Am I the only owner of a Melokia?

johnnysmash

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I have been looking to see what others have in the ukulele lines and I see no one with a Melokia Tenor Ukulele listed except myself. I know others must own one somewhere. Mine is solid Acarcia and I love it. I would like to know what others think about their's.
 
I have a solid mahogany Melokia Tenor purchased new a number of years ago. It looks exactly like a Koa Pili Koko except for the logo. Looks & plays well. Unfortunately it has a few cracks in spite of humidification efforts.
 
I bought a cheap $29 Melokia soprano off Amazon in order to practice my setup skills.

The instrument itself is very lightweight and resonant and has a pleasing tone, even if it feels like it is made out of balsa wood...LOL.

However, the fret edges were sharp, frets were uneven (and in need of leveling and re-crowning), action at the nut and 12th fret was a mile high, and the saddle was placed about 10mm too close to the nut to achieve anything close to reasonable intonation (likely the bridge was placed incorrectly), yet the instrument had 17 frets, which I wanted on a soprano, and is rare on soprano...

After I corrected ALL of the above issues, and many hours of iterative tweaking, the instrument now intonates within 2 cents all the way up the neck, the action is great and it does not sound bad at all...

But I would not recommend one of these unless you are willing to put in the work to fix the issues that it has coming from the factory, but I was not disappointed because I wanted a cheap project, and boy did I get one.

Be careful what you wish for. :)
 
I've got to hand it to you Booli…………...you come up with some good ideas! I'm constantly fiddling with my ukes setup. Practice on a $29 instrument makes a ton of sense!
 
With music instruments, within reason, you really only get what you pay for. I would never purchase a cheap instrument again. I did once and that guitar warped bad within a month. My Melokia solid Acasia Tenor I purchased from Baan Ukulele located in Bangkok. Their factory is also in Bangkok. I bartered a little. Sales price was 9000 Baht. I purchased it for 7680 Baht cash. So at 33 baht to the dollar I paid about $235. If I had ordered through Amazon I would have had to pay custom taxes plus VAT, value added tax, plus their shipping charges - total estimated to be about $500. So I try to buy from within the country since I live here.

Lack of humidity. I do not think I will have a problem as long as my ukulele is keep inside. The sun is very hot here outside. Humidity in Thai is very high. Even in our air conditioned bedroom, mostly 24/7 one can feel the humidity.

Maybe tomorrow I will cry if it falls apart, but so far it plays and sounds beautiful.
 
When a ukulele cracks, can it be repaired or is it better left as is?
It's a Cost/Benefit Analysis. Does the crack create a rattle? How much does the luthier want to repair the crack? Our luthier charged just $20 to repair a crack in the back of my wife's Ohana, and she loved the instrument, and was afraid to play it with the crack, so she happily paid the fee. Other cracks may cost more to repair.

If you're talking about a $40 instrument, and your luthier wants $50 (or more) to repair it, I'd just buy another instrument.

Does the crack/s effect the tone in anyway?
Only you can answer that question. Does it sound different to you? I suppose it depends on where the crack is located, how big the crack is, and how big the ukulele is. Have you seen Willy Nelson's guitar lately?
 
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