I just hate my CBU

Keef

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I bought a CBU a while back and it looks great and to me sounds horible it just dosent ring like i feel it should so i put a pickup on it figuring i could change the dull sound with the amp but i still dont like it i may try thinner strings like the ones on the koaloha sceptre oraybe saw the neck off and try and restore it back to a cigar box
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Question; does anyone else have a uke in their collection that they just rather not play?
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I have had one worse than this one it was made out of 3 coconuts lol i sent it to my sister to hang on her wall :)
 
I had an 8-string Lanikai acoustic-electric that was like that. It sounded good plugged in but acoustically it was like playing a wet dog. I could just never connect with it. I gave it to a friend and he loves it - I guess he didn't have a couple of Mainlands and KoAlohas to spoil him for it. ;)

John
 
hey Keef

I think it's a cigar box thing. I had one and it sounded thin and horrible. Zero guts and zero projection and a strangled, muffled tone. Just awful. Swore I'd never buy another one again.

He he...I remember that 3 coconuts one...it was gloriously weird!
 
That may be the case here too the koAloha just kills it . I need to find some worth clears somewhere and give this dead horse one more chance
 
Might be able to improve it by thinning the soundboard a little, but CBU's are certainly not for everyone. I like mine quite a bit for some tunes, but it does sit a lot. Who made it and do you have pictures? Might be easy for some of the CBU builders to see a quick fix for it...
But it will never have the tone of a scepter- no way, no how.
I would also recommend high tension strings on it- Fremont's are a great choice, but I would not bet the whole wad on the worths. They may be great in the Koaloha but I can almost guarantee that will not be the case in the CBU
 
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I think probably most of us who've gone thru a few ukes have had some we just didn't bond with.

For me it was a Mid-East baroquelele. It's really cute and unique looking, but the sound is nothing special, the turning pegs are horrible to use, and with its bowl back shape it slides all around my gut, even with a strap. But I still haven't brought myself to part with it yet.
 
A friend of mine, who makes cbus, explained that apart from the thickness of the "sound board and the thinness of the body cavity, that the top and back are parallel adversely affects the tone. What he described was that the sound waves bounce back and forth, in effect canceling themselves out. I don't know that this is what happens, but it does make sense to me, especially given the fact that arched backs and those that are angled from the waist to the upper back tend to have better tone and projection.
 
The main thing that makes a good cigar box uke is the box it is made from. I have made a lot of them and the only box that I use is the 1886 redwood box. When made right they sound just great. They have a sound all their own and are almost impossible to duplicate. The biggest mistake made by other builders IMO is the bridge placement and a single, too big sound hole.
 
The main thing that makes a good cigar box uke is the box it is made from. I have made a lot of them and the only box that I use is the 1886 redwood box. When made right they sound just great. They have a sound all their own and are almost impossible to duplicate. The biggest mistake made by other builders IMO is the bridge placement and a single, too big sound hole.

Okay, I've just listened to a few Youtube videos of one of your cbu's; easily the best sounding one I've ever heard. Honestly.
 
I had one that sounded great, made from the 1886 box also; try Aquilas on yours. I swapped mine for a requinto guitar because I wasn't playing it enough, just because of the shape, not the sound. I came thisclose to buying the Bluegrass ukes one up in the marketplace.
 
I have a Tom Guy CBU and love it. But only after I replaced the Hilos with Worth CHLGHD strings and installed a MiSi in it. And it is has a Redwood box. It sounds wonderful, but it will never come close to the sound of a K brand. After all, it is built from a box that was designed to hold cigars, not be a musical instrument. Part of the allure of a CBU is the novelty of it.

I also made an ebony string cover for it to cover the knots in the bridge. Because the bridge placement is so close to the end of the box, the knots were irritating the inside of my forearm when I played.

CBU002.jpg
CBU003.jpg
 
I love my Eleuke Cigar box uke. It performs very well acoustically:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObhXkrYu378
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXa1gcMvPyQ



My first uke was a Mahalo UK220E.
It got me started on ukes. But in all honesty, it's a terrible instrument.
Projects like a tissue box with rubber bands for strings, intonation is all wrong and it's one of the old models which have next-to-useless internal stick-on pickups.
 
I rather not say who made it i dont want to upset anyone
I hope you didn't buy it from the same guy on eBay who's 80 year old dad makes them. With the one I got it wasn't the sound that was bad it was that it was a piece of crap that had been just thrown together. I took it to my guitar luthier and he took it completely down and put it back together right and made it playable again and even replaced the carbon fiber cardboard looking dot markers with mother of pearl and abalone dot markers he made himself. I have completely sanded it down and and the last stages of finishing with many coats of tung oil and its starting to look good. I paid $130 for it but I should have paid only $40 or 50 bucks for it. It will be worth the 130 bucks after my luthier and myself are done with it. Take yours to a luthier maybe he can help you out like mine did.
 
Yup.... bought a new Pono PC1 (Concert) when they first came out a few years ago. Gorgeous little mahogany box but it was sooooooo timid I almost needed to hit it with a hammer to get any volume out of it! VERY disappointing! I understand Pono has improved vastly since that time but I don't think I'll ever trust the name again!
 
A CBU isn't supposed to sound like a K brand, lol, it's supposed to sound like a CBU! These have a long history of being made by po' folk, just like a washtub bass. The need to make music was so strong in the 150 year history of these (Civil War era forward) that ingenuity was the most important ingredient in construction. From there desire and soul brought expression to the sound.

That is what it was about. They have a distinctive voice. It's supposed to be a sow's ear, not a silk purse, even though a good luthier can make it sound great, especially with a large deep all cedar box, remember that's sort of the modern exception. Sort of like the very cheap guitars used for the blues in the South, it's what was available and they squeezed the most out of them possible. Playing the blues on an expensive modern guitar just ain't the same.
 
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