Happy with Cheapish?

buddhuu

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Throughout my instrument playing years I have always played mostly good, but cheapish instruments. The most expensive guitar I ever had was a Gibson SG I had when I was about 18 - but I let that go when I realised it was really not much better than an Antoria copy I tried that cost a fraction as much.

The most expensive mandolin I ever had is a J Bovier Tradition which is a good, low-cost mando (although I love the Bovier I'm hoping to sell it to buy a tenor uke!).

My fiddle is a sub-£200 Romanian one.

My ukes are a Makala soprano and a Stagg mahogany concert (like Baron plays in some of his vids from a while back). Cheap, but really pretty ok.

For some reason, I never quite got the hang of lusting after expensive instruments. I do like nice instruments, and I love to play my friends' £3,000 guitars and £4,000 mandolins, but I've always been pretty satisfied with owning cheapo ones.

What is wrong with me? Surely an expensive instrument would instantly make me a kick-ass player! :D So, why can't I work my way up to full blown UAS? Why don't I want an expensive Hawaiian uke? Why can't I be normal? :confused:

What do you guys lust after (instruments only! :stop: No perving!) ? What would be the level at which you think you'd say "Yup, that'll do for me"?
 
i've got a lot of animals and family to look after so when i'm ready to buy i've gotta be 200% sure it's what i want (and need). i keep telling myself i won't let my addiction outweigh my playing ability - but i'm sure that rule'll go down the drain once i get hold of a nice koaloha sometime next year ;)
 
Consider yourself lucky.

you are right!!

but of course, i am in the middle. i want expensive ukuleles but... alas(wtf does this word mean?) i cannot offord one

maybe if the currency changes to around the same or maybe 10% i will buy one but that may be a while..

:eek:ld:
 
I'm pretty satisfied with my MK-SD now that I've dress it up a bit so it doesn't have that tourist trap vibe anymore. That dolphin was really getting to me. At this point I don't want a better uke so much as I just want a bigger uke. I'm looking at concerts and tenors in the $200-$350 because that's about the price range you start getting into solid wood. I feel like once you get over $600 you start getting into gibson/fender territory where you're pretty much paying for a name.

I played pawn shop sax in jr high that my parents paid like $150 for and I was happy with that, even though it was a little beat up and couldn't play certain notes. I dropped that after 1 1/2 years and took up percussion anyway.
 
I've only been playing from just before xmas and have gone from a ebay £20 special to a clearwater soprano, then a ashbury concert, now i've got a Lankia C-Ck.
Ebaying everything that is not nailed down to upgrade again, and think I've got a serious problem.
No one told me I would become addicted.
 
I was happy with my $45 Mahalo pineapple for the past 10 years until I came across a couple excellent deals on Koa pineapples from locals luthiers.
 
Usually whatever I can get for $35 or less. Any more than that I head out to the garage and start trying to figure out how to make it from my kids' bikes, toys, and assorted scraps of wood.

The nicer instruments that I have were all gifted to me.
 
There is nothing wrong with the two Kala laminates I have but I did just order a Kanilea. I really enjoy the instrument as a piece of art as much for its sound.

Erik
 
Oh yeah! Some of those really curly woods are certainly beautiful, and some of the instruments made from them are surely art...

One of my bandmates works with UK luthier Patrick James Eggle. Some of the quilted and flamed woods Pat has used in his custom guitars are simply breathtaking.

Art indeed. Thank goodness I don't feel the need to own art! Gotta love that pretty stuff though! :D
 
Kanilea's are beautiful. I've really taken a liking to that zebrawood soprano mgm posted pics of the other day too. It'd be nice to play around on a concert or a tenor but I don't feel like I actually NEED another ukulele for quite a while to be honest. More than happy with what I have at the moment.
 
I started playing towards the end of 08 and I figure until I can play well enough to draw a crowd I really do not need anything over $500.00, plus on another thread & I can't remember which one but MGM said he blind folded a friend & had him several instruments for sound and I don't remember word for word but some lower end ukes were chosen over the more expensive ones.
 
I once had a fairly flash pick-up truck and found that I didn't like it as much as my old beater. I'm the same way with ukes, mostly I want ukes that I feel like I can take with me to a party or gig and not be too worried about it getting nicked up.

Someone ended up totaling my flash pick-up, but I've still got my rusty old truck.
 
I once had a fairly flash pick-up truck and found that I didn't like it as much as my old beater. I'm the same way with ukes, mostly I want ukes that I feel like I can take with me to a party or gig and not be too worried about it getting nicked up.

Someone ended up totaling my flash pick-up, but I've still got my rusty old truck.

That's sort of what I'm talking about. :)
 
I find that I'm not a big fan of eyecandy on my instruments. Essentially, if it doesn't directly effect the sound of the ukulele and how it plays for the better, I'm not interested. I am however very keenly conscious of tone, so for that reason I couldn't really be satisfied with the cheapish end of the spectrum. Maybe it's a certain snobbishness on my part.

I have been good at hunting down some good bargains on the quality range of Hawaiian made production instruments. For me it's worth the extra scratch for the extra playability, solid wood, reputation and guarantee of intonation and quality sound that I get out of say, a Koaloha. But I'm also used to buying used. I've bought maybe a handful of musical things in my life that weren't used or NOS. There's also that part of my backbrain that comes from years of vintage guitar buying that looks at it in terms of future investment and resale. My Koalohas are going to retain more value over the long haul than a perfectly acceptable Kala might, if not gain. And while I can certainly appreciate the qualities of an instrument that cost someone 2.5X what I've shelled out for one of mine, I can't always say I'd trade. There's also that certain level of personal pride in the cache of having solid koa Hawaiian made. I'm not above the bragging rights but the instrument still has to play like butter and sing since that's what it's there for.

It would be pretty awesome to have something built especially for me, but I'm not completely convinced that I'm ready to commit a grand and more to the endeavor. I'm also not really sure how much more I'd get soundwise out of the extra cash compared with what I've already got. (though I have entertained the idea of selling my '67 Gretsch to fund a custom) But the thought isn't completely off the table.
 
You are quite sensible. My teacher has a bunch of Ukes, all used and under $30. He sounds great on all of them. I do think my Pono sounds better than my Kala, but I was (and still am) very satisfied with the Kala.

A cyclist friend of mine says that every cyclist should get at least one really expensive bike, just to prove to themselves that its not really about the bike.
 
You are quite sensible. My teacher has a bunch of Ukes, all used and under $30. He sounds great on all of them. I do think my Pono sounds better than my Kala, but I was (and still am) very satisfied with the Kala.

A cyclist friend of mine says that every cyclist should get at least one really expensive bike, just to prove to themselves that its not really about the bike.

a bit off topic, but the cycling thing is new. i had a friend in college who sold me his old bike when he got a new one, and we went out riding that afternoon and i buried him.

i have a $250 uke which i enjoy more than my $30 uke, but mainly because it has better intonation and what not...it's a better built instrument. the $250 uke costs 8x the $30 uke, and it is a big difference. but i wonder if i spent 8x the $250, if the difference would be *that* notable.

i should probably just practice more...
 
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