OldePhart
Well-known member
(Part I, apparently there is a 10000 character limit on posts to this forum and I am too wordy.) :biglaugh:
I know that the guidelines ask for numeric ratings in a number of preset categories but I'm really not comfortable doing that. If I rate this ukulele an 8 in features, for example, what was I comparing it to? What would be a 10? If the "baseline" for a ten is a solid-koa hand-built Hawaiian guitar with abalone binding then this is a 6, if the standard is an inexpensive laminated uke then this is a 10+, and so on. So, I'll just be really wordy and y'all can assign your own numeric ratings based on what's important to you!
I've created a short video to accompany this review. That video contains none of the details here, it's just to demonstrate the sound of the uke. I'ved edited this post to add the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJQSC9a9voI.
The Kiwaya KSL-2 is one of two long-necked soprano ukuleles available in what Kiwaya calls their "eco" line. The other is the nearly identical KSL-1. The only difference between the two is that the KSL-1 is a mahogany veneer while the KSL-2 is a koa veneer. I purchased mine from MusicGuyMic on eBay (MGM here in the forum) and the price was a few cents under $400 with a Fremont rectangular tweed hard case. As usual, Mike did an excellent job with the setup. Intonation at the first fret was spot on. Action was very good all the way up the neck.
The "eco" line are Kiwaya's lowest priced ukuleles, but they are significantly more expensive than the Lanikai / Kala ukes that one normally thinks of when discussing laminated ukuleles. In fact, the Kiwaya KSL-2 is more expensive than most of the solid-top ukuleles available from Lanikai and Kala. Kiwaya has so far resisted the bean-counting temptation to transfer production of their eco line to Indonesia or China; the KSL-2 is made in Japan. I'm old enough to remember when "made in Japan" was anything but a mark of distinction but for the last decade or two at least, "made in Japan" is often the sign of a pretty good instrument - especially in the case of acoustic stringed instruments.
The KSL-2 falls into a somewhat unique nitch in the ukulele world. The design and build quality are on a par with far more expensive instruments while the materials - most notably the "super thin" laminated body and top woods - are at once distinctly inferior to solid wood and superior to the laminated materials used in many inexpensive ukuleles. "Super-thin" is an accurate description of the laminated materials. Examining the side of the unbound body shows this pretty clearly. While the back is clearly a laminate, the top appears to have been sanded thinner and I had to look very, very closely to determine that it is, indeed, laminated. Curiously, no effort appears to have been made to choose highly figured woods for the exterior veneer. Often, companies choose a laminated material with a very highly-figured top veneer to enhance the "eye-appeal" and marketability of the instrument. On this particular sample, the soundboard and headstock veneers are extremely plain, straight-grained wood with just the slightest hint of curl. There is nothing wrong with that but it seems curious because at this price-point if a manufacturer isn't going to use a highly-figured veneer then they probably could have used a "plain but solid" top for only a fraction more expense and had a much more marketable instrument. I.e. with the plain veneer they have sacrificed both the "eye-candy" and "solid-top purist" markets. That puts the instrument squarely into a rather small nitch market of folks who want the durability of a laminated instrument but are still willing to pay a premium for a high-quality build with good tone and projection. That market is there, but definitely a small one.
CONSTRUCTION:
As noted above, the design and construction of this ukulele make it a much nearer cousin to hand-built solid-koa Hawaiian ukuleles than to your typical laminated ukulele. At 13 ounces total weight, it is two ounces lighter than my KoAloha concert - an all solid koa instrument with the same neck and scale length but a slightly larger body. In short, this isn't your typical "plywood" ukulele - the body is very lightly braced and the laminated wood is only very slightly heavier than solid koa would be. That shouldn't come as a great surprise - theoretically the expert use of laminates would allow one to build an instrument that is superior to a solid-wood instrument. The Kiwaya isn't at that level, by any means, but it is certainly miles ahead of any other laminated instrument (uke or guitar) that I've played.
The sides of the body are a single piece of laminated wood. There is no seam at the heel of the body. The side wood is actually more attractively figured than the top/headstock/or back of the instrument. The seams between top and sides and back and sides are all tight and clean with no glue squeeze-out, chips, or other blemishes.
The finish appears to be some variety of poly, applied very evenly and reasonably thin. It is not as thin as it could be as evidenced by a bit of typical "poly pucker" around the neck joint and where the fretboard and bridge meet the body. However, neither is it crazy-thick as on many instruments where it appears that the finish was poured on. Careful examination turned up one small impression on the back (it appears to be a tool mark and is about 1/4" long) and a tiny, tiny black flyspeck on the top. Both are under the clear finish. Personally I tend not to get bent out of shape over stuff like that and on most laminated ukes I wouldn't even mention them, but on a uke that is at a price point with solid-wood ukes they deserve mention, at least. The rosette complements the uke very nicely. Honestly, I can't tell whether it is a superb inlay or an invisibly-thin decal - and I obviously don't care enough either way to look it up on the manufacturer's web site!
