What's your absolute "Deal-Breaker"?

Bill1 said:
The biggest deal breaker for me is the price. If I can't afford the purchase price, I don't buy the uke.
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Yes! That's a definite. When I read one of Baz's reviews, the price is a main concern. It doesn't matter how much I like it if the price is too high. When I saw his review of the Bonanza Oreo, my first thought was of the price. it was a beautiful uke, but how much was it? Fortunately, the price was reasonable, so I ordered one.
 
Just Russ said:
I like tons of ukes, but even if a dream ukulele was offered for free from a person that made it smell heavily of smoke, I’m out.
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Totally with you on this. It would never get played.
Also thick necks. On two concert ukes, I love the sound of my cedar Kala so much better, but the mahogany Mainland fits my hand so much better. I'm not fond of mahogany I've found. Sounds kind of muddy to me. There's another: I'll never get another mahogany uke.
 
For me, having geared tuners on a soprano or smaller uke is a real turn off. This is the reason I will probably never buy a Kanile'a, sadly.
 
Friction tuners and fat necks! No matter how sweet the sound, I just can't deal with a fat neck, give me something thin and radiused..... UPTs spoiled me.... so now I hate friction tuners.
 
shanmoon said:
Friction tuners and fat necks!
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Friction tuners are awful, but they would never keep me from buying a uke. Yesterday, I brought two Martins to a jam - a soprano and a concert. Tuning the concert with its geared tuners was a breeze. Tuning the soprano was a matter of which direction I wanted the tuning to be off, high or low. I can see a set of Ratio tuners going nicely on that OX Bamboo.
 
Ludwig. said:
Just now discovered this thread and read through most of it – no one said strap buttons yet?

There are and were quite a few ukes at the marketplace that I might have been interested in – if only they weren‘t destroyed by strap buttons. Why people, why? :D Even on sopranos?
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Strap buttons (and straps of ukes) could almost have a thread of their own. I used to be in the strapless category until the banjolele and metal resonator ukes came into my herd. They were either to awkward or heavy/slippery to play standing up. Then I noticed how much "free-er" my hands/arms were when they weren't performing at least 2 functions like playing chords and holding up the neck of the uke or strumming and pinning the uke against me. That was the first "aah-haa". The second was now my ukes were at the same height, as each other, and regardless of whether I was sitting or standing. That's when I added a button/strap to a few wood ukes. That was aah-haa number 3, a uke pinned tightly against your body gets muffled more that one loosely hanging against your body. This isn't apparent when you're jamming with a group but along in your "quiet place" it is. So now everything I own has at least 1 strap button, some 2 (I still haven't decided if I prefer the top end of the strap tied above the nut or on a 2nd button on the heel, there are pros and cons both ways to me, enough so that I'm about 1/2 and 1/2). As for sopranos, every though they can be feather light, I now feel like my arms are bunched up tight around me (as compared to when I'm "strapped in"), and where I strum the strings has to change because my forearm length doesn't change easily. So especially on my sopranos and sopraninos, even when the strap takes up more room in the case than the uke :)

Now back to the original topic, if a uke sounds GREAT, I can put up with variations in neck shape, radius or flat, bindings, tuners I can replace, even being "well played". Maybe that's because I have many to choose from and I grab what fits how I'm feeling that moment. But if it smells bad (and smoke to a non-smoker is probably as bad as it gets), or has "battle scars" where my hands touch, I can't get by that.

Now if I could only have 1 ukulele, besides being miserable what features would it have? That's a topic for another day! Keep strumming them all. Rick
 
rhiggie said:
Then I noticed how much "free-er" my hands/arms were when they weren't performing at least 2 functions like playing chords and holding up the neck of the uke or strumming and pinning the uke against me.
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Many instructors (Gerald Ross, for example) recommend using straps, if only to make it easier to strum and fret. If you search for attractive-looking buttons, they can add to the appearance. I'm always impressed to see George Formby playing his big banjo uke without a strap. He must have used Velcro. :D
 
I'm really turned off by painted, laser-etched, wood-burned (pyrography?) decorations, usually on cheap Asian imports, but sometimes also on some higher-end ukuleles. I want to enjoy the beauty of the woods, not some cartoonish turtle pictures or someone's idea of a Hawaiian tribal symbol.
 
Snargle said:
I'm really turned off by painted, laser-etched, wood-burned (pyrography?) decorations, usually on cheap Asian imports, but sometimes also on some higher-end ukuleles. I want to enjoy the beauty of the woods, not some cartoonish turtle pictures or someone's idea of a Hawaiian tribal symbol.
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I have to say I totally agree with this. I'm not against etchings or other decoration completely, but if I'm going to touch a uke with that kind of stuff on it it has to be very subtle.
 
Bad intonation and cheap white tuning knobs
 
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