going forward, I hope to see more development from new players who choose to move into the realms of more professionally made instruments. Perhaps, even, we should call for 2015 to be the year of the Uke Luthier - they are not necessarily as expensive as most people believe they are and should certainly be investigated in my book. In fact they should be celebrated. For those with tight budgets, perhaps explore the extremely healthy world of the used ukulele where some bargains can be found without resorting to the cheap and nasty. To go back to my example above on violins and flutes, parents buying those for schoolchildren don't have the option of £19.99 violins, and rely heavily on the second hand market to get on the ladder (violins brand new are not cheap). Why not the same for the ukulele?
Or is it actually (and I worry this may be true) forever damned by shonky journalism, the 'toy' tag and the fact it's just a 'small guitar'. I certainly hope not, and here's to 2015 as being a year the uke really starts to get taken seriously as an instrument. It will need YOUR help to make that happen though..
(Footnote - really sadly I need to tail this with a health warning - this is just a blog - a place for personal thoughts, and there is really no need to get all 'enraged of Tunbridge Wells'. I am not telling anyone that they MUST do this or that, just musings thats all. If you want to fill your music room with cheap Chinese tat, then be my guest. It's your choice not mine..)
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So, The Myths Persist - Some Ukulele Predictions and Wishes for 2015
It's the downside with reading mainstream press articles that choose to deal with the 'rise of the humble ukulele' that they just tend to annoy me now. I see so many of them. Lazy journalism from the hacks with space to fill who overheard at last weeks party that this ukulele thing is quite the fashion... it's cool, that they are quick to fill their pages with articles that say pretty much nothing to the established player and provide bad advice to the uke curious. Are we going to see more of this in 2015? Is the 'uke boom' going to wane? Or can we be a little more positive?
It's 7 January 2015 and I have already read two mainstream articles THIS YEAR that jump on the bandwagon of flying the flag for the uke. Please don't assume this piece is one of those 'yeah but I liked the ukulele before it was cool' rants, it really isn't. I'm sat here writing what is a totally mainstream blog aimed at beginners and nothing pleases me more than promotion of the instrument. I don't want it to be cool only for the cool kids. But these articles to me, fell in to the typical lazy method of picking up general clippings from the world of media and just putting them together again in a different order. Saying nothing new. Continuing to breed the myths.
Jake Smimabukuro mentioned? Check! Reference to a small guitar? Check! And then there is the price thing.... One article loved the fact that 'ukuleles are cheap', even claiming it to be a 'good thing' that they could be cheaper than 'a Disney Frozen Playset'. Ugghh.. What is that about?? Sorry parents but if you want to introduce your little Jimmy to playing the ukulele then price should not be your top priority, and certainly not getting it lower than a lump of chinese manufacutured plastic aimed at filling the coffers of Disney... What happened to people realising that a musical instrument is a technical 'thing' that requires a certain amount of care to be made correctly? When do you see people wanting, no, 'expecting' a violin / flute/ guitar / saxophone for school practice at the price of a couple of McDonalds? You don't. In fact why are people not writing about that in anything other than the specialist media?
| Cheap junk, NOT actually a musical instrument in any sense! |
If the uke is selling as well as we are told it is (some stores saying they are outstripping guitar sales), then where are the articles that focus on the serious side of the good instruments?
Yet even by the close of 2014 the general market seemed to be stuck with the assumption that because the ukulele is small then it MUST be cheap to buy. (I'd just slip in at this point that a harmonica is even smaller and for a decent one you will pay more than you will for one of the glut of cheap bright Chinese ukes on the market..). Read forums and uke groups and you will see much the same from the new players. The questioning post of 'hi, I am looking to buy my first ukulele, and my budget is $25)....
At this point no doubt the internet haters typing fingers will be getting twitchy. How dare you tell us what to spend (i'm not), how dare you claim that you must spend top dollar on a ukulele (i'm not), My cheap Mahalo is superb (I'm pleased for you but many are not).... All I wanted to 'spout' at the start of another year was that, isn't it about time that the market started to help the new market in education on what these things are about?
