Ohana concert CK-35S

The Ohana CK-35S is an all-solid mahogany with rosewood binding and a satin finish.

Does anyone here have one or had experience with one to comment on it good or bad?

I have a very similar model, the SK-30M which is an all-solid mahogany long-neck soprano (concert scale), satin finish with no binding and I like it a lot. My wife has started playing uke and has kind of claimed the SK-30M so I was kind of contemplating a potential replacement.

I do have an CK-35S, and it is great! It was my "workhorse" instrument for a while. Very good mahogany sound and a great value for the price.

Mine came from Mim, so it has an excellent setup. I strongly prefer its sound with fluorocarbon strings, but that is really just personal preference.

(I spend a lot more time with my more expensive instruments these days, so if you might be interested in a used one, let me know.)

mikelz777 said:

The Ohana CK-35S is an all-solid mahogany with rosewood binding and a satin finish.

Does anyone here have one or had experience with one to comment on it good or bad?

I have a very similar model, the SK-30M which is an all-solid mahogany long-neck soprano (concert scale), satin finish with no binding and I like it a lot. My wife has started playing uke and has kind of claimed the SK-30M so I was kind of contemplating a potential replacement.

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I have the CK35GS which is nearly the same (gloss with side tuners). To my mind it’s a really fine looking instrument which plays reasonably well; or to put it a different way IMHO it’s more show than go, but it does go enough. I bought mine second hand, it was virtually unused, it’s about ten years old and I had to sort out a few things - which is possibly why it was virtually unused. Perhaps I was unlucky or maybe the newer ones are better but initially my Ohana was a disappointment to me. However, after (corrective) work and then lots of use it is now growing on me. I feel that the more I play it the better it sounds (tone wise) and I think that the volume is increasing a little too ... mine’s not a loud Uke. I prefer Sopranos to Concerts but otherwise I think it’s OK and have no plans to move it on.

Edit. It is now November 2020 and I bought my second hand CK35CS in July of this year. Over the five months that I have owned and played this Uke its voice and volume have changed rather a lot, and for the better. It just seems to keep on opening up and now sounds great. I checked it last night against another Uke that I use as a standard and the results are good, the CK35 seems to be Top Dog now - quite a change. A good set-up, good strings and then just playing to facilitate further change makes a difference; I knew about the first two factors but for this Uke the third has being a revaluation.

Graham Greenbag said:

I have the CK35GS which is nearly the same (gloss with side tuners). To my mind it

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Oops! It looks like your post was cut off just as you were about to share your opinion...

I'll be watching this one. Am considering a CK-35GS as well as the SK-30M (also Flight LUS5 or maybe an Eastman EU3C if I want to get more spendy). The concert scale is great for more complicated music, just not 100% sold on the concert sound.

I have a CK-35S and it has been my most-played ukulele until just recently (purchased a used Koaloha Opio Spruce concert).

I haven't had much opportunity to try out many ukuleles since I only began playing during Shelter-in-Place. But in the last 8 weeks, I've had a chance to visit a couple music stores and have tried a few Gretsch, Kala, and Pono concert ukuleles. I preferred the CK-35S to any I tried amongst those 3 brands. Nothing from Gretsch or Kala compare to the CK-35S and it sounded as good to my ears, but felt better in my hands, than the Pono MC and MCD. I also tried a Koaloha koa concert and that one sound a lot better than the CK-35S, but also cost 4-5x more.

I put Worth Brown Medium strings on my CK-35s about 8 weeks ago and this combination is warmer and more mellow than the stock strings. But in the next few days, I will be re-stringing with Worth Clear Light, just to experiment with how different strings create a different sound.

mikelz777 said:

Oops! It looks like your post was cut off just as you were about to share your opinion...

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Yep it was, however I had saved the text to my computer so managed to recover what had been lost. It’s a frustrating situation but I love UU so will manage it any which way I can.

TQuest said:

I have a CK-35S and it has been my most-played ukulele until just recently (purchased a used Koaloha Opio Spruce concert).

