Buying First Uke - Baritone...Suggestions needed

Kh1967

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Hi All,

This is my first post here, but I am a regular on the AGF (Acoustic Guitar Forum) and see a few familiar faces over here. Yay!

Anyway, I am a guitar player who is interested in picking up the uke. I am interested in a Baritone, as the tone seems to be universally appealing to my ear.

I plan to use the uke for when I travel and some at home. I am looking for a good sounding baritone and case that I can hopefully squeeze into an overhead compartment on an airplane.

Any suggestions are appreciated. Budget is $200-$400ish. But, am definitely open to whatever suggestions you can toss my way.

Thanks so much!
 
"Travel" and "baritone" don't often go together but here is one advertised as such:
https://www.theukulelesite.com/kala-ka-sstu-b-baritone-travel-ukulele.html

I haven't tried the baritone but I have seen the smaller Kala "travel" models and they have a surprising amount of volume and sounded pretty good. You can do a lot worse for sure. As far as a case, just ask HMS what they'd recommend for that.

You really might want to consider smaller options though. Maybe a Tiny Tenor?
https://www.theukulelesite.com/romero-creations-tt-solid-spruce-top-tiny-tenor-package.html

If you have them set it up for you with dGBE strings you could use your guitar chord shapes and still get the reentrant ukulele sound. Just a thought.
 
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You can also tune a Tenor to dGBE and get a smaller size and lots of depth with Ukulele sound. no need to relearn the chord names either!

If you are not opposed ot a lower price, look at the Caramel baritones on Amazon/E-bay. The CB-500 and CB-103's have a truss rod now. I love my CB-103 and my neighbor has the CB-500, lovely ukes. ~$90.
 
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I think the Kala solid spruce top/lam mohagany sides/back has alotta bang for the buck.
 
You can also tune a Tenor to dGBE and get a smaller size and lots of depth with Ukulele sound. no need to relearn the chord names either!

If you are not opposed ot a lower price, look at the Caramel baritones on Amazon/E-bay. The CB-500 and CB-103's have a truss rod now. I love my CB-103 and my neighbor has the CB-500, lovely ukes. ~$90.

Thank you!
 
I would suggest something laminate for travel so you don't have to worry so much about the climate changes. My suggestions are for a first time baritone purchase and travel uke. It sounds to me like you must be a guitar player and might want something nice as suggested in the marketplace so you might want to disregard my suggestions.

I have several baritones. Most of them are vintage. I have a Martin, Favilla, Harmony and a Giannini. I love them all but wouldn't travel with any of them except the Giannini. I love that uke. I picked it up on Ebay and you would have to keep an eye out for one. They are solid great sounding baritones with that special vintage tone and they are laminate. You would have to pick up a hard case for travel if you decided to go that way. Incidentally, my first baritone was a Pono acacia that was beautiful and sounded great but it wasnt as easy to play for me as the vintage ukes so I sold it.

I also have a new Oscar Schmidt that I really enjoy. Picked it up from Amazon but again this is a solid top so you would need to use a good humidifier in a case. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002GLMPE/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1. Very nice instrument, looks beautiful and plays very well. The set up is fantastic. You can see by the reviews that people are please with the OS. Sometimes rarely you might get one that has a problem but you can easily send it back. The OS is a great first uke because they are easy to play and you can search for one that is laminate.
 
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I just saw a used giannini in a local store, with a broken wound string. Action on the high side, as are the nut slots. They have it listed at 150 but I was wondering what I should try to offer for it.
 
Thank you, Jim!

I guess for me it is relative....a guitar vs a Baritone uke and well, it seems so small!

But, you bring up a good point...perhaps I will throw a tenor into the mix, too. I see Kala also makes a travel tenor:

https://www.theukulelesite.com/kala-sstu-t-tenor-travel-ukulele.html

And, also thought this was a pretty interesting and good sounding tenor:

https://www.theukulelesite.com/kala-spruce-ovangkol-tenor-asov-t.html

I think you will find the tenor size is going to be a lot more travel friendly, and the chord shapes are the same as baritone with a capo on the 5th fret. If this new exploration gets ahold of your interest, you'll have plenty of opportunity to expand into the different sizes and price points. I also agree with you, that Kala sounds great, and if you are buying new, it will be tough to beat the value of Kala's solid top baritone line in that $200-$400 price range.

I think I may have replied to your thread in AGF and mentioned the Blackbird eKoa line. They are 3-4 times as much as the Kala depending on what if any custom options you may want.

Not sure where you live, but if you can find a place that has a nice variety of ukuleles, I would encourage you to go demo as many as you can hands on.

Lastly, I believe buying used through forums offers the best value, and often times you can resell the instrument down the road for closer to what you bought it for than if you buy new.

Good luck, and welcome to the forum.
 
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