New Uke: Kanile'a "Sound Monster"

KiLO

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I absolutely love this ukulele. I played several and this one jumped out at me in every regard. Look, feel, sound, etc. I am extremely happy with everything... The action is great, the tuning is fantastic, and the sound is fabulous... I can't put it down.

It's all solid koa made completely in Hawaii. Grover tuners, Aquila strings. It's got an oil finish, which I much prefer to glossy.

Anyway... Here are a couple quick shots :D :nana:
kanilea1.jpg


kanilea2.jpg
 
Congrats on the awesome awesome uke!

And good luck with changing the strings. It seems so straightforward, but yet I lost 3 hours today to a time vortex while arguing with pin bridged uklectic. It seems the pins didn't think much of my knots, which always worked well enough on normal bridges. "Tune tune tune, BOINK!" "!#€%&!" And the C pin doesn't wanna go back all the way in. It's just parts of a millimeter higher than the other pins. "!€%&!"

But, I do much prefer the Worth CMs, so there's always that.

So when changing strings, make a strong symetrical knot! And congrats on snagging one of those beauties!
 
"Sound Monster" because he has some special bracing system that transfers more vibration to the soundboard or something like that.

The pins don't really effect the sound. (I seem to remember a thread about that not so long ago that came to that conclusion.)

Big knots yes. The pins don't actually hold the strings down the way the system works. They still hook around into a notch under the bridge, but since that notch is actually inside the uke where you can't see it it can be sometimes a bit tricky getting your string in properly. Keep your string winder and swear words handy.

You may get other ukes, but I bet that one will always be the ukulele you reach for most often. It's lovely. Enjoy.



*oof. I feel a twinge. I think my UAS is acting up again...
 
Dang. I played (plucked is the word) one of these in a shop in Japan, and still feel sick about it. So smooth, so nice. Ah.
 
Thanks for the support guys... :D

Yeah, I love it. The sound is amazing, and I definitely wasn't thinking about changing the strings when I bought it, cause it sounded so good I didn't care, haha. I honestly picked up several ukulele's, and the sound of this one just grabbed me. That combined with a pretty good deal made it a done deal. Also, I have sorta fat fingers, and I really enjoy the slightly fatter fretboard that a true hawaiian made ukulele offers.

I will try and get a vid sometime soon to demonstrate the sound, although the little video camera mic won't do it justics I'm sure. Maybe I'll have to get out the external mic and see if that works better...
 
Joe makes a fine instrument. It will get better with time, its not like the old ones where it was night and day dramatic but still it will get better with some hours.

Sound monster is the bracing pattern and the non UV finish.
K1-5's are the same new bracing style and UV cured gloss finish.
 
The annoyance of a pin bridge is made up for with the beauty of a pin bridge. :D

Seriously though, congrats on the monster. Who here could pass up on a Kanilea, even if we had to mortgage our moms? ;)
 
The pin bridge looks awesome and I really like the wood grain.

*drools*
 
Joe makes a fine instrument. It will get better with time, its not like the old ones where it was night and day dramatic but still it will get better with some hours.

Elaborate on this dramatic difference, please. I hadn't read anything about that before. I've got one of the ones he built for Lanikai, so I have to assume it's a little older in general. It already sounds pretty killer.
How is sound going to change and over what kind of timespan are we talking? Months? Years?

(I mostly have to ask since I play it every day and I'm probably not going to really notice incremental changes that happen over time. It will always just sound like my ukulele.)
 
....

(I mostly have to ask since I play it every day and I'm probably not going to really notice incremental changes that happen over time. It will always just sound like my ukulele.)

Very good point. I can hear myself saying, man, my playing is really improving, I sound great, can't be this old ukulele....
 
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