I haven't had much opportunity to try out many ukuleles since I only began playing during Shelter-in-Place. But in the last 8 weeks, I've had a chance to visit a couple music stores and have tried a few Gretsch, Kala, and Pono concert ukuleles. I preferred the CK-35S to any I tried amongst those 3 brands. Nothing from Gretsch or Kala compare to the CK-35S and it sounded as good to my ears, but felt better in my hands, than the Pono MC and MCD. I also tried a Koaloha koa concert and that one sound a lot better than the CK-35S, but also cost 4-5x more.

I put Worth Brown Medium strings on my CK-35s about 8 weeks ago and this combination is warmer and more mellow than the stock strings. But in the next few days, I will be re-stringing with Worth Clear Light, just to experiment with how different strings create a different sound.

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Sound wise I suspect that the mat finish is more advantageous than the gloss, but when you buy second hand (as I did) your choices are limited. I recall reading somewhere that gloss takes longer to ‘open-up’ than mat. Congratulations on the Opio, I would love one of the standard Koa (?) ones.

Worth BM’s are a popular upgrade (from the stock Aquila’s) on those Ukes. Recently folk have been suggesting that Living Waters strings are even better and my suspicion is that Ken has tweaked his string set based on the best that Worth supply. I’ve been pretty happy with Martin M600’s, they get a reliable 9/10 score from me but LW might manage 10/10 ... perhaps I should take a chance next time I need fresh strings.

glennerd said:

I'll be watching this one. Am considering a CK-35GS as well as the SK-30M (also Flight LUS5 or maybe an Eastman EU3C if I want to get more spendy). The concert scale is great for more complicated music, just not 100% sold on the concert sound.

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These were my impressions of the SK-30M when I got it in Feb. of last year:

"I got my Ohana SK-30M about a week ago and my first impression was amusement at how small the body is! I only have concerts so it looks so tiny! It was a B stock I bought from Mim. It doesn't have a "B" imprinted on the inner label so it must have been declared a B stock by Mim rather than Ohana. She said it had light scratches all over the body which it does but in order to even see them you have to hold it so the light catches it just right and you have to purposely look very hard to see them. I may not have even noticed them if I didn't already know they were there.

Sound-wise I think that this is a little gem. I love the tone and the warm sound and it's got a nice sustain. It's got good volume for its size, a little louder than I thought it might be. I played it for several hours to help break the strings in and then I played it side by side with one of my concerts to compare the sound. Maybe it's just me but I didn't think there was really that much difference in the sound between a soprano and a concert. I thought that there would be a more sizable difference. The soprano is just a bit more high and chimey. I love the look and feel of the satin finish. (I can already sense that my love for the satin finish is only going to feed my lust for another uke I have my eye on which also has a satin finish.) I'm very happy with it and could easily recommend it to anyone looking for a solid long neck soprano. I think it's a great value and to me, worth more than its price point."

(FYI, I had Worth Browns put on it.)

mikelz777 said:

These were my impressions of the SK-30M when I got it in Feb. of last year:

"I got my Ohana SK-30M about a week ago and my first impression was amusement at how small the body is! I only have concerts so it looks so tiny! It was a B stock I bought from Mim. It doesn't have a "B" imprinted on the inner label so it must have been declared a B stock by Mim rather than Ohana. She said it had light scratches all over the body which it does but in order to even see them you have to hold it so the light catches it just right and you have to purposely look very hard to see them. I may not have even noticed them if I didn't already know they were there.

Sound-wise I think that this is a little gem. I love the tone and the warm sound and it's got a nice sustain. It's got good volume for its size, a little louder than I thought it might be. I played it for several hours to help break the strings in and then I played it side by side with one of my concerts to compare the sound. Maybe it's just me but I didn't think there was really that much difference in the sound between a soprano and a concert. I thought that there would be a more sizable difference. The soprano is just a bit more high and chimey. I love the look and feel of the satin finish. (I can already sense that my love for the satin finish is only going to feed my lust for another uke I have my eye on which also has a satin finish.) I'm very happy with it and could easily recommend it to anyone looking for a solid long neck soprano. I think it's a great value and to me, worth more than its price point."

(FYI, I had Worth Browns put on it.)

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Thanks for the feedback. I've wanted one of these for years (SK-30M) as I started out on a Kala longneck and saw it as an upgrade. Some other ukulele would always pull me away, but maybe it's time I got one. I think my ear is so used to the soprano sound that concert bodies sound too full to me. But from videos, the CK-35 sounds like I could get to like it too.