A few guitalele questions

Hey guys!

I've made a couple of posts previously regarding guitalele, but have a few questions I hope some of you can help me answer!
I've had my eyes on the Gretsch Guitalele and I've had it on my wish list for Christmas since list month, but unfortunately the European dealer sold out and won't have a new shipment until January.

Therefore I am looking for another model, hopefully something that I could wrap my fingers around and play around Christmastime.

My question is, however - what models can you recommend?

I'm looking for a preferably solid wood guitalele, but am open to laminates, as long as the sound and overall quality is good.
I've been playing guitar for a few years, so I'm looking for something better then Yamaha G1.
I've tried it and quickly learned that it was not what I was looking for.
The price range is in the 400-500$ range.

One of my main issues with the G1 was the neck being wide to narrow. I'm sure it's something you'll just have to get used to, but a bit more space between the strings, wouldn't hurt.
I've been looking at both Cordoba guilele (which, from what I've read has a slightly narrower neck than the Yamaha) and the Ortega guitalele.

Does anyone know of any other brand? And I'd like it very much if the neck was wider.

I still have my heart on the Gretsch. It's beautiful and sounds amazing! But not available before January so I'm open to suggestions!

Check this one out. Hope you can ignore the noisy little critters.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7ApTpmelU4

A bit above your budget, but scroll down to guitarlele's. Look for sales this time of year, especially on Mele's Ebay store.

http://www.meleukulele.com/shopdisplayproducts.asp?id=52&cat=GUITARS+&+BARITONE

PhilUSAFRet said:

Check this one out. Hope you can ignore the noisy little critters.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7ApTpmelU4

A bit above your budget, but scroll down to guitarlele's. Look for sales this time of year, especially on Mele's Ebay store.

http://www.meleukulele.com/shopdisplayproducts.asp?id=52&cat=GUITARS+&+BARITONE

Click to expand...

What a melee going on behind the Mele player! Sweet sounding instrument! Though I'm still happy with my Yamaha GL1 - astounding value for money instrument.

PhilUSAFRet said:

Check this one out. Hope you can ignore the noisy little critters.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7ApTpmelU4

A bit above your budget, but scroll down to guitarlele's. Look for sales this time of year, especially on Mele's Ebay store.

http://www.meleukulele.com/shopdisplayproducts.asp?id=52&cat=GUITARS+&+BARITONE

Click to expand...

That sure is a nice guitalele!
I've heard about Mele, but this is first time I actually hear it in action - and it sounds beautiful!
Unfortunately it's way over my budget and then there's the issue that it's outside of EU.
In Denmark anythin costing more than 580$, you have to pay 25% tax, so that would bring the cost of such a piece of instrument above 1000 dollars, which I'm not ready to spit into a guitalele.

Thanks for the link though. Thought I had searched Youtube empty for guitalele videos. So a pleasant surprise!

Any other brands?
I've found a few places in EU that has higher end guitaleles such as Kanile'a and KoAloha guitalele, but both blow my budget.

Hi Helms,

I have the Yamaha GL-1 Guitalele, (bought on sale 'Stupid Deal Of The Day' from musiciansfriend.com here in the USA for $69 shipped) and while not quite up to the fit and finish of the higher end instruments of this type that are available, the biggest issue I had going from a full size classical guitar was the fret spacing.

Playing a chord, even in first position, where your fingers are stacked vertically, such as an A-Maj, is very tight for me. Some folks can barre this chord with one finger by hyper-flexing your first knuckle, but doing so is painful for me, and tends to mute the thinner strings instead of fretting them, so I learned to use 3 fingers. 35 yrs later, unless I am being lazy or chose to mute the hi-E string so-to-speak, or on Guitalele the hi-A string, doing a full A-Maj shape with all 6- strings ring out is not easy given my fat fingers.

Going further up the neck it gets worse. However, this has FORCED me to discover and try to learn alternate chord voicings, and challenge/expand my manual dexterity, which is a VERY good thing and a revelation to me after many yrs of being sort of in a rut with fingering. Fretting across a span of 2-octaves on a full-sized guitar was an almost impossible challenge for me, but much easier on a shorter scale such as the Guitalele offers, and also on the ukulele.

The GL-1 was also informative in helping me to select a Tenor as my first ukulele. Now I have several concert sized ukes, as well as a soprano (see my signature) and while the soprano is a little cramped for me, the concert is now actually the most comfortable, and the fret spacing being slightly tighter than the tenor actually lets me stretch my fingers a bit further to be able to actually fret those new-fangled alternate fingerings/voicings of chords.