As a prediction, I personally think things are going to get a whole lot worse for brand new players on this front. The Chinese factories will up their production and we are going to see even more £20 ukulele brands hitting the shelves and ending up in new players laps. Some good ones may get through of course (see footnote!), but generally speaking I would expect two main things will happen:
1. The majority will be put off by the horrible, thin sound, the tuning issues and the rough builds (at best) and never play them again - they'll put it down to experience and then the cycle just continues..
2. Those who want to commit to the instrument will buy a better one soon after. No bad thing you may say, but to me it just says 'a waste of £20 in the first place'.
But in the ukulele circles I move in (for what they are worth..) I do sense there could be a change coming. A great many people I know have been through this process and are now looking to upgrade quite significantly. Better put, they have worked out that a good intermediate instrument or above DOES actually bring more to the table than the £20 fans say they do. They DO sound better (sweeter, better tone, sustain, volume, build quality), but they also just play better. And not necessarily for top dollar either. There are some great starter ukes of high quality out there for about £100 upwards if you take the right advice. (And advice is surely something anyone buying a musical instrument should take right?)
So should we as players start exclaiming this fact - shouting from the rooftops what we learned from our development with the ukulele? Why the hell not? The uke community helps itself out in all sorts of ways and I have lost count of the times I have heard that it is the 'friendliest around'.
So if a friend is considering a uke, advise them carefully. When they raise an eyebrow when you suggest that there are better models out there if they spend a little more, explain why. When they say 'yes but I am just testing the water' explain that the £20 models may actually put them off without them ever really having experienced what a uke has to offer. Tell them that its a myth that they MUST be cheap. Hell, just tell them that they can't expect miracles for something costing a round of drinks in the pub... And music shops should also take note. My readers will know that I believe there are some superb music stores around who take the instrument seriously, but for every one of those, yet another music store jumps on the bandwagon and fills their wall with nothing but cheap nasty instruments. I was in a very well known music store with multiple city outlets only the other day and their uke selection was woeful. Some instruments I had never even heard of, and when inspected, pretty dreadful. In fact, a wall of ukes chosen to suit the price myth rather than playability and I think that is a disgrace. See one of these shops? Tell the sales assistant that you demand more.
As for wishes going forward, I hope to see more development from new players who choose to move into the realms of more professionally made instruments. Perhaps, even, we should call for 2015 to be the year of the Uke Luthier - they are not necessarily as expensive as most people believe they are and should certainly be investigated in my book. In fact they should be celebrated. For those with tight budgets, perhaps explore the extremely healthy world of the used ukulele where some bargains can be found without resorting to the cheap and nasty. To go back to my example above on violins and flutes, parents buying those for schoolchildren don't have the option of £19.99 violins, and rely heavily on the second hand market to get on the ladder (violins brand new are not cheap). Why not the same for the ukulele?
Or is it actually (and I worry this may be true) forever damned by shonky journalism, the 'toy' tag and the fact it's just a 'small guitar'. I certainly hope not, and here's to 2015 as being a year the uke really starts to get taken seriously as an instrument. It will need YOUR help to make that happen though..
(Footnote - really sadly I need to tail this with a health warning - this is just a blog - a place for personal thoughts, and there is really no need to get all 'enraged of Tunbridge Wells'. I am not telling anyone that they MUST do this or that, just musings thats all. If you want to fill your music room with cheap Chinese tat, then be my guest. It's your choice not mine..)
17 Mar 2014
17 Mar 2014T12:47
In fact, this is also a kind of uke review but read on for that. This post was prompted by me spotting a cheap ukulele in a local shop that took my breath away... massively. You know the sort of thing - the brightly painted, thick laminate ukes that plague eBay and unscupulous dealers who jump on the ukulele bandwagon because they see the ukulele as a 'popular' money spinner. Sadly what these sellers don't do is actually give much of a damn as to whether the ukulele they are touting is actually playable or not, and as such the market is full of instruments that could only very loosely be called 'musical instruments'. Ukulele shaped objects perhaps.
