Makala Concert Ukulele

I decided to learn to play the ukulele several months ago while I was wintering in Puerto Rico. I wanted to wait until I got home though before I bought one. Which gave me plenty of time to do the research. I decided on the Makala Concert MK-C. I bought it from Austin Bazaar and I bought their kit, with tuner and gig bag. The factory combo kit is more expensive and has a pitch pipe instead of an electric tuner. I thought that the Austin Bazaar kit looked a little better for a few bucks less. FedEx delivered it on Saturday

So let's start by saying I have nothing to compare this ukulele with. It is my first ukulele, and I hope that it will be my last. I'm not the kind of guy who goes out and collects a lot of different variations of something. I like to keep things simple. So first of all, this ukulele appears to be well made. It is sturdy, all the joints seem to be solid, and the finish is flawless. I measured the height of the strings from the fret board, and they seem to be right on, from what I read that they should be on the internet. I can find nothing visually that would be of any concern to me.

The little electric tuner that they sent with it works great. It is an Eno-ET33. I'm pretty sure it isn't a high dollar item by itself. Saturday I tuned the ukulele a half dozen times or more while I was messing with it learning chords. Sunday, a little less. Monday, I tuned it a couple of times, and tuned it before I went to bed. I got up this morning, and it was still right on the money. The tuning knobs turn very smoothly. I get no buzzing from the strings when I play it. It seems fairly easy to play. I should also say that I bought the concert size because I have pretty big hands and I was worried that I might be a little crowded with a soprano. I think that I made the right decision on that. I don't know if difference is that great, but I don't think that I would want anything smaller.

OK, beyond that, I have no experience to base any reviews on. I don't know if the intonation is good or not. It sounds fine to me, and my wife is impressed that I can already play a bunch of chords, including the chords for Garden Party by Ricky Nelson, which we sang together yesterday while I accompanied us with my uke. I also don't know if other strings would sound better. I suppose they might, but considering that the ones on it are all settled in and staying in tune, I hesitate to change them out until I become experienced enough to know the difference.

So that is my review of the Makala Concert Ukulele. I hope it helps other beginners. I will keep posting as I play it more. I will say that this uke talked to me right out of the box. I mean, it just felt good. One thing that I would like to add, a lot of people advised me to look around and strum different ukuleles before I bought one in order to see what fit. When I got home from PR I went in search of ukuleles to strum. I found two ukuleles in a forty mile radius of me, and only one of those was in my home town. I called around and most every music shop I called said that they could order one if I knew what I wanted. I also asked them about set up and things like that, and none of them knew much about ukuleles. So no help from that department. Thanks all.

Rollie

OK, this afternoon I started picking out individual notes on my uke. As I said in my original post that I got this little nifty electric tuner. The tuner can be set for G, guitar, V, violin I'm assuming, B, banjo, and U for ukulele. It also has C, which is just the C scale. I thought that I would check out all of the different notes up and down the fretboard just to see where they were at. Up to the 10th fret they are all on the button. I thought that was an interesting test.

My first and still most played uke is the tenor version of this. For a mass produced intro level product its been nothing but a blast for me. Its the one that i let people borrow when they show a little interest and go " hey i learned on this, it was under a hundred dollars, if your interested what do you have to loose?" people seem to compare these and the lanikai lu's and everyone has their favorites but these makalas in my opinion blow the lani's away. I also have the pineapple version of this!! Fifty bucks for a decent out of the box knockaround uke? Why not??

So now I'm a couple of weeks into it and the Makala is working out just fine. The only thing to note is that it stays in tune all day and throughout my practice sessions, which consist of playing several times a day for a little while, whenever the urge strikes me. Every once in a while I need to adjust it a little first thing in the morning, but not every morning. I don't know how that compares to other ukuleles. When I was researching ukuleles before I bought one that seemed to be something that people complained about with the cheaper ukuleles, and I have not experienced any problems in that area. Otherwise it is going along with no problems.

Rllink said:

So now I'm a couple of weeks into it and the Makala is working out just fine. The only thing to note is that it stays in tune all day and throughout my practice sessions, which consist of playing several times a day for a little while, whenever the urge strikes me. Every once in a while I need to adjust it a little first thing in the morning, but not every morning. I don't know how that compares to other ukuleles. When I was researching ukuleles before I bought one that seemed to be something that people complained about with the cheaper ukuleles, and I have not experienced any problems in that area. Otherwise it is going along with no problems.

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It is universally understood that the strings are going to stretch like CRAZY when first installed, and the instrument will be going constantly out of tune while they stretch, requiring frequent retuning.

