NUD: Mya-Moe Tenor Redwood and Walnut

Recstar24

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http://myamoeukuleles.com/uketracker.php?trackingNumber=1818

Feel free to take a listen and a look, the recording was made through the ipad so nothing fancy. Below are some quick thoughts that have popped up in the first day of ownership, with the hopes of a more full comparative review with my other ukes.

Build Quality: The uke is designed and built as flawlessly as you can expect from a hand-made instrument. It is built super light, with excellent quality woods. The redwood top has tons of silking with very tight straight grain. It has some color streaking which is normal for old growth wood. The binding looks great with very clean purfling lines, and the binding and purfling work all the way up the fretboard and the headstock is all very clean. All the joinery is excellent. For the anal-retentive types, I just don't see anything here that can be critiqued for a hand-made custom instrument, and is consistent (if not even slightly better in some aspects) with my other customs.

Playability: This area is where the uke truly shines. The fretboard feels fantastic - I notice that they bevel the edge of the fretboard binding towards the end of the fret, which gives it a little relief and feels super smooth on the fingers. You just don't get any rough edge whatsoever. The neck is really nicely shaped - I would call it a D shape, with the edges sloping down towards a more flat neck bottom, which feels great. It reminds me of a traditional guitar-style neck shape but sized appropriately for an uke, that I would define as "medium-thin" if that makes sense. The neck slides really fast and for whatever reason, I notice and feel the improvement of the radius fretboard more so than my 1st MM, a myrtle tenor.

I am most impressed with how well this thing intonates - the intonation is about as perfect as you can get for a small fretted instrument equally tempered in my experience. I am really going to start taking my classical playing more seriously with this instrument as it will really highlight the rock solid intonation cross string and up the neck.

Sound: This is my 2nd Mya-Moe and I find it superior acoustically to my first one in almost every aspect. It has more volume, it has more punch, it has longer sustain, and is richer in tone. Basically, it has significantly more of the Mya-Moe goodness. I have been playing low-g exclusively for the past few weeks and this is making me fall in love with high-g again. The tone on my 1st myrtle tenor was excellent but sounded muted in comparison to this redwood walnut tenor. This may have affirmed that I am probably in the camp that prefers a very light top with a denser back and sides, and I am sure what I am hearing is the quality of the redwood top and how its braced, because the thing is amazingly responsive.

Hope that helps anyone considering getting a MM!
 
Yes Ryan.....Yes Ryan........Yes Ryan. What an awesome instrument. I love the sound, redwood top at it's finest. Like you I am a huge fan of a softwood top with hardwood back and side.

Congratulations that is such a fabulous instrument and you play iy beautifully. Well done, enjoy it for many years to come.
 
Congratulations! You and Mya Moe made a good partnership. That's a gorgeous instrument and the sound is spectacular.

May I ask what was the strumming melody that you played in the video? That sounded really nice and I'd love to add that to my somewhat-limited repertoire.
 
Congratulations! You and Mya Moe made a good partnership. That's a gorgeous instrument and the sound is spectacular.

May I ask what was the strumming melody that you played in the video? That sounded really nice and I'd love to add that to my somewhat-limited repertoire.

Thank you for the compliment! The strumming melody was "Spanish Fandango" from Aaron Keim's Fingerstyle Book. The first page of that song is a typical simple finger pick arrangement but I played the 2nd page which is sort of a strummed/chord-melody thing (and is my favorite from the book)
 
Thank you for the compliment! The strumming melody was "Spanish Fandango" from Aaron Keim's Fingerstyle Book. The first page of that song is a typical simple finger pick arrangement but I played the 2nd page which is sort of a strummed/chord-melody thing (and is my favorite from the book)
It looks like my next purchase might be Aaron's book! Thank you.
EDIT: Whoops...I already have that book! Now I need to sit down and learn the tune. :)
 
Excellent sound sample and lovely instrument!! Time to graduate that beauty from your upcoming list! ;-)
 
Super sound sample ... fabulous instrument ... I love the centred and clean tone. Congrats on the purchase.
 
CONGRATULATIONS! Spanish Fandango is one of my faves too!
 
Dang, that is a beautiful looking uke. I love the contrast between the fretboard and the rest of it. Looks amazing. Wonderful playing too. Congrats on the new uke!
 
Wow!

That really is an incredible instrument. Congratulations!!


Scooter
 
Congratulations Ryan. That was sure worth waiting for. Looks great and sounds great. You made a good choice.
 
Congratulations Ryan. That was sure worth waiting for. Looks great and sounds great. You made a good choice.

Thanks Hollis! Just checked that it was October 2014 when I first put my name
On the list. Thankfully I had other ukes to keep me busy! But this one is special for sure.
 
Yes Ryan.....Yes Ryan........Yes Ryan. What an awesome instrument. I love the sound, redwood top at it's finest. Like you I am a huge fan of a softwood top with hardwood back and side.

Congratulations that is such a fabulous instrument and you play iy beautifully. Well done, enjoy it for many years to come.

Thanks Dave for the compliments. I am still very surprised how much better this sounds than the myrtle MM tenor. It can't just be the softwood top hardwood combo, I really do feel MM has simply gotten better over time and what they do. My myrtle is #1258 so nearly 600 instruments later, the sound is just getting better. I've read that too elsewhere as well.

The playability so far is #1 in my stable. And my stable leaves very little to be desired honestly, but I have to give a lot of credit to the Mya Moe crew for what they've created, but also how they have grown their company.
 
Thanks Dave for the compliments. I am still very surprised how much better this sounds than the myrtle MM tenor. It can't just be the softwood top hardwood combo, I really do feel MM has simply gotten better over time and what they do. My myrtle is #1258 so nearly 600 instruments later, the sound is just getting better. I've read that too elsewhere as well.

The playability so far is #1 in my stable. And my stable leaves very little to be desired honestly, but I have to give a lot of credit to the Mya Moe crew for what they've created, but also how they have grown their company.

I'm sure what you say is true but I also preferred my Sitka over Koa tenor more than my all Myrtle MM's.
 
Dang, that is a beautiful looking uke. I love the contrast between the fretboard and the rest of it. Looks amazing. Wonderful playing too. Congrats on the new uke!

The maple board really pops nicely as it has a birds eye maple effect. I chose to have no fret markers to highlight the birds eye maple, and bound it with walnut for contrast and to mesh with the walnut back and sides.

I appreciate MM's options for customizing the aesthetics. I went with a walnut theme with maple binding, reversed it for the fretboard, and the rope rosette is maple and walnut. They allowed me some input for the headstock and I went with the same walnut and redwood to play off of the body of the uke.

Aaron also recommended considering a plastic pick guard due to how soft the redwood is, which I went with and you can see on the upper bout. The customer service was truly first class!
 
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