A couple of points before I continue. This is not a case of instument snobbery and I appreciate that money is tight for many people. But is there really an expectation that you are going to get something that works for only £10 (or in the case of the uke I look at below, £8 or about the price of a good set of strings)?? Really? These are musical instruments! Would you expect a violin, guitar, piano, flute or whatever else for £10? A single ukulele lesson, just a lesson, can cost you twice that! Why is the uke considered to be the cheap one in the instrument world?
I am also writing this because I get a lot of email on the subject of 'I bought a ukulele for cheap and it won't play in tune', but also because I see a lot of beginners saying the same thing on various social media spots. I have ranted about this subject before, particularly over instruments I have reviewed such as this Mahalo which should never be considered 'intruments' in my view.
People have also said to me that the ukulele should be cheap because it is small - like THAT is a good reason. The media endlessly tell us the same. What a complete nonsense! They are still musical instruments and need a certain basic level of technicality in the build to make them capable of being played properly. I am not just talking about action and setup, but basic build characteristics such as the neck angle, the position of the bridge and the frets. I have seen instruments from certain brands where they were just plain built 'wrong', making accurate playability a total impossibility. In that I mean, this is not a subjective problem such as 'they sound rubbish', but are actual build defects that would mean the instrument would never play in tune. Ever. And anyway, if it follows that small should be cheap, a good tin whistle or harmonica costs more than the uke I include in the example below...
So what is going on here? Well, with any boom, supply grows to meet demand, and China is the powerhouse in this regard. They are churning out instruments by the bucketload and in many cases giving little thought to the end player. I am not down on China or Chinese instruments, and they produce some fine quality ukuleles when the production is overseen by a brand that demands quality. Sadly, in other areas they are equally quite happy to knock out sub par products that find their ways into our homes in their droves. And I mean droves. That's where ones like the one in this review fit.
The price at which ukuleles become basically playable is very, very subjective, but it certainly isn't at £10 or even £20... It just isn't and don't believe the hype that it is. Don't expect it because it's small and don't expect it because it's fun. Most of all, don't expect it just because you want it. For me I think they start getting good at about £100 over here in the UK, and in the £100-£300 range you can find ukes to suit all abilities. Beyond that you get some sublime instruments, and if you top over £1000 you get into the real stunners. Below £100 you 'may' (and I stress, MAY here) get something playable if you take advice, but generally speaking you will get rubbish.
But there is another problem behind this. I am afraid to say that the sales of these junk ukes go hand in hand with the misconception that the ukulele is just a toy instrument, a joke, or 'just a bit of fun'. And so long as that myth remains, then these monstrosities will continue to appear in stores. It is almost as if the uke is considered a throwaway item.... Nothing serious, no harm done... Never mind whether they actually play in tune or not..
Anyway, lets take a look at this one I picked up today. AND TO BE CLEAR - THIS IS NOT JUST A PIECE ABOUT THIS PARTICULAR UKE - I AM USING THIS AS AN EXAMPLE - THERE ARE INCREASING NUMBERS OF UKES APPEARING ON THE MARKET AS BAD AS THIS ONE!!!
Specimen A comes packaged in a suitably Hawaiian themed box complete with tropical flower motif and goes by the name of the 'Ready Ace' ( a trades description breach if ever there was one as you will see...)
It is a laminate bodied uke complete with a thick, glossy, garish paint finish like so many cheap ukes at this price point. Interestingly, the makers decided that gloss on the body was not enough for this little beauty and decided to paint the fingerboard in gloss black, and then detail the frets in gold paint. I have never seen anything quite like it. Paint, paint, paint, and lots of it.