Playing and tuning and playing and tuning will accelerate the settling process of the strings. However, if you tune them up, and the uke sites in the corner for a week before you touch it again, it will not only be out of tune, but take LONGER for the strings to settle.

When I intall new strings, once tuned to pitch, I play for about an hour, needing to retune like every five mins. This might repeat for about 3-4 days before the strings will hold pitch. The PLAYING causes the string to VIBRATE which helps the string to STRETCH to it's optimal length for holding pitch.

Some folks will pick up the uke every hour on the hour and retune it for 3-4 days, others will pull at the strings like an archery bow to make them stretch faster (I do not do this, tried it once, and it caused thin spots on the string, and premature string failure)

It might serve you well to read about strings in this thread, and about the reported time-frame for them to settle in, which varies, based upon a number of factors:

http://forum.ukuleleunderground.com/showthread.php?93141-It-s-like-UAS-only-worse-SCO

Patience is necessary, but also tenacity, on a ukulele, there is no such thing as 'tune once and forget it'....

I disagree a little bit with Booli ( nicely...not falling out with him..okay ? )---just based on my own experience..stretch ' em to two or three notes above GCEA or your preferred tuning ..leave them over night and then next day play them ...they may need another overnight stretch.........not denying what Booli says ...just there is more than one way to skin a catsgut string ...eeyuk ..nasty image ........

..and to be honest I never have a problem with the old stretch and snap...but that might be down to my choice of stringy thingies ...

CeeJay said:

I disagree a little bit with Booli ( nicely...not falling out with him..okay ? )---just based on my own experience..stretch ' em to two or three notes above GCEA or your preferred tuning ..leave them over night and then next day play them ...they may need another overnight stretch.........not denying what Booli says ...just there is more than one way to skin a catsgut string ...eeyuk ..nasty image ........

..and to be honest I never have a problem with the old stretch and snap...but that might be down to my choice of stringy thingies ...

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Hey CeeJay -

No love lost fer sure. It's all good!

Once upon a time when i first installed strings, i was re-tuning up to D6 all day long (work from home), and then after about 40 times or so, the strings were stretched enough that I could slack them down to maybe Bb, and then tune back up to C6 tuning and they would just hold pitch after that. Maybe I will try that again...thanks for inspiring me to think of it now...

also as per the catgut, I recently was reading some history about Aquila, and found that the catgut refers not to cat is in MEOW but cat as in CATTLE, or livestock as in sheep. Aquila has a video on YT where they show the cutting/splitting/thinning of the animal intestine down into thin strands. Wikipedia also has a page describing how 'catgut' strings are made.

We all should feel very lucky for having the ease of Amazon or Musician's Friend to order Martin M600s (I like these very much) or Aquila Nylgut (don't like these much at all now) for like $5 per set with free shipping that shows up at your door in a few days, and that these will probably also be at your local retail music shop...as opposed for waiting for some catgut strings...I just. dont even. want to touch. them. (catgut)

Booli

Hey whenever I refer to catgut strings I always get a rebuking meow from a small furry companion ......funny ..she seems to disapprove..

but they are annoying buggers ukulele strings...

my pet peeve is when uke shops don't stretch or tune their sale/ display items ...how can you tell what the instrument can do ?

CeeJay said:

Hey whenever I refer to catgut strings I always get a rebuking meow from a small furry companion ......funny ..she seems to disapprove..

but they are annoying buggers ukulele strings...

my pet peeve is when uke shops don't stretch or tune their sale/ display items ...how can you tell what the instrument can do ?

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The couple of local shops I've been to, nobody has a clue about the 3-4 ukes they sell, and they laugh as in 'ha ha, you 'big guy' want a uke, are you SURE?' One time I was in a pissy mood and said 'NOT ANYMORE' and just left the shop.

I've been told that Mandolin Brothers in Staten Island is a good shop, and they are probably the closest to me with any real knowledge and/or selection, but at 1 hr away, and UAS on hold due to lack of funding, I am not motivated to travel there just 'to look'.

In 35 yrs of playing guitar I never paid as much attention to strings, it was whatever was cheapest at retail, typically GHS phosphor bronze for acoustic, ernie ball extra slinky w/a couple extra 0.09's for good measure, and whatever were the cheapest classical nylon strings.

The first time I went to get new strings for my 4-string 34" scale bass, and the cheapest set was like $35 I almost passed out from shock...

