I think I will have to buy one when they come into the local shop. If it is under $50 it wont be a burden to buy and try out. If it is down around $20, I could get two, one to fiddle with and one to leave alone until I know what I am doing.
The Mahalo U30, which is no longer in production was one of the first high production low cost ukes on the market late last century and its possible that its availability opened up a few doors for ukuleles to become more popular. I think the archives of a board like the Ukulelecosmos will have some posts from early in the century when a start up group would do a bulk buy of U30s and then have a group fettling session to adjust the action and intonation. I have several U30s of various ages, some of them are ageing well, others are still "opening up" and probably will be until next century. I use them as loaners and share them with interested people, they are good enough for a new person to get an idea of ukes without buying one.
One of the problems I have with the soprano size it that it is about an inch too long for a lot of backpacks. Many backpacks are designed to be 20" high or about 50cm. So a 47cm uke will fit in without any bulge or stretching. This would make it an ideal travelling companion if it sounds good and plays well. If you are only entertaining yourself, the tuning is relevant, but you can adapt the uke as a transposing instrument and play ukulele arrangements.
Perhaps it will only come out in one colour for the first run to see how it goes in the market? If it goes well, then other colours and decorations may follow.
I think that it’s worth capturing this so I have.
Because I’ve been looking for a beater (I just can’t bear the idea of taking much more than a U30 or Dolphin anywhere rough) I had looked at Mahalo’s and indeed have had a couple. A U50 was made to be OK but then given away and a Kahiko - even after work - was so unsatisfying in use to me that I just binned it. The U30’s are interesting in that I suspect that the design and build did change over the years whilst the name/model number remained the same. Detailed historic data on them seems hard to come by. Whatever to me, and maybe some others too, the Mahalo name indicates both opportunity and risk. I wouldn’t automatically turn my nose up at a Mahalo but IMHO a Makala is worth the very little extra cost and much more likely to give a decent Uke.
A short while back I searched Cosmos for U30 stuff but really didn’t come up with anything particularly significant or new to me. They were affordable, they were (obviously) capable of making some ‘good enough music’, they were not unpopular, they usually needed work on them and you needed to change the strings to Aquila Nylgut Concerts. IMHO it’s a great shame that the adoption, use and (owner) improvements of the U30 aren’t recorded somewhere. They were at the front on this current Uke boom and important in re-establishing Uke playing.
Cheap Ukes, I just love ‘em. Well, that is, provided that they function as a musical instrument and not all of them do.
EDIT
I've owned their soprano-size smiley-face model for a few years, and found it to be pretty decent actually.
Being open minded I decided to look at the original Soprano version more closely and found one on offer for (as low as) 25 pounds delivered which, to my mind, is pretty darn cheap for a working instrument - which hopefully is what the maker and retailer intend it to be.
I then looked on-line for some demonstration videos and, to be honest, thought it sounded OK. Of course one should be wary and the expertly demonstrated Ukes had all been set-up (they played in tune along their fretboards) whilst the inexpertly demonstrated one was not pleasing to the ear. One expert demonstrator claimed to have nylon strings on whilst others said they’d got Worth CM’s on. I wouldn’t like to hazard to truth on what’s what with those videos, take ‘em with ‘a pinch of salt’ and consider the manufacture supported one to be as positive a demonstration as could possibly be made.
Anyway, what I’d like to hear is more about what the OP thinks of their Smiley Mahalo Soprano and how they set it up to play well for them, please.