The bridge is a slotted type, with a saddle of plastic and is screwed to the body. Nothing massively wrong here I guess. A look at the edge of the sound hole shows that the laminate top is super thick, so volume and tone are bound to be compromised. This is probably one of the thickest I have ever seen. Bear in mind the body of a ukulele is a sound box. It's supposed to be resonant, light and snappy. Thick woods do not create resonance. Added to that, the bridge is actually set in the wrong place and on a slight angle. Critical error number one. Put the bridge in the wrong place and you will never get accurate scale length on the strings, and that means you will never get accurate play on the fretboard. Things like this matter. Greatly.
It is the neck though where things then fall apart completely. Those frets are not set correctly either. Not only is the spacing somewhat random, most of them are set in the fingerboard at a slight angle and as such this instrument will NEVER play in tune. In fact the instrument would play better if they didn't bother with the frets at all! And that's all before I talk about just how hideous that black paint looks and feels on the hands. So bridge out of place, frets out of place... we already have a massive failure.
The tuning is provided by some of the cheapest friction tuners I have ever seen, that use a piece of cardboard as a washer to create the friction. They were loose on arrival (which would be enough to fox any new player or child) and one was actually detached completely and rolling around in the box. I tightened them up as far as I dare without splitting the plastic and the strings (nylon by the way, and all of exactly the same gauge) just about held. To use them though is just awful. You either have these so tight that they hold the strings but make it impossible to tune them, or they are moveable but just spin backwards with any sort of string tension.
Action wise, this is far too high at the nut and the saddle, but that can be adjusted I suppose. Those misplaced frets and bridge cannot....
So the build is horrible as I say, but the feel of that ultra thick paint is just horrid on the hands and naturally it feels far heavier than it should for a soprano.
Playing it, well that high action was pretty awful, but the misplaced frets are the killer here. Tuning on the E and A strings was not too bad, but don't ever try to play a chord that uses those strings in conjunction with the G or the C string as they just won't work! The thick body woods mean that the instrument has virtually no tone or sustain to speak of and a pitiful volume too. Hardly surprising.
I recorded a video to accompany this post which you will find at the end if you are interested. So in other words a totally unplayable instrument. I should take it back for a refund, but...... I wasn't finished with it just yet...
I wanted to look deeper into this uke. Literally. So throwing my £7.99 to the wind for the sake of the good readers of this site, out came the craft knife. What I found inside was frankly revolting.
Firstly the top. No real surprises here, super thick plywood with some over spray from the painting process and enormous screws holding the bridge down. Presumably that super thick paint and super thick laminate was the reason why there is no bracing.... at all... none.
Looking into the body though it actually looks like someone has vomited into the uke. There seems to be more glue poured around the body than there is holding the back and top on to the sides. In fact, the top was really easy to prize off, so this uke was never going to last. It is a complete and utter mess. The tail and neck blocks look like they have been sawn off a tree that was growing outside the factory. This is what your princely sum of £7.99 gets you.
Interesting note - the label says it is an Acoustic Guitar......
Why does any of this matter? We don't play the inside of the uke. Well, it is an indication of just how shoddy the build process is from start to finish (as if that wasn't immediately obvious from the outside...). It shows that this production line couldn't care less about whose hands the 'instrument' lands in, and only cares about fleecing the buying public for what they can on the back of the popular ukulele trend.
Why do I care about this one? Surely Baz, you knew this was going to be a rubbish uke? You may yourself be confident that you would never buy one of these. That is good to hear, but sadly people ARE buying them, and buying them in great quantities. The very best outcome for someone with one of these is that they have wasted their money. But the worst outcome is that somebody who wanted to give the ukulele a try would end up frustrated and totally put off because the thing is unplayable. This may be their first and last foray into the uke world. Think of the child on their birthday morning who wanted a uke and opened this box. It's very sad, and whilst there is little I can do about it, if I had my way then these things would be banned. In fact the concept of a child getting one of these really upsets me. Destroying a musical instrument relationship so early is just not on. As it is, all I can do is shout about it here and hope that people take note. And remember - it's not just Ready Ace that are guilty here. Lots of junk like this is available. This one is just indicative of the problem.
