Outdoor Ukulele Soprano

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I recently purchased a green soprano Outdoor Ukulele from @TobyDog and I gotta say, I am surprised by how good this thing plays and sounds.

First I’d like to give thanks to TobyDog for making the sale so easy.

I am somewhat new to ukulele but I’ve been around music and instruments a while. This is my second plastic uke, the first being a Kala Waterman (the truck uke), which I will review/comment on at a later date.

In full disclosure, I had high expectations for the Outdoor Ukulele and low expectations for the Waterman having had read enough reviews to know basically what to expect. In reality the Outdoor Ukulele was better than I anticipated it would be.

The Outdoor Ukulele arrived almost in tune. That's right from the east coast to the west coast, going through some rather extreme weather conditions, the uke arrived ready to play. The design seems much more rigid and stable than the Waterman and I think this accounts for the majority of the enhanced tuning stability… I also believe that the fluorocarbon strings account for a chunk of it, too. In fact, I am ready to switch all of my uses over. This is my first fluorocarbon uke but I am very impressed with the feel, sound, and tension of these strings.

Overall I would say that the Outdoor Ukulele is everything I hoped it would be and then some. Being able to pick up a very fairly priced used example has allowed me to realize that the retail asking price from the factory is actually a very fair price for a good quality, American made instrument. I plan to purchase others, like the new BLUE units just released this week. <3 So sweet they are.

At the end of the day, if you are looking for a “plastic” uke and are on the fence as to whether you should spend the extra money on an Outdoor Ukulele, I am here to say yeah, you should. If you don’t now, you probably will later. I did.

The fit and feel of this uke is great. It feels good in hand, very comfortable and well balanced. The tone is surprisingly good. It really sings with a nice well rounded tone… this may be the fluorocarbon strings, I don’t know, but it sounds good… not plastic-ie. For me this is a major win. This ukulele has accomplished exactly what it set out to do. I’d give it an A.

I am not a huge fan of typing but I do love reviewing. If you think a video review would add value to what I have offered here, let me know. If what I have left here is missing something that would give it added value, I would love to know that, too.

I hope this helps you decide to buy an Outdoor Ukulele. I am stoked with mine. :D
Planning on buying the green soprano on monday. Do you have any intonation issues on yours? Just curious since someone else posted about how they had intonations issues on certain strings etc. Thanks.
 
In summary...there are plenty of reasons to not like Outdoor Ukulele. Intonation isn’t one of them.

On the couple of sopranos of theirs I have played, intonation WAS an issue. It was pretty poor in fact. Nothing to do with my technique either.
 
On the couple of sopranos of theirs I have played, intonation WAS an issue. It was pretty poor in fact. Nothing to do with my technique either.

I was someone who returned their soprano due to poor intonation, so I appreciate that comment. It wasn't my playing style; it was simply playing a D on the C string while watching the tuner, and as I recall it was 5-6 clicks sharp no matter how I tried to adjust how I played that note. Consequently, I would cringe whenever I played a D chord. Granted, I'm picky when it comes to pitch and many ukes seem to have that same problem, but it was bad enough I couldn't enjoy playing it.

I sooo wanted something I could leave in the car and contacted the company about a replacement. Although they were very gracious about me returning it, they said that every soprano would be the same because they used the same mold. So I'm stymied when I hear people say the intonation is good. I did end up buying a used tenor and was much happier with both the intonation and the sound in general, but I found it heavy and cumbersome for my needs so I sold it.

Choirguy- I notice you said that you had Martin 600's on it. At the time I was just starting to play and knew absolutely nothing about strings. Now I'm wondering how much of a difference that would make, since they come with D'Addario strings. Are the Martin strings thinner than the ones it comes with? Perhaps that allows it to sit lower at the nut on the C string??? As you can tell I still want one, lol.
 
I was someone who returned their soprano due to poor intonation, so I appreciate that comment. It wasn't my playing style; it was simply playing a D on the C string while watching the tuner, and as I recall it was 5-6 clicks sharp no matter how I tried to adjust how I played that note. Consequently, I would cringe whenever I played a D chord. Granted, I'm picky when it comes to pitch and many ukes seem to have that same problem, but it was bad enough I couldn't enjoy playing it.

I've been thinking about getting a soprano OU ever since briefly I played one. I was wondering if the sopranos with the bad intonation were from the earlier generation with the extra-tall frets or from the current re-tooled generation. Do you happen to know?
 
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Choirguy- I notice you said that you had Martin 600's on it. At the time I was just starting to play and knew absolutely nothing about strings. Now I'm wondering how much of a difference that would make, since they come with D'Addario strings. Are the Martin strings thinner than the ones it comes with? Perhaps that allows it to sit lower at the nut on the C string??? As you can tell I still want one, lol.

Oh goodness...I just noticed this had been asked back in March. I check the forums once a day or less...so I miss some things. If anyone ever needs to ask a question and I don't answer...please message me and I'll be sure to comment!

I don't know if the M600s are thinner, but I actually brought my 2nd generation Outdoor Ukulele to school with me today, and it still is a great playing ukulele, even if there are plastic ukuleles--in my opinion--that sound better. The intonation doesn't bother me...but I also have an Opio Tenor with the dreaded "wolf note" that I'm quite happy to play with.
 
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