Teej
Member
I live in Canada, Victoria in winter, Quebec cottage in summer and have had OAS since December last. I was looking for a beater uke in Ottawa recently, strumming through the cheaper offerings having given up on finding an Outdoor tenor or Islander soprano. Most of what I encountered in the under $150 was pretty mundane and forgettable. Nothing even close to “must have”.
One very glossy tenor caught my eye. At first its orangy tiger stripes (supposedly flame maple) hit me as gaudy and I probably wouldn’t have bothered until I saw it was a Beaver Creek. I had seen them often in Victoria and found that they played and sounded well above their price point. The leader of the ukulele course I took last winter arranged a group buy of this brand for the newbies and got one himself.
This one, priced at $119 Canadian ($80 US) was no exception and sounded sweet and clear especially with its reentrant tuning. It had a built in preamp and tuner and felt very pleasant to play with a wide neck and nice action. I bought it notwithstanding its unsubtle appearance because I loved its tone especially for that price.
Over the next week I kept trying to find fault with it to justify its low price. The bookpage matching was perfect, so perfect I thought it might be plastic veneer. The strings I had presumed were Aquilas werent dry feeling and are similar to Living Waters. On the outside its build quality is wonderful with beautifully dressed frets on a dark wooden fretboard and decent open geaed tuners that work great.
Thi inside aint so great with the wires for the preamp floating free, and sloppy kerfing in a few spots with some glue leakge but nothing serious or not easily remedied. I was pleasantly stumped.
I found my uke on the site of a canadian retailer,
https://cosmomusic.ca/ukulele-tenor-beaver-creek-flame-maple.html
and learned that it is imported from china by D’Addario, the string and accessory folks so with their reputation at stake you know they are not peddling crap. They apparently bring them into this country only and to give them a unique Canadian flavour, named them after a Colorado ski resort.
I found the baritone version of my uke, that I now call Tony, in another shop where I was told Beaver Creeks are manufactured in the same factory as Ortegas. After a little digging I found:
https://ortegaguitars.com/product-f...leles/ukulele/show/Product/rue12fmh/rue12fmh/
These Ortegas are popular in Europe and I have found this model selling for $279 in the US and 175£ in England.
WOW! Canadians are used to getting hosed (hence “Hosers”) on price compared to other countries and its rare to find an anomaly such as this.
Its possible that the kerfing flaws were discovered by Ortega before their logo was applied prior to the varnish coat over and these seconds were sold to D’Addario for needy Canadians.
Im most pleased that my novice ear can detect quality notwithstanding price and I am also pleased that I now again need a beater uke.
One very glossy tenor caught my eye. At first its orangy tiger stripes (supposedly flame maple) hit me as gaudy and I probably wouldn’t have bothered until I saw it was a Beaver Creek. I had seen them often in Victoria and found that they played and sounded well above their price point. The leader of the ukulele course I took last winter arranged a group buy of this brand for the newbies and got one himself.
This one, priced at $119 Canadian ($80 US) was no exception and sounded sweet and clear especially with its reentrant tuning. It had a built in preamp and tuner and felt very pleasant to play with a wide neck and nice action. I bought it notwithstanding its unsubtle appearance because I loved its tone especially for that price.
Over the next week I kept trying to find fault with it to justify its low price. The bookpage matching was perfect, so perfect I thought it might be plastic veneer. The strings I had presumed were Aquilas werent dry feeling and are similar to Living Waters. On the outside its build quality is wonderful with beautifully dressed frets on a dark wooden fretboard and decent open geaed tuners that work great.
Thi inside aint so great with the wires for the preamp floating free, and sloppy kerfing in a few spots with some glue leakge but nothing serious or not easily remedied. I was pleasantly stumped.
I found my uke on the site of a canadian retailer,
https://cosmomusic.ca/ukulele-tenor-beaver-creek-flame-maple.html
and learned that it is imported from china by D’Addario, the string and accessory folks so with their reputation at stake you know they are not peddling crap. They apparently bring them into this country only and to give them a unique Canadian flavour, named them after a Colorado ski resort.
I found the baritone version of my uke, that I now call Tony, in another shop where I was told Beaver Creeks are manufactured in the same factory as Ortegas. After a little digging I found:
https://ortegaguitars.com/product-f...leles/ukulele/show/Product/rue12fmh/rue12fmh/
These Ortegas are popular in Europe and I have found this model selling for $279 in the US and 175£ in England.
WOW! Canadians are used to getting hosed (hence “Hosers”) on price compared to other countries and its rare to find an anomaly such as this.
Its possible that the kerfing flaws were discovered by Ortega before their logo was applied prior to the varnish coat over and these seconds were sold to D’Addario for needy Canadians.
Im most pleased that my novice ear can detect quality notwithstanding price and I am also pleased that I now again need a beater uke.
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