If you are buying, buy from a reputable place and please remember that you get what you pay for. If you are a dealer, eBay or otherwise carrying these sort of ukes, and shipping them out without even opening the boxes, then shame on you. Have a think about what you are putting on the market and perhaps have a bit more pride rather than just ripping people off.
As a final point - some people are suggesting this sort of uke is not sold as an instrument, but just as a toy or decorative piece. Sadly, that is not true - this one even came with a leaflet inside with a chord chart and a how to play and tune guide.... See below.
So.. what SHOULD you buy for yourself or your kids if these are quite so bad?
Well if you really don't want to / cannot afford to spend much more than twenty quid, then you really should take a look at a Makala Dolphin uke. They will need some adjustment, but are very playable and project well (I own two). They are around 30-35 pounds and I know many top end players who own them because they are fun. They really are not too bad.
Or how about another favourite of mine - the Octopus Brand soprano ukulele- seriously nice for next to no money.
The Lanikai LU11 or 21's are considered to be great for kids and many schools use them. I have seen some quality control issues with some, but think they sound ok too.
If you want to move to the £100 bracket that I suggest (and that wasn't an order in the post, just my opinion) and get a great first ukulele then I personally think it is hard to beat the Ohana SK25. Wonderful little uke that one.
But I am wavering here and just listing the exceptions to the rule. If you choose to buy the cheapest ukulele you can find because you think they are naturally cheap you WILL be disappointed.
I couldn't even be bothered to score this one properly. If I did, it is a firm 0 out of 10.... And very sadly, this is not the only one out there of this calibre.
UKULELE VIDEO REVIEW
STOP PRESS!! To see how the Ready Ace ended up (it deserved an honorable send off - see below!)
AND! Be sure to check out my other ukulele RANTS - where I explode the many myths and bad advice that surrounds the instrument - CLICK HERE!
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Why Do We Accept Cheap Junk Ukuleles? The Ready Ace Review
Time for another ukulele rant, and another piece I have been meaning to write for some time. Why is it that people accept and buy such cheap junk ukuleles? Since when did the assumption that a musical instrument has become a bargain price impulse purchase? Why is this considered normal in so many quarters?
A couple of points before I continue. This is not a case of instument snobbery and I appreciate that money is tight for many people. But is there really an expectation that you are going to get something that works for only £10 (or in the case of the uke I look at below, £8 or about the price of a good set of strings)?? Really? These are musical instruments! Would you expect a violin, guitar, piano, flute or whatever else for £10? A single ukulele lesson, just a lesson, can cost you twice that! Why is the uke considered to be the cheap one in the instrument world?
I am also writing this because I get a lot of email on the subject of 'I bought a ukulele for cheap and it won't play in tune', but also because I see a lot of beginners saying the same thing on various social media spots. I have ranted about this subject before, particularly over instruments I have reviewed such as this Mahalo which should never be considered 'intruments' in my view.
People have also said to me that the ukulele should be cheap because it is small - like THAT is a good reason. The media endlessly tell us the same. What a complete nonsense! They are still musical instruments and need a certain basic level of technicality in the build to make them capable of being played properly. I am not just talking about action and setup, but basic build characteristics such as the neck angle, the position of the bridge and the frets. I have seen instruments from certain brands where they were just plain built 'wrong', making accurate playability a total impossibility. In that I mean, this is not a subjective problem such as 'they sound rubbish', but are actual build defects that would mean the instrument would never play in tune. Ever. And anyway, if it follows that small should be cheap, a good tin whistle or harmonica costs more than the uke I include in the example below...
So what is going on here? Well, with any boom, supply grows to meet demand, and China is the powerhouse in this regard. They are churning out instruments by the bucketload and in many cases giving little thought to the end player. I am not down on China or Chinese instruments, and they produce some fine quality ukuleles when the production is overseen by a brand that demands quality. Sadly, in other areas they are equally quite happy to knock out sub par products that find their ways into our homes in their droves. And I mean droves. That's where ones like the one in this review fit.
