richntacoma
Well-known member
I know that pieces of this what I am exploring been discussed before, but not exactly as I am presenting it--I did do a search.
When this crazy pandemic winds down, I am going on three, one month-long trips around the world(lucky me, when, if...). I will be spending a month in SE Asia in the fall (super hot, super humid), West Africa in the winter, and in Latin America in the spring. In Latin America, I will be in the mountains some--cooler weather, maybe the beach a bit too, but not a ton.
I will play a good deal in my hotel, but will play also some in parks to meet people, an open mic or two, and in the early morning on the beach--I will have a good hard case. I am not a backpacker by any stretch, but crossing borders it may be inspected, others may want to play with it in public spaces, it may get bumped a wee bit.
I want to have something that I really want to play--this will be my sabbatical year, and I am practicing an hour a day of uke now and really am getting my chops to play the kind of music I enjoy (all strumming, no finger picking). This trip will be special to me, and I just don't want to buy a "beater"--I want it to sound good and feel good--that is subjective, or course, but playability is very important to me. As said, it does need to be stable and can handle some licks and humidity. I am not sure how much the last point matters for trips of those durations. How much does humidity impact an instrument in the short term?
What would you recommend? Is a solid top stable, strong and "bang proof" enough in case there are some "bumps", or should I get a "nice" laminate. I don't need/like a travel size/thinness, and don't really care about weight so much. Also, I want a really "good" quality instrument--I prefer the neck thickness and size of KoAloha and Ohana. I actually really like my Ohana ck-60 Mohogany, and while they don't get much love here, I was thinking about one of the nicer, more "interesting" Ohana special edition laminates, or, if it might hold up, one of their solid tops.
Thoughts? Any ideas? Price only a concern in that there is a chance it can be stolen, so a $1300 carbon uke might not be what I want. $500 and under, I would say, and I am a concert guy.
Thanks for all opinions!
Rich
When this crazy pandemic winds down, I am going on three, one month-long trips around the world(lucky me, when, if...). I will be spending a month in SE Asia in the fall (super hot, super humid), West Africa in the winter, and in Latin America in the spring. In Latin America, I will be in the mountains some--cooler weather, maybe the beach a bit too, but not a ton.
I will play a good deal in my hotel, but will play also some in parks to meet people, an open mic or two, and in the early morning on the beach--I will have a good hard case. I am not a backpacker by any stretch, but crossing borders it may be inspected, others may want to play with it in public spaces, it may get bumped a wee bit.
I want to have something that I really want to play--this will be my sabbatical year, and I am practicing an hour a day of uke now and really am getting my chops to play the kind of music I enjoy (all strumming, no finger picking). This trip will be special to me, and I just don't want to buy a "beater"--I want it to sound good and feel good--that is subjective, or course, but playability is very important to me. As said, it does need to be stable and can handle some licks and humidity. I am not sure how much the last point matters for trips of those durations. How much does humidity impact an instrument in the short term?
What would you recommend? Is a solid top stable, strong and "bang proof" enough in case there are some "bumps", or should I get a "nice" laminate. I don't need/like a travel size/thinness, and don't really care about weight so much. Also, I want a really "good" quality instrument--I prefer the neck thickness and size of KoAloha and Ohana. I actually really like my Ohana ck-60 Mohogany, and while they don't get much love here, I was thinking about one of the nicer, more "interesting" Ohana special edition laminates, or, if it might hold up, one of their solid tops.
Thoughts? Any ideas? Price only a concern in that there is a chance it can be stolen, so a $1300 carbon uke might not be what I want. $500 and under, I would say, and I am a concert guy.
Thanks for all opinions!
Rich
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