So in the end, the GL-1 worked out, and I still play it often, but was not aware of the limitations for fingering chords prior to purchase. If you have played the Guitalele from different makers, you might be able to see if the neck scale and/or fret spacing differs, and select an instrument that is a better fit to your hand.

In the future, I'd like to get something a little bigger, like a parlor-sized nylon string guitar, but I'd have to find a local dealer that has them on hand to play so I can see if I can actually fret proper chord shapes, you know, for when I'm lazy .

So while not directly answering about recommending other Guitaleles, I'm hoping that I've offered something helpful when considering an instrument of this type.

-Booli

I have a steel stringed Tacoma Papoose. It was marketed as a high strung guitar rather than a guitalele. It is a thousand times better instrument than the Yamaha Guitalele than I also got with the $69 special. However, I've also had a Mexican Requinto which tunes the same and it is nylon stringed and also much better sounding and easier to play. If you are looking for the voicing of the Guitalele but want a fine instrument - try a Requinto.

Thanks for taking the time for such an in depth review of getting used to the guitalele booli! You really answered some of my worries with the guitalele!
I only briefly tried the G1 at my local dealer, but the fret spacing was just impossible to work with - at least it felt like that.
I'm sure sitting with the instrument more then 10 minutes would do the trick

I am usually able to pull of a mini-barre, using 1 finger to hold 3 strings, but it obviously really depends on the instrument. Not sure I'd be able to do it on a guitalele.


Thanks katysax! I've really thought hard about getting a requinto instead of a guitalele, but decided on the guitalele.
One of the things I absolutely adore about the guitalele (and ukulele for the matter) is the size!

I love what sound and music I can produce with such a small instrument. It's just such a charming little thing!
An odd, but important factor too, is actually how people respond to these kind of instruments.
Being a rather tall person (2 meters) EVERYONE can't help but smile whenever I take out a ukulele. It's just so little compared to the size of me - and it really lights up the mood whatever the situation may be. To be able to do that, is also important to me.

Helms said:

I only briefly tried the G1 at my local dealer, but the fret spacing was just impossible to work with - at least it felt like that.
I'm sure sitting with the instrument more then 10 minutes would do the trick

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I came to uke from a background in classical guitar. I had no problem adjusting to a tenor uke's fretboard. I have a G1 and have yet to really get used to the spacing. The fretboard is just too cramped for me.

CGs come in different scales. You can get a 1/2 or a 1/4 sized. But see if you can try it first.

The yamaha GL1 is a tenor guitarlele? right? Sorry, I've never really seen it in real life. Anyway, if you want a nice solid body guitarlele, I would suggest taisamlu on ebay if you're willing to take the risk. I have his solid mahogany tenor sized guitarlele, it sounds awesome and has spot on intonation! The only two problems I faced were the action (which was easily fixed by sanding down the saddle) and the imbalance of the headstock and body (the headstock is heavier than the body, possibly due to the thick neck but I'm pretty sure this is the same with other guitarleles).

Anyway, taisamlu makes baritone sized guitarleles now so if you feel like going for a larger than usual size, there's that.

Helms said:

.... Thanks katysax! I've really thought hard about getting a requinto instead of a guitalele, but decided on the guitalele. One of the things I absolutely adore about the guitalele (and ukulele for the matter) is the size! ....

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Corodba makes a 1/2 size requinto that has a scale similar to that of a typical guitalele; it may be a few centimeters bigger.
http://www.amazon.com/Cordoba-Requinto-580-Acoustic-Classical/dp/B007RMD4D4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1386584335&sr=8-1&keywords=cordoba+requinto
I have one of these (tuned ADGCEA) that seems to be very well-built and, in my view, higher quality than the Yamaha guitalele.

Bill1 said:

I saw this while I was surfing around. If the instrument is what you are looking for it seems to be in the right price range and has a short delivery, although I don't know how long it would take to get from Germany to Denmark, through customs and post. It also seems to have steel strings, which may rule it out, but it is only 60cm long, with six strings.
http://www.brueko.de/shop/product_i...hogany.html&XTCsid=t6takrrddnphfsbtnau2uj2d61

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No customs worry within the EU and no extra tax if tax has been paid at source. It was for me when I bought a uke from Brueko. Delivery was prompt and their quality is excellent.

Sorry you aren't in the US. Last week best buy had cordoba gp100s on sale for 69usd. I'd bought one earlier but returned because I noticed a buzz caused by something loose under the bridge. I'm almost tempted to just advise you to either hold out for the gretsch, or the bruko, or look at one of those nylon strung requintos that seem to run under 300USD or so. I decided to wimp out and test drive one of my ukuleles with a low g and see if that does the trick.