arrScott
Member
I was in Maui for most of the month, and took the chance to visit pretty much every uke shop & workshop I could find. Kind of hoping to find a suitable souvenir uke, but mostly because there just aren't that many ukes in stores here in Virginia, and this was my first real chance to have many dozens of different makes & models at hand to sample and get a feel for differences in sound. One thing that surprised me is how little I liked the sound of almost all sopranos I tried. Even the highest-end of high-end, Hawaii-made ukes just didn't sound very good to me. (Except the Koaloha soprano I tried at Bounty, which oh-my-god, but was out of my price range this time.) Perhaps I'm just too accustomed to the sounds of my own pair of concerts?
Then, in a little not-really-a-uke-shop place that mostly stocked a good range of Lanikai, I pulled a really attractive little uke off the wall and played it, solely because it was the only uke in the joint I hadn't sampled yet, and I was blown away. Almost as delightful a sound as the Koaloha. Only instead of like $700, it was like $100. An Islander by Kanilea, their new entry-level line of ukes. It's all mahogany, with rosewood fretboard, and mine is the version (MS-4) with no decorative inlay or trim. Just all wood, and with a pitted, ever-so-slightly-satin finish, it looks like an antique. Finish gives the wood a luster that's more koa-like than any mahogany instrument I've seen.
Pegged bridge and open-gear tuners. Comes with Aquila strings from the factory. Visually, the Islander name and logo on the headstock are well designed, but applied as a white decal rather than etched, which is the only thing about it that feels cheap.
Loud, bright sound, lacking the AM-radio tinniness I was finding on so many of the sopranos I sampled. "Robust" is the word that kept coming to mind, both in the store and once I got back to the condo and started playing every afternoon. Now that I'm home, it still sounds great next to my concert Flea and concert red cedar Mainland.
The only real marks I have to offer against come from the fret board itself. The C string produces a consistently high note on the first, second, and third frets, before settling into a perfectly tuned E on the fourth fret. It stays in tune the rest of the way down the fretboard. If I tune to a perfect C on my chromatic tuner, the first three frets consistently peg the needle at the +20 mark on those notes, and it's just enough that you can hear it on chords like D and G.
But, for what it is, a very inexpensive, otherwise very robust and attractive instrument meant for only occasional playing, I can't speak highly enough of the new Islander line. Just noodling around with it in the shop while waiting for my wife to get done with her shopping and see if she liked the sound of it as much as I did, an Australian tourist who walked in was persuaded to buy one for his guitar-playing son as a souvenir of their cruise to Hawaii.
Then, in a little not-really-a-uke-shop place that mostly stocked a good range of Lanikai, I pulled a really attractive little uke off the wall and played it, solely because it was the only uke in the joint I hadn't sampled yet, and I was blown away. Almost as delightful a sound as the Koaloha. Only instead of like $700, it was like $100. An Islander by Kanilea, their new entry-level line of ukes. It's all mahogany, with rosewood fretboard, and mine is the version (MS-4) with no decorative inlay or trim. Just all wood, and with a pitted, ever-so-slightly-satin finish, it looks like an antique. Finish gives the wood a luster that's more koa-like than any mahogany instrument I've seen.
Pegged bridge and open-gear tuners. Comes with Aquila strings from the factory. Visually, the Islander name and logo on the headstock are well designed, but applied as a white decal rather than etched, which is the only thing about it that feels cheap.
Loud, bright sound, lacking the AM-radio tinniness I was finding on so many of the sopranos I sampled. "Robust" is the word that kept coming to mind, both in the store and once I got back to the condo and started playing every afternoon. Now that I'm home, it still sounds great next to my concert Flea and concert red cedar Mainland.
The only real marks I have to offer against come from the fret board itself. The C string produces a consistently high note on the first, second, and third frets, before settling into a perfectly tuned E on the fourth fret. It stays in tune the rest of the way down the fretboard. If I tune to a perfect C on my chromatic tuner, the first three frets consistently peg the needle at the +20 mark on those notes, and it's just enough that you can hear it on chords like D and G.
But, for what it is, a very inexpensive, otherwise very robust and attractive instrument meant for only occasional playing, I can't speak highly enough of the new Islander line. Just noodling around with it in the shop while waiting for my wife to get done with her shopping and see if she liked the sound of it as much as I did, an Australian tourist who walked in was persuaded to buy one for his guitar-playing son as a souvenir of their cruise to Hawaii.