The price at which ukuleles become basically playable is very, very subjective, but it certainly isn't at £10 or even £20... It just isn't and don't believe the hype that it is. Don't expect it because it's small and don't expect it because it's fun. Most of all, don't expect it just because you want it. For me I think they start getting good at about £100 over here in the UK, and in the £100-£300 range you can find ukes to suit all abilities. Beyond that you get some sublime instruments, and if you top over £1000 you get into the real stunners. Below £100 you 'may' (and I stress, MAY here) get something playable if you take advice, but generally speaking you will get rubbish.
But there is another problem behind this. I am afraid to say that the sales of these junk ukes go hand in hand with the misconception that the ukulele is just a toy instrument, a joke, or 'just a bit of fun'. And so long as that myth remains, then these monstrosities will continue to appear in stores. It is almost as if the uke is considered a throwaway item.... Nothing serious, no harm done... Never mind whether they actually play in tune or not..
Anyway, lets take a look at this one I picked up today. AND TO BE CLEAR - THIS IS NOT JUST A PIECE ABOUT THIS PARTICULAR UKE - I AM USING THIS AS AN EXAMPLE - THERE ARE INCREASING NUMBERS OF UKES APPEARING ON THE MARKET AS BAD AS THIS ONE!!!
Specimen A comes packaged in a suitably Hawaiian themed box complete with tropical flower motif and goes by the name of the 'Ready Ace' ( a trades description breach if ever there was one as you will see...)
It is a laminate bodied uke complete with a thick, glossy, garish paint finish like so many cheap ukes at this price point. Interestingly, the makers decided that gloss on the body was not enough for this little beauty and decided to paint the fingerboard in gloss black, and then detail the frets in gold paint. I have never seen anything quite like it. Paint, paint, paint, and lots of it.
The bridge is a slotted type, with a saddle of plastic and is screwed to the body. Nothing massively wrong here I guess. A look at the edge of the sound hole shows that the laminate top is super thick, so volume and tone are bound to be compromised. This is probably one of the thickest I have ever seen. Bear in mind the body of a ukulele is a sound box. It's supposed to be resonant, light and snappy. Thick woods do not create resonance. Added to that, the bridge is actually set in the wrong place and on a slight angle. Critical error number one. Put the bridge in the wrong place and you will never get accurate scale length on the strings, and that means you will never get accurate play on the fretboard. Things like this matter. Greatly.
It is the neck though where things then fall apart completely. Those frets are not set correctly either. Not only is the spacing somewhat random, most of them are set in the fingerboard at a slight angle and as such this instrument will NEVER play in tune. In fact the instrument would play better if they didn't bother with the frets at all! And that's all before I talk about just how hideous that black paint looks and feels on the hands. So bridge out of place, frets out of place... we already have a massive failure.
The tuning is provided by some of the cheapest friction tuners I have ever seen, that use a piece of cardboard as a washer to create the friction. They were loose on arrival (which would be enough to fox any new player or child) and one was actually detached completely and rolling around in the box. I tightened them up as far as I dare without splitting the plastic and the strings (nylon by the way, and all of exactly the same gauge) just about held. To use them though is just awful. You either have these so tight that they hold the strings but make it impossible to tune them, or they are moveable but just spin backwards with any sort of string tension.
Action wise, this is far too high at the nut and the saddle, but that can be adjusted I suppose. Those misplaced frets and bridge cannot....
So the build is horrible as I say, but the feel of that ultra thick paint is just horrid on the hands and naturally it feels far heavier than it should for a soprano.
Playing it, well that high action was pretty awful, but the misplaced frets are the killer here. Tuning on the E and A strings was not too bad, but don't ever try to play a chord that uses those strings in conjunction with the G or the C string as they just won't work! The thick body woods mean that the instrument has virtually no tone or sustain to speak of and a pitiful volume too. Hardly surprising.
