Curious on players thoughts on all Maple baby ukuleles. I'm considering all Maple body or Maple bacc/sides and spruce top tenor. I like bright, articulate sound for finger picking and blended strumming sounds. By blended, I mean nit harsh or jangle. What should I expect with maple? General comments because I do know builder has a lot to do with it. Just curious from anyone who has a maple tenor. Thanks
Spruce/Maple combo has been around since beginning of time. It produces a bright and clear sound. I'm having a custom parlor guitar made with S/M combo by Canadian luthier David Webber; he said it's perfect for smaller instruments.
Here's a photo of a baritone S/M I had made by Toby Chennell of Jazzboxukes.com.
Thanks for comments. There is a nice all Maple LoPrinzi tenor for sale. I've never played a maple ukulele or Lp
OPrinzi but both seem highly regarded on this forum. The Oya custom is truly amazing sounding. Just out of my price range. I've also followed Toby's arch top and they look amazing.
Most everything talked about here is maple body with a "spruce". Fabulous combo, violin makers have been doing that for centuries. An all maple instrument is another thing all together. I know Doc J has an all maple Grimes which he just loves, but it is really out of your price range.
Loprinzi make great instrument so if they have an all maple tenor it would not be a dud.
Barron River makes all maple instruments. I was drooling on their website last night and noticed some all maple in the gallery. I thought this one was particularly gorgeous.
I have a concert that, even with Aquila strings, is loud, articulate, and bright sounding without sounding brash to my ears. If I want to tame it down a bit, I'll just get some mellower strings, but that isn't why I buy a bright instrument. Additionally, I think maple ukes happen to be gorgeous, especially with some nice, contrasting but complimentary trim.
I had a mole soprano at one time. It was solid maple top with laminate back and sides, but with maple top layer to give a matched finish. It looked nice and was very bright. In the end I found it too bright, verging on harsh so I passed it on.
One of my top ukes is all maple by Steve Grimes. Much depends on the builder, but mine has both warmth and crispness with lots of resonance. I keep it in B-tuning. https://app.box.com/s/dncl6nn40baw0tnb1vvximzw5jpmrh82
I've gotta say Ubulele you're the KING of finding maple tenors. Thanks for sharing that was some mighty fine stuff. That Rebel was really sweet as was the Loprinzi satin. I got a hankering for some fancy maple now.
I love maple so much I have been dubbed Maple Whore Monnier or MWM for short. ;-) Below are videos and sound samples of a variety of maple bodied instruments for several different builders. I believe these are all exceptional sounding instruments.
As I can only post on video per message, I will post the other two videos in separate messages:
A Pepe Romero that I previously owned:
[video]http://www.theukulelesite.com/pepe-romero-custom-spruce-maple-tenor-2014.html[/video]
Great examples and some beautiful ukuleles. To answer the question, Mike at Uke Republic has a awesome all Maple Loprizi tenor. Price is great. Nice looking European maple. I've never seen this wood before but learning there are many different types of maple.
Great examples and some beautiful ukuleles. To answer the question, Mike at Uke Republic has a awesome all Maple Loprizi tenor. Price is great. Nice looking European maple. I've never seen this wood before but learning there are many different types of maple.
I played an all maple LoPrinzi tenor at UWC this year. It was absolutely amazing! The sound was bright but balanced. I didn't think I needed another tenor until I played it... lol