But I tell you what, finding the right strings for uke, that drive the wood to resonate to perfection, with a sweet crisp bell-like tone, that also improve intonation and have near infinite sustain and that perfect feel under your fingers is currently the most satisfying thing I can think of at the moment. It seems to me that due to the shorter scale of 21" or less, string selection is a much more significant impact on both the playability and sound, both of which are highly subjective to the instrument owner's preferences.

Having now tested 14 different brands of strings across 7 different instruments (I have to add the latest to that thread), I am pretty happy with Martins on some, and Worth Browns on others, and wish never again to touch Aquila Nylgut. There are still at least a dozen brands and sets I want to test, but I have to wait for the budget to allow for this before I can do anything more.

Booli said:

The couple of local shops I've been to, nobody has a clue about the 3-4 ukes they sell, and they laugh as in 'ha ha, you 'big guy' want a uke, are you SURE?'

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That was my experience as well. I called around to every music store that I could find within fifty miles and hardly anyone had ukuleles, let alone an inventory of them that one could "test drive". The one store that had one, had a Kohala Concert. That was the first ukulele I had ever held in my hands. I have no idea if it was in tune, or not. The sales clerk asked me if he could help me and when I asked him to tell me something about it he answered that he really didn't know that much about ukuleles, but that Kohalas were good ones. So I went home and read reviews. Some people love their Kohalas, and some people call them junk. The "test drive a bunch of them before you buy" is good advise, but not always advise that is helpful. I feel the same way with strings. I'm using the strings that came on my ukulele. I have no idea if they are good or not. I'm assuming they aren't the best. I would love to try out several different strings on a Makala concert ukulele, to see if they make a difference, but considering I don't think there is a supply of Makala concert ukuleles with a plethora of different strings on them anywhere around here that I can try out, I'm just going to have to blindly grab some new strings some day and hope for the best. Just like I did with the Makala.

Rllink said:

That was my experience as well. I called around to every music store that I could find within fifty miles and hardly anyone had ukuleles, let alone an inventory of them that one could "test drive". The one store that had one, had a Kohala Concert. That was the first ukulele I had ever held in my hands. I have no idea if it was in tune, or not. The sales clerk asked me if he could help me and when I asked him to tell me something about it he answered that he really didn't know that much about ukuleles, but that Kohalas were good ones. So I went home and read reviews. Some people love their Kohalas, and some people call them junk. The "test drive a bunch of them before you buy" is good advise, but not always advise that is helpful. I feel the same way with strings. I'm using the strings that came on my ukulele. I have no idea if they are good or not. I'm assuming they aren't the best. I would love to try out several different strings on a Makala concert ukulele, to see if they make a difference, but considering I don't think there is a supply of Makala concert ukuleles with a plethora of different strings on them anywhere around here that I can try out, I'm just going to have to blindly grab some new strings some day and hope for the best. Just like I did with the Makala.

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What color are the strings on your Makala? The Kala web site does not indicate what strings it comes with:
http://kalabrand.com/Models/Makala/MK-noEQ/MakalaNoEQMainPage.html#three

IF they are white strings, they might be Aquila Nylgut (or they could be the illegal, and inferior chinese knockoffs).

In any case, you might want to start out by trying:

1. Martin M600 (clear fluorocarbon) ~$5
2. Aquila Nylgut (white proprietary material) ~$5
3. D'Addario T2 Titanium (clear nylon with a purple-ish hue) ~$5
4. Worth Browns (brown fluorocarbon) ~$15 - but this is enough for 2 sets
5. Fremont Blacklines (black fluorocarbon) ~$9

So, you're into it for about $50, but a sampling like this across a spectrum of different types and materials will give you an idea of which ones you like better for sound, and for the feel under your fingers, and from each different string set, your instrument may resonate MORE, or less, and the intonation might be IMPROVED as well.

If you install a set of strings, leave them on for about 2 weeks (you gotta play every day for them to finish stretching and settle in), and do not cut them, you can give them a fair shake, and if you decide to remove them, they can still be used on another instrument you will buy later on.

You might get lucky and decide that one of these is PERFECT and you love the sound and the feel, and the search is over.

stringsandbeyond.com has free shipping for orders over $35, but they do not have the Fremont Blacklines last time I checked (they have ALL the others), and for those you need to go to either elderly.com or ukerepublic.com...

You can find out more about Worth strings here:
http://worthc.to/english/w_strings.html

Aquila here:
http://aquilacorde.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=96&Itemid=265&lang=en

D'Addario here:
http://www.daddario.com/DADProductsUkulele.Page?ActiveID=3781

I had one of these for a time, then sold it to a friend. THIS model is really ideal in many, many ways: inexpensive but big-sounding, has an instrument-level build, good woody sound.

