A quality laminate concert?

Hello! New here. I'm looking to buy my first ukulele (and the first instrument ever as well!) and I have decided it's gonna be a concert. I'm not going to be able to get out of the house for a few months because of health reasons and i thought it seemed like an awesome time to start learning a music instrument, i have always loved the ukulele, and i nearly bought one last year. I was wondering what other quality laminate concerts are out there aside from the Koalana? I saw there is a Kiwaya KS-5 soprano but i didn't find a concert version.

I'm looking to spend about $150-$250. Should I just buy the koalana and be done with it, or are there any $200-ish solid wood instruments better than this? The consensus seems to be that a quality laminate is better than a solid wood instrument in a similar range... but i guess i wanted to ask. I can't try ukuleles in a local store since they're pretty much non-existent in my country, so i'm going off on through the video samples.. and if i were to buy this one, it will be through mims, which seems to be one of the recommended retailers and it will be properly set-up?

One consideration is that whatever i get is gonna be something that i will not upgrade for a looong while. The shipping costs and the import fees (29% of the item value! goddamn) make it unfeasible to buy something again, so i could stretch my budget to $350 if it is worth it.

Thank you

Where are you located at? There are quality vendors in Europa, North America, and Australia. Might be possible to save the high import taxes and fees.

Mivo said:

Where are you located at? There are quality vendors in Europa, North America, and Australia. Might be possible to save the high import taxes and fees.

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I'm located in India. I found an online store in Asia to save slightly on the shipping, but yeah no ukulele shops here.

I love my Islander AC 4 laminate acacia, very good uke for the price.

An aNueNue would fit your requirements.
Very nice sound an very playable.

Good luck!

Since you're in India, you might try seeing if you can get the laminate FAMOUS version of the Kiwaya ukes from Japan directly. I have the FS-1 and FS-5 series and they're amazing for a laminate uke. I believe they make a Famous FC-1, or FC-5 (I'm guessing the 1 is the cheapest/ lam mahogany). That's what I would try. If not, the KoAlana or Islander - from Hawaii Music Supply would be my suggestions. To be fair, there's not a ton of Concert laminates to choose from.

All good suggestions (especially the Kiwaya if you can find one). I've played them all and own the KoAlana (about $200US). It's an all-laminate made by KoAloha and the build quality is excellent.

igorthebarbarian said:

... To be fair, there's not a ton of Concert laminates to choose from.

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Surely you must be joking? maybe you just dont know what is out there?.

Please understand that there are at LEAST a dozen different uke makers that offer a laminate concert uke that has gotten some decent-to-very-good reviews, of which are all the well known brands, and I'm sure there are dozens more of the 'off-brands' sold on gearbest, aliexpress etc from the same Asian factories...

Here's just a FEW known brands available here in the USA off the top of my head that makes nice laminate ukes under $200, that I'm pretty sure have worldwide distribution are:

1. Kala & Makala
2. Ohana
3. Cordoba
4. Gretsch
5. Lanikai
6. The Magic Fluke Company
7. Islander
8. Ibanez
9. Fender
10. Alvarez
11. Diamond Head
12. Luna
13. Makai
14. Moku
15. Oscar Schmidt
16. Brueko
17. Eddy Finn
18. Kamoa

To the OP - are there no MUSIC stores in India that carry UKULELE in the section next to the GUITARS? Surely it can't be all Tabla and Sitar in the retail shops? Is there a block against instruments from 'the western world' and EU in India?

There are a couple of overpriced cheapo-ukuleles in the section next to guitars that have been there for years but other than that, no. It's pianos and guitars aside from the Tabla and Sitar i suppose (i didn't even know what a ukulele is until a couple years ago). Thanks for the suggestions!

Bill1 said:

https://www.bajaao.com/search?type=product&q=concert+ukulele

This looks like a site that is in India. These are mostly good ukes for the price range. They are what is available in most other places.
If you do get a uke from a site like Mims you get the advantage of a set up and choosing strings.

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I'm aware of them but they don't do setups unfortunately and sort of have a weird reputation here. There's Furtados that's a good store here but they don't carry much of them. Thanks for trying to help

igorthebarbarian said:

Since you're in India, you might try seeing if you can get the laminate FAMOUS version of the Kiwaya ukes from Japan directly. I have the FS-1 and FS-5 series and they're amazing for a laminate uke. I believe they make a Famous FC-1, or FC-5 (I'm guessing the 1 is the cheapest/ lam mahogany). That's what I would try. If not, the KoAlana or Islander - from Hawaii Music Supply would be my suggestions. To be fair, there's not a ton of Concert laminates to choose from.

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THANKS! Famous FC-5 looks awesome. I'll look into it, i think the shipping from Japan might be similar to the other asian store i found, which is good enough. Someone else suggested an Islander as well, that sounds cool too. Thanks for the suggestions everyone.

The original ask was for a Quality Laminate Concert, of which there are only a few really good high-quality top-of-the-line Concerts. I'm pretty sure that's what the OP was looking for. Heck, that's what I'm interested in too!

OP, if you get the FC-5, please post lots of pictures/do a review/ and tell me HOW you went about getting it. I find it almost impossible to find the FC-5 (or an FC-1) from an English-website. For the amount of money (roughly $400-500 USD), I'm not taking any chances! I got some of my Famous Sopranos via Amazon and one via Guitar Planet Japan, through Rakuten.

igorthebarbarian said:

The original ask was for a Quality Laminate Concert, of which there are only a few really good high-quality top-of-the-line Concerts. I'm pretty sure that's what the OP was looking for. Heck, that's what I'm interested in too!

OP, if you get the FC-5, please post lots of pictures/do a review/ and tell me HOW you went about getting it. I find it almost impossible to find the FC-5 (or an FC-1) from an English-website. For the amount of money (roughly $400-500 USD), I'm not taking any chances! I got some of my Famous Sopranos via Amazon and one via Guitar Planet Japan, through Rakuten.

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http://global.rakuten.com/en/search/?tl=211211&k=famous+fc&l-id=search_regular

Here i found a bunch of results It's a little more expensive than i thought, so it feels if i'm spending that much, a Koaloha opio is a better choice from that asian store, that's the only solid wood that i might buy if i was getting one in my limited budget. I'll definitely post pictures/a small review if i end up getting this one (or whatever else i get, i don't know what i'll end up getting).