BadAax Ukulele review?

KakinhoF

New member
Joined
Feb 7, 2012
Messages
1
Reaction score
0
Location
Cornerstone University. Grand Rapids, MI
Hey I have been playing ukulele for a couple of months and I saw a badaax acoustic-electric for sale. I was wondering if anyone knew about the quality of the ukulele and if I should get one. Otherwise I am considering just saving up for a while longer and getting something much nicer. Does anyone have any opinions?
 
I asked about this ukulele just a few days ago. I don't think too many people have played one. I saw a solid body mahagony for <$50 and a solid body koa for <$75. I have a feeling you get what you pay for. Let us know if you get one, how it is.
 
NO reviews, but this seems aimed at the youth-children crowd. SO I wonder that they'd put much effort into a good sound. Generally, around here, you are going to find advice such as "save up for..." and for under $200, you can get an Eleuke, which has a good reputation. $200 vs $70, the difference is $130 and you can save that over 10 weeks, $13 a week so you see, it's do-able. Then you will get an instrument that is worthy. As to amps, same thing, worth saving up for, or seeing if a local pawn shop has one that is good--go with a friend to try them out.
 
Picked one up for $34 new through a dealer on Amazon and figured that it was an inexpensive way to try an electric.

It came in a really cheap cardboard box held together with lots of packing tape. No specs, written materials or anything, even the chord chart that was supposed to come with it.

As expected, the top is a three layer laminate. The finish is a satin finish and there were some blotches on it, as well as some glue on the fret board. A few minutes of patience with a sharp knife and the glue was removed, a few minutes with a damp cloth even eliminated the blotches. Cleaned up, the uke looks pretty sharp!

The tuners were a bit loose, so I spent a bit with the screwdriver. No idea what the strings are, they don't look like anything special, I may change them out very soon and see what happens. They are still in the stretching stage, drops out of tune quickly.

Played through a variety of songs and riffs and it sounds pretty much as you would expect a low cost uke to. Plugged it into a small amp and played around for a bit. All in all, for the value, this is a great way to start exploring the world of the electrified uke.
 
I picked up a solid mahogany one and to be honest it doesn't sound that bad. Probably better than the laminate. It isn't the best uke I've played but I like it better than a lot of other imports I've tried that were a lot more $. Mine had a simillar lack of attention to detail that yours had. The headstock had a funny little angle part cut in it, misdrilled screw holes for the tuners, etc. Nothing that would really affect the sound or anything just poor quality control. For the price I can't complain. The thing I don't like about it are the geared tuners. They weigh about 100 lbs and makes the uke very top heavy. I might fill the screw holes and get some friction tuners for it.
 
Top Bottom