robinboyd
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Please excuse my very amateur write up of this uke. I am by no means an expert. I’ve added a short video as well, so you can see my very inexpert playing along with the fluffed bit in the middle.
In order to give you an understanding of where this uke came from, I need to give you a little backstory. A bit over a year ago, I was lucky enough to travel to Hawaii with my wife and I asked for suggestions about a good uke to buy while I was there. One of the suggestions from a UU member was a handmade uke from Emil Baderof S&J Crafts, which was within my budget and looked awesome. However, I was unable to go and have a look at any of his ukes in person, and I decided to get one that I could try before I bought it instead. However, I followed Global Creations, which is the only stockist of Mr Bader’s ukes, on Facebook. Just recently, they posted a photo of an absolutely gorgeous Milo Pineapple model that I just had to have, so I bought it over the phone and had them ship it to me. It was only $210 plus $65 shipping to Australia!
Firstly, I want to mention that Sharon at Global Creations was an absolute pleasure to deal with. She was totally on top of the whole process and she packed the uke meticulously so there was no chance of it being damaged in transit. I wholeheartedly recommend them if anyone is thinking about buying from them in the future. It is also possible to buy directly from Mr Bader, but I just happened to see a uke that struck my fancy on the Global Creations website.
Now, from this point on, I’m going to be a bit picky. I just want to make it clear at the outset that I love this ukulele and for the price I paid, I consider it to be an exceptionally good buy.
Having unwrapped the uke, there were a few things that struck me. Firstly, it is just as gorgeous as the photos. That Milo wood looks fantastic. It has a flat back, rather than the rounded ones that are in vogue these days, but I don’t mind that. It comes with friction tuners, which took a bit of getting used to, but I don’t mind them. Looking a bit more closely, though, you can see that the join between the two bits of wood on the sound board is a little bit off centre, and there is a strange rounded bit on the top left section of the body, where it looks like Mr Bader had an accident with the sandpaper. There are also a few matt spots in the varnish, such as on the top right of the body. Also the nut has quite deep slots, which means it catches my hand a bit when changing chords at the top of the neck, almost as if I were playing with a capo. However, these are relatively minor faults, and given that I only spent $210 plus $65 shipping on this uke, I can’t expect it to be built like a Kamaka or Moore Bettah.
I gave it a bit of a strum, and found that I had a strong dislike for the strings. I’m not sure what they were, but they were black re-entrant strings with a wound C string. The G string seemed a bit too thick, so I wonder if they were actually a linear set that was used as a re-entrant set. The C string was really rough and squeaky, making it difficult to slide along it. Anyway, I took them off and put some re-entrant PHD fluorocarbon strings on it. The fretboard looked very dry, so I put some “lemon oil” on it while I was at it, which totally changed the colour of the fretboard, but in my opinion, improved the look quite a bit. Once the new strings were on it, I found that it had a beautiful tone and sustain that went on forever. The intonation is not too bad. Nearly perfect on the E and A strings, and just a little bit sharp on the G and C strings. The action is pretty good at the nut, but gets a bit high closer to the bridge. The bridge is removable, so I might see if I can get it filed down at some point, or do it myself. I don’t have the confidence to do it myself just yet, but I’m doing a bit of research, so we’ll see.
Then I found that I was getting some weird sympathetic resonance whenever I play a high G, whether I played it on the G string or the E string. Chords with 2 Gs in them when played with an open G string, such as G, Em, and Cm, sounded absolutely terrible. It was like a rattly muffler in a car. The rattle seemed to go on forever. Far longer than the sustain of the note itself. I was absolutely devastated and posted on UU looking for solutions. I tried a bunch of things, but changing the strings again seemed to do the trick. I put on some Aquila Bionylons that I had lying around. In general, I don’t like the sound as much as the PHDs, and they threw off the intonation a little bit, but they fixed the problem. Now it’s just a matter of finding a set that fix the problem and sound great too.
Anyway, to sum up, although this uke does not have a perfect finish, has a few (fixable) issues with the action and took a bit of fiddling around with the strings, it looks and sounds absolutely beautiful, and it was an absolute steal for the price. I’m very satisfied. However, if this was my first uke and I wasn’t able to fiddle around with strings and action, etc., I might be a little bit put off.
Here is a short list of the pros and cons.
