Stale Peanuts?

So, I picked up my Waterman soprano today to give it one more chance to be useful. I didn't even really care if it sounded "good". I just wanted to throw it in the back of the car (I'm a driving instructor, spend a lot of time in the car... sometimes just waiting somewhere for 15-20 minutes) to have something to play. But, as before, I just couldn't get the intonation to be even remotely acceptable. Maybe I'll just take the tuners and strings off of it and use it for a garage project? Couldn't do any worse.

Time to spend some money! I can either buy a "nicer" uke and relegate my Eastrock Concert to car duty (it would probably survive okay being laminate)... or buy some kind of a travel uke designed to take such abuse.

Poking around, of course there are other plastic ukes like (probably better than) the Waterman, and better ones with wood soundboards and such. All possibilities.

Then I found the Peanut ukes again. Oh, I'd looked at them before, and very nearly pulled the trigger before.

The Eddie Finn PNUT seemed like a good solution to what I was after... and only $79.

Then, I stumbled upon the BugsGear Concert scale Peanut on Amazon... for $28!!!

I like that it's Concert. That's become my favorite size. I don't have the reach to be comfortable on a Tenor, and I find a Soprano too cramped. Concert is the goldilocks zone. This makes the BugsGear stand far above the Eddie Finn for me.

I'm guessing the BugsGear is discontinued. It's only available in red or green. No natural finish. Not even black. But, it's just something to play in the car. Doesn't have to be pretty, and for $28, I could always repaint it.

So, I ordered a fugly green one. Even paid $3 extra for next day shipping. In theory, I'll have it by 10pm.

Maybe someday I'll actually buy a real ukulele.

Good luck, I hope the fugly green peanut works out for you.

Do you have access to written music on your phone?

I've downloaded a couple different apps, but haven't played with them much. I find it too hard to focus on the small screen while I'm playing. Might actually be easier to do that in the car, since my phone is on a mount up where I can easily see it.

I'll probably just work on practicing songs that I already know, or sort of know... or noodling around. I have fun goofing around blues scales, major scales, and more recently discovered the Japanese scale. Also just dancing around different chord progressions.

I've even figured out how to play a classical guitar piece (one of RJ Putter's tabs, Bianco Fiore) from memory. It's literally the only "fingerstyle" thing I've ever played, I'm pretty stunned that I can play it at all. But, now that I've learned it, I try to play it at least once per day and get more fluid with it so that maybe someday I can actually do it justice. And... maybe I'll learn to play similar things.

Still having fun playing with the ukulele!

Post up your thoughts...I considered both of those but the reviews are not stellar unfortunately

Oops! Curiosity took me over to Amazon to see for myself what that "fugly" Uke looked like. Well, I see a mistake in the advertising. The Amazon lead in page says "Concert" but in the description of the instrument, it says "Soprano." I hope you're going to get what you want. But, I'm doubting it.

Yeah, I saw that, too. Hoping I get a Concert! They have another listing for a Soprano, and you can tell in the photos that they are different. This one is fretted for a Concert scale in the photos. The top description says Soprano with specs as such, the lower details say Concert with specs for that.

We shall see.

Initial order was promised by 10pm. Just got an email that says "earlier" and it's been shipped.

I fully expect disappointment. Delivery on Monday, and a Soprano. Anything more than that will be a bonus!

Color me happy.

Uke showed up about 5:30pm, and it IS a Concert scale!

It's not perfect. There's a spot where the green paint is thin and you can see black under it. Inside is VERY sloppy with glue. But, it seems solid. Very lightweight. And at first try, it seems to play well.

The sound is... not tinny. It sounds "okay", it reminds me of an old AM transistor radio. Well, that's with my typical "thumb strum". It's just quiet. If I attack it with a nail, it's louder.

It came with wound Low G string. I didn't like wound strings when I first started playing. I'll give it a shot. And I may lower the action a tiny bit. It's not bad, but I like it nice and low.

I do like the tuner knobs off of the back rather than the sides. Easier to tune.

The bracing on the bottom of this thing is crazy! Very beefy. Feels like it has just one little top brace next to the sound hole.

I can see me adding a side port to this just due to how I plan to use it.

The color is... green. Not obnoxious, though. I can live with it.

Low G is good.

I really like the sound of this wound Low G string, but I remember what I don't like. The noise is makes when you slide across it. I'll leave it for a while, but I don't I'll keep it.

The intonation is not too bad. Could stand to lower the nut slots a tiny bit, and the saddle, too. Not because it desperately needs it, just because I can. Like any uke, it will play better and sound better with good setup.

Oh, and it's definitely got sharp fret ends. Some of them very sharp. The frets aren't "rough" like my last uke, but they could stand a little polish.

So, rough around the edges for sure... but for $28... excellent!

And it has incredible sustain on all strings. I guess that's due to the beefy neck support giving the sound something to hang on to.