OTHER FEATURES:
The fretboard is quite dark and reasonably fine-grained. It does not appear to be ebonized, or if it is then a very stable dye was used, because none of the color transferred to my white paper towel when I applied lemon-oil to the fretboard and rubbed vigorously. After the first coat removed wax probably applied by MGM the second coat was only lightly absorbed, indicating the wood was in good shape. (On rosewood and ebony fretboards I prefer occasional cleaning with lemon oil to waxing.) The ukulele has twenty frets in all, with fourteen to the body. There are fret markers at the 3rd (unusual on a uke), 5th, 7th, 10th, and 12th frets. The markers on the front are very tiny making it difficult to determine exactly what material they are but I think they're MOP. On two of them there is a tiny gap between the dot and the wood but it is difficult to tell if that is just due to the grain of the fretboard or actually a "blemish." They are extremely small anyway - you have to look very hard to notice them at all. I wouldn't have noticed them if I hadn't been examining the dots so closely while attempting to determine what material they are made of. The configuration of the markers is a tad strange - there are two dots at the seventh fret instead of the tweflth. The dots on the side of the fretboard appear to be white plastic.
The fret work is very good to excellent. Most notably, this ukulele has frets appropriate to a ukulele! What do I mean by that? Most ukuleles, including many of the very expensive ones, come with wide, tall frets that are more suitable for electric guitar than for a short-scale acoustic instrument with nylon strings. I was overjoyed to discover that this ukulele has very narrow and reasonably short frets. These are the kind of frets I will demand if I every order a custom-built uke. It's hard to describe the importance of frets sized correctly for the application if you've never had the opportunity to play an instrument with such frets.
The bridge saddle is compensated. This is rather unusual on ukuleles, and very welcome. Typically intonation up the neck suffers on ukuleles, even expensive ones, because the higher tension A and G strings need to be shorter as you go up the neck. A compensated bridge saddle corrects this by making the scale length on these strings slightly shorter. The molded plastic saddle is too thin to completely overcome the intonation differences but any improvement is very welcome.
TONE AND PROJECTION:
I don't have a solid-wood (let alone solid koa) instrument with a soprano-sized body to compare this to so I'll avoid unfair comparisons and simply say that the volume was louder than I expected and, once the terrible strings were replaced, the tone is quite pleasing as well. Both are far better than my granddaughters LU-11 soprano, but comparing a $35 uke and a $300+ uke is probably a bit meaningless!
I know that the guidelines ask for numeric ratings in a number of preset categories but I'm really not comfortable doing that. If I rate this ukulele an 8 in features, for example, what was I comparing it to? What would be a 10? If the "baseline" for a ten is a solid-koa hand-built Hawaiian guitar with abalone binding then this is a 6, if the standard is an inexpensive laminated uke then this is a 10+, and so on. So, I'll just be really wordy and y'all can assign your own numeric ratings based on what's important to you!
I've created a short video to accompany this review. That video contains none of the details here, it's just to demonstrate the sound of the uke. I'ved edited this post to add the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJQSC9a9voI.
The Kiwaya KSL-2 is one of two long-necked soprano ukuleles available in what Kiwaya calls their "eco" line. The other is the nearly identical KSL-1. The only difference between the two is that the KSL-1 is a mahogany veneer while the KSL-2 is a koa veneer. I purchased mine from MusicGuyMic on eBay (MGM here in the forum) and the price was a few cents under $400 with a Fremont rectangular tweed hard case. As usual, Mike did an excellent job with the setup. Intonation at the first fret was spot on. Action was very good all the way up the neck.
The "eco" line are Kiwaya's lowest priced ukuleles, but they are significantly more expensive than the Lanikai / Kala ukes that one normally thinks of when discussing laminated ukuleles. In fact, the Kiwaya KSL-2 is more expensive than most of the solid-top ukuleles available from Lanikai and Kala. Kiwaya has so far resisted the bean-counting temptation to transfer production of their eco line to Indonesia or China; the KSL-2 is made in Japan. I'm old enough to remember when "made in Japan" was anything but a mark of distinction but for the last decade or two at least, "made in Japan" is often the sign of a pretty good instrument - especially in the case of acoustic stringed instruments.