But the strings that come with it are crap! Get some nicer ones: expensive strings are about $6 and worth it! And yeah, all uke strings stretch like crazy the first week or two out. . . in fact, I end up putting off stringing because of this break-in period.

But it's a good uke you got, and not one, by any means, to dump later.

Hi again. It has been six weeks now since I bought my Makala and started playing the ukulele. So far it has gone quite well. As I learn more and more about ukuleles and as my experience grows, I am discovering that my purchase was a good one. First of all, I did not get a "set up", but the more I read about them and the more I look at my uke, the more I realize that it is set up pretty well from the factory. Today I was reading how to check for intonation by playing an open string, then playing the 12th fret for the same note, an octave higher. I checked all my strings, and they were all four right on or nearly so. The other thing I read was that the strings should be the width of a credit card above the first fret. It is right on as well. I have no buzzing in the strings what-so-ever, and it stays in tune most of the time, with an occasional tweak now and again. I am anxious to put on new strings, but I'm not going to do it until the old ones wear out. It will be interesting to see how that changes things. But for now, everything is just as I got it out of the box.

Seven months into my ukulele playing. I've learned a lot, played with a lot of people, played a lot of different ukes, gained a lot of experience, and so far so good. I've gone through two sets of strings, and the Makala is still going strong. I play it every day, and it is still my one and only ukulele. All in all, a very good purchase and I've not felt compromised by it in any way. While I feel that cheap ukuleles, like the Makala get maligned here on UU, I have yet been told to take my cheap uke and go home. Just the opposite, I've had a number of people comment favorably on it. While eventually I intend to buy something a little more expensive with an electric pickup, there is nothing about the Makala that makes me want to hurry up and replace it.

So glad you are still enjoying your Makala and are in no hurry to replace it. My first uke was a Gretsch laminate tenor that still gets played and sounds good. I am in no hurry to replace it either, there are others now and I like them all. I just add ukes I don't replace them.

You have done the wise thing and concentrated on learning to play. That has been my priority as well. Are you in Puerto Rico for the winter now or still in Iowa?

DownUpDave said:

So glad you are still enjoying your Makala and are in no hurry to replace it. My first uke was a Gretsch laminate tenor that still gets played and sounds good. I am in no hurry to replace it either, there are others now and I like them all. I just add ukes I don't replace them.

You have done the wise thing and concentrated on learning to play. That has been my priority as well. Are you in Puerto Rico for the winter now or still in Iowa?

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I was in PR the month of October and we came back up to Iowa last week to get the place up here ready for winter and so that we can spend the holidays with family. We are going back down after Christmas for the winter. January is the big San Sebastian Festival, and I'm using that as my opportunity to go all out with the uke. I was practicing while we were down there with a friend who is a musician, and we have figured out how to work the ukulele into Puerto Rican Plena music. I am really looking forward to playing with them.

Great report. Keep playing!

I ran across a thread post a while back in which a guy is selling his Rolex watch. It sounds if it had been owned by his father. . . and then stuck in a drawer for a couple of decades. He inherited it and wore it 11 months and now wants to sell it. . . the point here really being that there certainly CAN be very expensive consumer products, but sometimes the less expensive thing works as well---or better, since one can actually use it fearlessly.

I can drool at uke p*** like anyone else. But I know I need to be able to toss my ukes around a bit. Hence, the high budget stuff has a disadvantage in my operating system.

Happy to hear about your Makala......I have the same one and just like you, love it!! It really is a great uke to have when just starting out and later on to be your beater uke!! I got mine from the late great MGM. He set it up beautifully and put on aquila strings, love it!!

At this point, a few days before Christmas, I've had the opportunity to play several ukuleles, as my wife suggested that an upgrade might be a good Christmas present, and while road tripping recently we stopped by a few music stores that have a pretty good inventory of ukes. I've played at least a half dozen ukes in the $250 to $300 range, most of them solid wood construction, and have not found any that I like better than the Makala, for sound or for ease of playing. I will admit though, the Makala is a homely little thing compared to some that I've strummed on the last couple of weeks. But, as beauty is only skin deep, nothing has called to me at this point. So for now, the Makala is still going strong and I still like it, in fact, as time goes on I like it more and more. So that is my update. For Christmas, I guess I'll just have to get my usual lump of coal.

Hang in there, Rllink, I'm proud of you. You've got the right idea! ld: