Another Zebra in the herd

During my quest for a new tenor, I realized I needed a travel uke. I am on vacation with the family for 2 weeks and the lack of Uke is driving me nuts. I order a concert Zebra-wood from Mike at Uke republic and can't wait for the UPS to come knocking.

I already have a Zebra-wood Ohana soprano and dig the tone and the wood. I have not been a great fan of the Ohana friction tuners or Sopranos in general. I have not being able to get my self to sell the soprano, even tough I just don't play sopranos.

The concert has open geared tuners and is well... a concert. I am so looking forward to having a uke to bring on trips. The price was so low, it is amazing.

I teach 4th grade and plan to keep this one with me at school... coolness

iDavid said:

During my quest for a new tenor, I realized I needed a travel uke. I am on vacation with the family for 2 weeks and the lack of Uke is driving me nuts. I order a concert Zebra-wood from Mike at Uke republic and can't wait for the UPS to come knocking.

I already have a Zebra-wood Ohana soprano and dig the tone and the wood. I have not been a great fan of the Ohana friction tuners or Sopranos in general. I have not being able to get my self to sell the soprano, even tough I just don't play sopranos.

The concert has open geared tuners and is well... a concert. I am so looking forward to having a uke to bring on trips. The price was so low, it is amazing.

I teach 4th grade and plan to keep this one with me at school... coolness



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Congrats on the new uke. I am glad you like it.

I didn't used to like friction tuners either. Now, I love them, at least on sopranos. The balance issue is very important to me, but I also think that they look better. I actually find that they stay in tune better also. The difficulty is, of course, tuning the instrument. But it is in reality quite easy. It is certainly something that it is possible to get used to.

At Ohana, we have no plans to change our current policy of putting friction tuners on most of our mid-range and higher-priced soprano instruments. As you know, we do now offer the option of geared tuners on our concerts. However, we have to remember that serious players in some parts of Europe will not even buy a concert with geared tuners. We are attempting to cater for everyone on this issue.

My advice to anyone who has a uke with friction tuners is for them to try them for a while and get used them. The reason this type of tuner has been used on ukes for so long is that they work. Remember, geared tuner have been around for a very long time, but it is only very recently that they have been commonly used on ukuleles.

I have no problem with the friction tuners on my KoAloha Concert. On Ohana soprano, I find them difficult to get the uke into tune. I sent an email to Ohana, but got no response. The uke is great otherwise and for the price is unreal. The tuners on the Ohana and KoAloha look very similar, but I do not fin them to "work" the same.

iDavid said:

I have no problem with the friction tuners on my KoAloha Concert. On Ohana soprano, I find them difficult to get the uke into tune. I sent an email to Ohana, but got no response. The uke is great otherwise and for the price is unreal. The tuners on the Ohana and KoAloha look very similar, but I do not fin them to "work" the same.

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Thanks David. The tuners you on the Koaloha very much more expensive as befits the pricing of the instrument (over 4 times as expensive). Although some people don't like the Koaloha "system" used in their tuners, I have found them to work very well on the ones I have tried. To keep the price down on the 25 series instruments, we have not been able to use the more costly Gotoh tuners that we use on the 35 series ukes. I believe that the tuners we use work well, but clearly cannot compete with those found on a top-end US-made uke. One of the reasons for the tremendous success of the Ohana zebrawood soprano over the last year or so, is the fact that it is so well priced. You get a striking, solid-wood uke that sound great, and at a great price.

You could fit a set of higher quality friction tuners to it very simply if you wanted to.

iDavid said:

I already have a Zebra-wood Ohana soprano and dig the tone and the wood. I have not been a great fan of the Ohana friction tuners or Sopranos in general. I have not being able to get my self to sell the soprano, even tough I just don't play sopranos.

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I also had a zebra wood Ohana and recently sold it. I loved the wood, but didn't like either the size or the tuners. I'm still waiting for a tenor scale instrument in that wood.

iDavid said:

The uke is great otherwise and for the price is unreal.

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If you don't mind, how much is unreal?

It has been awhile since I bought the soprano, but I think it was like 145 without case. The concert was 230 with soft gig bag. I have not played the concert yet, but the soprano is really fantastic for a soprano. I pit worth browns on it and that mellowed it out nicely. It has a very open sound.

Ken Middleton said:

Thanks David. The tuners you on the Koaloha very much more expensive as befits the pricing of the instrument (over 4 times as expensive). Although some people don't like the Koaloha "system" used in their tuners, I have found them to work very well on the ones I have tried. To keep the price down on the 25 series instruments, we have not been able to use the more costly Gotoh tuners that we use on the 35 series ukes. I believe that the tuners we use work well, but clearly cannot compete with those found on a top-end US-made uke. One of the reasons for the tremendous success of the Ohana zebrawood soprano over the last year or so, is the fact that it is so well priced. You get a striking, solid-wood uke that sound great, and at a great price.

You could fit a set of higher quality friction tuners to it very simply if you wanted to.

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I agree on all accounts. After getting the soprano zebra-wood, I posted here and emailed Ohana about the tuners. I did not get a reply or most success on the board. Which friction tuners would fit the zebrawood, which would you recommend, and where would I get them?

Thanks Ken, I've really enjoyed your videos and appreciate your input on this forum.