If the thin spot on the paint bothers you, just slap on a sticker you like! It's good to have a knockaround, junker Uke that can go anywhere without a care. You can literally throw it in the back seat, and take off to the beach or park without any concerns for its well being. The more battle scars the better!

This one will live in the back seat of my driver's ed car. It came with a nice padded case. I may even use it!

Playing with the setup, I'm coming to the conclusion that these are probably quality control rejects that should have been destroyed, or at least had the company name removed from them. It seems like there are obvious blemishes... and they may have not completed the rest of their process. Things like the absurdly sharp fret ends lead me to think that. Or maybe, they just put out a well-designed slightly crappy product? It's proudly got a "made in China" sticker on the back of the head.

But, again for $28, I'm pretty happy with it.

I pulled the strings off, dressed the fret ends and polished the frets. Filed the nut slots to a touch over .020", and shaved a smidge off of the saddle.

Then restrung it with its standard Aquila strings, but re-ordered for Low G. The strings are taking their time getting settled.

Ended up with action of a little under 1/8" at the 12th fret, but no fret buzzes, so that's fine.

I did have a buzz on the G string at the nut. Must have widened that slot too much. Jammed a piece of paper under the string. Problem solved!

The intonation seems very good. Hard to judge when the strings go out of tune before you can check more than one location! It's very playable.

The only remaining problem, and this is purely due to the way I choose to string and tune it (my Eastrock has exactly the same problem, just slightly less... and the nut and fretboard look identical between the two), is that if I try to bend the G string, it slides off the end of the fret. I need to make a custom nut and bring the string spacing in just a bit. I'm using a C string for the Low G, so it's a low-tension string, and I'm actually tuned a half step below Low G. I don't know why, but I just like that tuning.

I may just play around that problem for a while.

That sounds like a perfect opportunity to try out the good old super glue and baking soda trick. Just mix up a little baking soda with a couple of drops of the glue, then quickly apply it, filling the nut slot. It will adhere and harden. Then, you essentially have a new nut, so just file in a slot for the string. It makes a perfect fix, and here you have a chance to learn the process on a Uke that isn't all that important. Do it just for the learning experience, if not for the Uke.

I'd do that, but I already have a handful of spare nuts. I just checked, the ones I have already have shallow slots in them. But, the slots are indeed spaced closer together and inboard of where they are on this uke. Easy fix without doing anything fancy.

Just need align some time and motivation to do it.

I'm actually dragging this thing out to the car tomorrow! Not sure I'll have time to play it with my schedule tomorrow, but it will be there.

I've got the intonation quite nice on it. Compensated the saddle for about 1mm longer string length, slightly less on the C string. My harmonic vs 12th fret intonation isn't perfect (I don't remember why that matters, it's still pretty close), but the open vs 12th fret octave is VERY tight.

I fitted a new nut with proper string spacing. THAT is nice.

I experimented using a shaved toothpick on each string to figure out how much nut compensation I needed. And it ended up being so much on the G string that I opted to not try to do it with the nut. (on my other uke, I undercut the nut so that it would extend over the fretboard by a about a mm... the adjustment required here was too much for that) Instead, I used those same toothpick pieces and glued them to the fretboard as a sort of zero fret. On the G string it's a good 2-2.5mm. E string is half that. The other two strings didn't need anything. I may revisit that at some point, I'm sure those toothpicks will wear out and start buzzing after a while. I guess I could shave the end of the fretboard to move the nut.

With all of that, the intonation on the first three frets is +/- 3 cents, and everything down to the 12th fret is +3 to -5 or so. Far better than my ear. And if I check with my cheap clip-on tuner, it shows "in the green" everywhere.

It PLAYS nice. I'm very pleased with the little thing!

Just got one. I'm kind of a sucker for novelty ukes.

My observation is pretty close. The red painted finish screams "$28 ukulele", but I'm not seeing anything really indicating flawed or factory second. The fret ends would really benefit from some smoothing. Mine came with a high G. Sound is understandably tinny, though loud. Louder than I expected. I'll probably be putting a low G monofilament, as I've come to really like them on all ukes. Plus it might balance out the tinny a bit. Setup out of the box is passable, but I'll be refining it as soon as I get the low G. Yes, it's crazy how heavily braced the back is. One beefy center lengthwise brace straddled by four huge transverse braces. I wonder why the did that? Whatever doorskin material they used to construct the instrument is likely plenty strong enough. Not that I'm complaining. It's just odd. It also came with a strap button on the end block. Which is useful, as a strap might aid in holding it. The tiny body isn't as good for holding as I thought it would be. I'll probably stick another strap button on the back of the headstock right where the "Made in China" sticker is.

All in all, inexpensive, usable, weird, doesn't need a total rework... I approve.

ETA: Oh and it's a soprano. The amazon listing showed a red instrument, but curiously the description said, "Size: Red, Color: Black".