Irin Watermelon UIkulele

I have an "Excel" soprano uke. Pretty cheap, but it's more-or-less serviceable. It's stood up to my son playing it when he was a toddler. I play it more now; it's OK, but intonation is a b-word, especially further up the neck.

I'm considering buying another, but I don't have a lot of scratch (like most folks). I saw another thread on this board where a young feller who calls himself "jonas boxmonkey" plays a $25 Irin Watermelon uke. It sounds good. He said he had to glue a part of the top back down after he got it, but other than that, he loves it. (And he's an interesting musician. He plays it in the tuning in which he found it when he opened the box, and makes it sound good!)

My Q: Would it be worth the $25 plus shipping? I could save for a better one, with a case, but $25 doesn't seem like too big of a risk, if it's at least playable.

http://www.gearbest.com/guitar/pp_3...&utm_medium=adam&utm_campaign=boxmonkeymusic2

Thoughts?

Never heard of either make, at that price it will be a gamble, I think - although an Octopus soprano is only a little more expensive, & some find them to be a good beginner uke. http://www.gotaukulele.com/2014/04/octopus-soprano-ukulele-review.html

It's been said here on UU at least once per week that the lowest price you are going to spend for a PLAYABLE setup uke that is NOT crap is going to be about $50 for either a Makala Dolphin or Makala Shark either from MIM's or from Uke Republic if here in the USA, and that it is common knowledge here on UU that experimenting with unknown AND super-cheapo brands is going to be a gamble and likely also an exercise in futility and frustration.

You are better off spending that $25 on pizza and beer and will get more joy out of that instead of such fodder as these Irin ukes. I mean get real, they are selling OTHER Irin pineapple soprano ukes for $9 on gearbest and aliexpress and if you expect them to be satisfying to play and make a musical sound, well boy, I have a bridge to sell you...

Also, that BoxMonkey guy does not impress me at all as knowledgeable about doing a ukulele review, and I saw that video where he taped down the broken wood top of that watermelon uke and to me, if I am buying something as NEW and it arrives defective out of the box, it's going back, even if it was FREE it is going back - simply because to fuss with it is usually just a waste of time and I tell you this as an instrument hacker and tinkerer....

As Keith said above, look at the reviews from Baz on gotaukulele.com - he has held and played close to a thousand ukuleles over the years and I would trust his review more over that of someone who accepts something as defective out of the box, and calls it 'ok'.

But hey it's YOUR money to spend and this is only my own two cents worth of opinion.

uke1950 said:

Never heard of either make, at that price it will be a gamble, I think - although an Octopus soprano is only a little more expensive, & some find them to be a good beginner uke. http://www.gotaukulele.com/2014/04/octopus-soprano-ukulele-review.html

Click to expand...

Unfortunately, according to Amazon, they don't ship the Octopus to the US.

I did a little digging and found Uke Republic. Some lower-priced ukes there that look pretty good, including the Eddy Finn Cigar Box Concert Uke. Uke Republic sells it for $129, with strings, a padded gig bag and set-up. Looks cool, and sounds good.

Anyone have any experience with that one?

What is your goal for this instrument? Are you looking for a certain style/type of ukulele?

If you are looking for bargain basement ukuleles that actually work, check out Caramel...eBay, Amazon, or via their website. My school has now taken delivery of 19 Caramels, with more to come. I can't find another ukulele that matches quality for price...concerts at $37, tenors at $39. I took a gamble on them originally, thinking, "Well, if they are complete garbage, at least my students can compare sizes of ukuleles."

And I don't get anything from Caramel for endorsing them...I even asked for a bulk discount, and the answer was, "We don't do that."

As I mentioned in another thread in the past hour, of the 12 ukuleles that arrived today, 8 were set up properly, and 4 were set up pretty close to that. For $37 and $39 ukuleles...you can't go wrong in that direction, as long as you aren't looking specifically for a watermelon/pineapple or cigar box ukulele.

And then you can save the $13 or $11 difference and put it towards a higher quality ukulele in the future...Kalas, Mainlands, Pono, K brands...

BluesPreacher said:

Unfortunately, according to Amazon, they don't ship the Octopus to the US.

I did a little digging and found Uke Republic. Some lower-priced ukes there that look pretty good, including the Eddy Finn Cigar Box Concert Uke. Uke Republic sells it for $129, with strings, a padded gig bag and set-up. Looks cool, and sounds good.

Anyone have any experience with that one?

Click to expand...

Searching this forum for UKE REPUBLIC you will find them (and google is your friend) and MANY other known or recommended vendors, and for most of them all listed in one place here:

http://forum.ukuleleunderground.com/showthread.php?16519-Ukulele-Stores-USA

Mim's Ukes, Uke Republic, Hawaii Music Supply (HMS), Elderly Music, Gryphon Strings, Bernuzio Uptown Music, and McCabes are all well known, frequently used and highly regarded USA retailers that do a full setup on their instruments.

If you want something possibly vintage and refurbished you might want to check out Jake Wildwood's Antebellum Instruments, as he always has cool stuff for sale: https://antebelluminstruments.blogspot.com/

Baz did a review of the Octopus uke here:

http://www.gotaukulele.com/2014/04/octopus-soprano-ukulele-review.html

Also, keep in mind that a cigar box uke is not going to have as much volume nor good tone as a traditionally shaped uke, and if you are going to spend $129, you'd be far better off with a Kala KA-C or Islander MC-4, and with Uke Republic doing the setup instead of buying from some random Amazon seller or from Guitar Center, you are assured that the instrument will be playable out of the box, and have the saddle and nut adjusted for proper intonation and string action as well as the razor sharp fret edges filed and smoothed down, which you do NOT get from ukes that are never touched again by human hands after they leave the Asian factory until YOU open the box.

Check these videos to see what I am talking about:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOTa0ZfvpIs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adeFF0nQyzM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Elfo9xHPhZE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6aUaG9W5H0

Many of the ukes they (both HMS and Uke Republic) sell also have a sound sample demo video, either on the instrument's page on their own web site, or on their YT channel, and both are easy to find.

I have not even seen many reviews here on UU in 3.5 yrs about Eddy Finn ukes, good or bad, I can say that fellow UU member TheCraftedCow is a reseller, and you might want to send him a PM and possibly get a better price and one-on-one customer service. What I do know is the these ukes are made in Asian factories, and sold under a dozen different brand names, which includes Eddy Finn, Lanikai, Luna, and a few others.

I have no first-hand experience the Caramel ukes and Choirguy might be on to something, a real jewel perhaps, but I just can't stand the look of zebrawood, which most of their ukes are covered with on the outer laminated veneer.

I bougth an Irin sopranino recently from ebay (love kaka). It was unplayable out of the box. Intonation, strings and action were very bad... I had to lower Half of the sadle and nut, level the frets and put worth brown strings.
Now It plays decently tuned in D. If I compare it to a Ohana Sopranissimo the result is satisfactory. It cost 25€/30€ euros. Now I'm very happy with it.

IMO, vintage ukuleles sound best. A few bucks more, but worth it

A couple of things. I adore Box Monkey. I don't agree with him about putting low G on sopranos, but otherwise, he's an fun musician and person. Secondly, I have two Irins. Both are good; my Irin Watermelon is superb - full bodied, good intonation, great tone. The blue one has high action but sounds very nice. It's possibly a crap-shoot regarding the Irin Watermelon. My guess is that quality control is rather minimal. But mine is extraordinarily excellent! I highly recommend it!