Pros:
Beautiful tone
Beautiful looks
Rare wood
Hand-made
Low price
Pleasant people to deal with
Cons:
Slight imperfections in the finish
Need to adjust action a little bit
Intonation is not perfect, but not too bad
Issues with strings and weird resonance issue
In order to give you an understanding of where this uke came from, I need to give you a little backstory. A bit over a year ago, I was lucky enough to travel to Hawaii with my wife and I asked for suggestions about a good uke to buy while I was there. One of the suggestions from a UU member was a handmade uke from Emil Baderof S&J Crafts, which was within my budget and looked awesome. However, I was unable to go and have a look at any of his ukes in person, and I decided to get one that I could try before I bought it instead. However, I followed Global Creations, which is the only stockist of Mr Bader’s ukes, on Facebook. Just recently, they posted a photo of an absolutely gorgeous Milo Pineapple model that I just had to have, so I bought it over the phone and had them ship it to me. It was only $210 plus $65 shipping to Australia!
Firstly, I want to mention that Sharon at Global Creations was an absolute pleasure to deal with. She was totally on top of the whole process and she packed the uke meticulously so there was no chance of it being damaged in transit. I wholeheartedly recommend them if anyone is thinking about buying from them in the future. It is also possible to buy directly from Mr Bader, but I just happened to see a uke that struck my fancy on the Global Creations website.
Now, from this point on, I’m going to be a bit picky. I just want to make it clear at the outset that I love this ukulele and for the price I paid, I consider it to be an exceptionally good buy.
Having unwrapped the uke, there were a few things that struck me. Firstly, it is just as gorgeous as the photos. That Milo wood looks fantastic. It has a flat back, rather than the rounded ones that are in vogue these days, but I don’t mind that. It comes with friction tuners, which took a bit of getting used to, but I don’t mind them. Looking a bit more closely, though, you can see that the join between the two bits of wood on the sound board is a little bit off centre, and there is a strange rounded bit on the top left section of the body, where it looks like Mr Bader had an accident with the sandpaper. There are also a few matt spots in the varnish, such as on the top right of the body. Also the nut has quite deep slots, which means it catches my hand a bit when changing chords at the top of the neck, almost as if I were playing with a capo. However, these are relatively minor faults, and given that I only spent $210 plus $65 shipping on this uke, I can’t expect it to be built like a Kamaka or Moore Bettah.
I gave it a bit of a strum, and found that I had a strong dislike for the strings. I’m not sure what they were, but they were black re-entrant strings with a wound C string. The G string seemed a bit too thick, so I wonder if they were actually a linear set that was used as a re-entrant set. The C string was really rough and squeaky, making it difficult to slide along it. Anyway, I took them off and put some re-entrant PHD fluorocarbon strings on it. The fretboard looked very dry, so I put some “lemon oil” on it while I was at it, which totally changed the colour of the fretboard, but in my opinion, improved the look quite a bit. Once the new strings were on it, I found that it had a beautiful tone and sustain that went on forever. The intonation is not too bad. Nearly perfect on the E and A strings, and just a little bit sharp on the G and C strings. The action is pretty good at the nut, but gets a bit high closer to the bridge. The bridge is removable, so I might see if I can get it filed down at some point, or do it myself. I don’t have the confidence to do it myself just yet, but I’m doing a bit of research, so we’ll see.
Then I found that I was getting some weird sympathetic resonance whenever I play a high G, whether I played it on the G string or the E string. Chords with 2 Gs in them when played with an open G string, such as G, Em, and Cm, sounded absolutely terrible. It was like a rattly muffler in a car. The rattle seemed to go on forever. Far longer than the sustain of the note itself. I was absolutely devastated and posted on UU looking for solutions. I tried a bunch of things, but changing the strings again seemed to do the trick. I put on some Aquila Bionylons that I had lying around. In general, I don’t like the sound as much as the PHDs, and they threw off the intonation a little bit, but they fixed the problem. Now it’s just a matter of finding a set that fix the problem and sound great too.
Anyway, to sum up, although this uke does not have a perfect finish, has a few (fixable) issues with the action and took a bit of fiddling around with the strings, it looks and sounds absolutely beautiful, and it was an absolute steal for the price. I’m very satisfied. However, if this was my first uke and I wasn’t able to fiddle around with strings and action, etc., I might be a little bit put off.
Here is a short list of the pros and cons.
Pros:
Beautiful tone
Beautiful looks
Rare wood
Hand-made
Low price
Pleasant people to deal with
Cons:
Slight imperfections in the finish
Need to adjust action a little bit
Intonation is not perfect, but not too bad
Issues with strings and weird resonance issue
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