The KSL-2 falls into a somewhat unique nitch in the ukulele world. The design and build quality are on a par with far more expensive instruments while the materials - most notably the "super thin" laminated body and top woods - are at once distinctly inferior to solid wood and superior to the laminated materials used in many inexpensive ukuleles. "Super-thin" is an accurate description of the laminated materials. Examining the side of the unbound body shows this pretty clearly. While the back is clearly a laminate, the top appears to have been sanded thinner and I had to look very, very closely to determine that it is, indeed, laminated. Curiously, no effort appears to have been made to choose highly figured woods for the exterior veneer. Often, companies choose a laminated material with a very highly-figured top veneer to enhance the "eye-appeal" and marketability of the instrument. On this particular sample, the soundboard and headstock veneers are extremely plain, straight-grained wood with just the slightest hint of curl. There is nothing wrong with that but it seems curious because at this price-point if a manufacturer isn't going to use a highly-figured veneer then they probably could have used a "plain but solid" top for only a fraction more expense and had a much more marketable instrument. I.e. with the plain veneer they have sacrificed both the "eye-candy" and "solid-top purist" markets. That puts the instrument squarely into a rather small nitch market of folks who want the durability of a laminated instrument but are still willing to pay a premium for a high-quality build with good tone and projection. That market is there, but definitely a small one.
CONSTRUCTION:
As noted above, the design and construction of this ukulele make it a much nearer cousin to hand-built solid-koa Hawaiian ukuleles than to your typical laminated ukulele. At 13 ounces total weight, it is two ounces lighter than my KoAloha concert - an all solid koa instrument with the same neck and scale length but a slightly larger body. In short, this isn't your typical "plywood" ukulele - the body is very lightly braced and the laminated wood is only very slightly heavier than solid koa would be. That shouldn't come as a great surprise - theoretically the expert use of laminates would allow one to build an instrument that is superior to a solid-wood instrument. The Kiwaya isn't at that level, by any means, but it is certainly miles ahead of any other laminated instrument (uke or guitar) that I've played.
The sides of the body are a single piece of laminated wood. There is no seam at the heel of the body. The side wood is actually more attractively figured than the top/headstock/or back of the instrument. The seams between top and sides and back and sides are all tight and clean with no glue squeeze-out, chips, or other blemishes.
The finish appears to be some variety of poly, applied very evenly and reasonably thin. It is not as thin as it could be as evidenced by a bit of typical "poly pucker" around the neck joint and where the fretboard and bridge meet the body. However, neither is it crazy-thick as on many instruments where it appears that the finish was poured on. Careful examination turned up one small impression on the back (it appears to be a tool mark and is about 1/4" long) and a tiny, tiny black flyspeck on the top. Both are under the clear finish. Personally I tend not to get bent out of shape over stuff like that and on most laminated ukes I wouldn't even mention them, but on a uke that is at a price point with solid-wood ukes they deserve mention, at least. The rosette complements the uke very nicely. Honestly, I can't tell whether it is a superb inlay or an invisibly-thin decal - and I obviously don't care enough either way to look it up on the manufacturer's web site!
OTHER FEATURES:
The fretboard is quite dark and reasonably fine-grained. It does not appear to be ebonized, or if it is then a very stable dye was used, because none of the color transferred to my white paper towel when I applied lemon-oil to the fretboard and rubbed vigorously. After the first coat removed wax probably applied by MGM the second coat was only lightly absorbed, indicating the wood was in good shape. (On rosewood and ebony fretboards I prefer occasional cleaning with lemon oil to waxing.) The ukulele has twenty frets in all, with fourteen to the body. There are fret markers at the 3rd (unusual on a uke), 5th, 7th, 10th, and 12th frets. The markers on the front are very tiny making it difficult to determine exactly what material they are but I think they're MOP. On two of them there is a tiny gap between the dot and the wood but it is difficult to tell if that is just due to the grain of the fretboard or actually a "blemish." They are extremely small anyway - you have to look very hard to notice them at all. I wouldn't have noticed them if I hadn't been examining the dots so closely while attempting to determine what material they are made of. The configuration of the markers is a tad strange - there are two dots at the seventh fret instead of the tweflth. The dots on the side of the fretboard appear to be white plastic.
The fret work is very good to excellent. Most notably, this ukulele has frets appropriate to a ukulele! What do I mean by that? Most ukuleles, including many of the very expensive ones, come with wide, tall frets that are more suitable for electric guitar than for a short-scale acoustic instrument with nylon strings. I was overjoyed to discover that this ukulele has very narrow and reasonably short frets. These are the kind of frets I will demand if I every order a custom-built uke. It's hard to describe the importance of frets sized correctly for the application if you've never had the opportunity to play an instrument with such frets.
The bridge saddle is compensated. This is rather unusual on ukuleles, and very welcome. Typically intonation up the neck suffers on ukuleles, even expensive ones, because the higher tension A and G strings need to be shorter as you go up the neck. A compensated bridge saddle corrects this by making the scale length on these strings slightly shorter. The molded plastic saddle is too thin to completely overcome the intonation differences but any improvement is very welcome.
TONE AND PROJECTION:
I don't have a solid-wood (let alone solid koa) instrument with a soprano-sized body to compare this to so I'll avoid unfair comparisons and simply say that the volume was louder than I expected and, once the terrible strings were replaced, the tone is quite pleasing as well. Both are far better than my granddaughters LU-11 soprano, but comparing a $35 uke and a $300+ uke is probably a bit meaningless!
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