I recorded a video to accompany this post which you will find at the end if you are interested. So in other words a totally unplayable instrument. I should take it back for a refund, but...... I wasn't finished with it just yet...
I wanted to look deeper into this uke. Literally. So throwing my £7.99 to the wind for the sake of the good readers of this site, out came the craft knife. What I found inside was frankly revolting.
Firstly the top. No real surprises here, super thick plywood with some over spray from the painting process and enormous screws holding the bridge down. Presumably that super thick paint and super thick laminate was the reason why there is no bracing.... at all... none.
Looking into the body though it actually looks like someone has vomited into the uke. There seems to be more glue poured around the body than there is holding the back and top on to the sides. In fact, the top was really easy to prize off, so this uke was never going to last. It is a complete and utter mess. The tail and neck blocks look like they have been sawn off a tree that was growing outside the factory. This is what your princely sum of £7.99 gets you.
Interesting note - the label says it is an Acoustic Guitar......
Why does any of this matter? We don't play the inside of the uke. Well, it is an indication of just how shoddy the build process is from start to finish (as if that wasn't immediately obvious from the outside...). It shows that this production line couldn't care less about whose hands the 'instrument' lands in, and only cares about fleecing the buying public for what they can on the back of the popular ukulele trend.
Why do I care about this one? Surely Baz, you knew this was going to be a rubbish uke? You may yourself be confident that you would never buy one of these. That is good to hear, but sadly people ARE buying them, and buying them in great quantities. The very best outcome for someone with one of these is that they have wasted their money. But the worst outcome is that somebody who wanted to give the ukulele a try would end up frustrated and totally put off because the thing is unplayable. This may be their first and last foray into the uke world. Think of the child on their birthday morning who wanted a uke and opened this box. It's very sad, and whilst there is little I can do about it, if I had my way then these things would be banned. In fact the concept of a child getting one of these really upsets me. Destroying a musical instrument relationship so early is just not on. As it is, all I can do is shout about it here and hope that people take note. And remember - it's not just Ready Ace that are guilty here. Lots of junk like this is available. This one is just indicative of the problem.
If you are buying, buy from a reputable place and please remember that you get what you pay for. If you are a dealer, eBay or otherwise carrying these sort of ukes, and shipping them out without even opening the boxes, then shame on you. Have a think about what you are putting on the market and perhaps have a bit more pride rather than just ripping people off.
As a final point - some people are suggesting this sort of uke is not sold as an instrument, but just as a toy or decorative piece. Sadly, that is not true - this one even came with a leaflet inside with a chord chart and a how to play and tune guide.... See below.
So.. what SHOULD you buy for yourself or your kids if these are quite so bad?
Well if you really don't want to / cannot afford to spend much more than twenty quid, then you really should take a look at a Makala Dolphin uke. They will need some adjustment, but are very playable and project well (I own two). They are around 30-35 pounds and I know many top end players who own them because they are fun. They really are not too bad.
Or how about another favourite of mine - the Octopus Brand soprano ukulele- seriously nice for next to no money.
The Lanikai LU11 or 21's are considered to be great for kids and many schools use them. I have seen some quality control issues with some, but think they sound ok too.
If you want to move to the £100 bracket that I suggest (and that wasn't an order in the post, just my opinion) and get a great first ukulele then I personally think it is hard to beat the Ohana SK25. Wonderful little uke that one.
But I am wavering here and just listing the exceptions to the rule. If you choose to buy the cheapest ukulele you can find because you think they are naturally cheap you WILL be disappointed.
I couldn't even be bothered to score this one properly. If I did, it is a firm 0 out of 10.... And very sadly, this is not the only one out there of this calibre.
UKULELE VIDEO REVIEW
STOP PRESS!! To see how the Ready Ace ended up (it deserved an honorable send off - see below!)
AND! Be sure to check out my other ukulele RANTS - where I explode the many myths and bad advice that surrounds the instrument - CLICK HERE!
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