Tell me about Martin soprano SO ukes

I have a Martin S O . It is the second uke I've owned and I like it alot. I bought mine used on Ebay. It looks great, it is flawless. It sounds great.
The frets are big , its a little plain looking but it is a really good ukulele.
I also own a vintage Martin style 1, Kiwaya kts-4, Harmony Roy Smeck ,
Stromberg-Voisinet banjo uke, a hawaiian souvenir uke ( its all koa and one of my favorites) and a Grizzly I built with inlays and bone nut and saddle.
Get a drill bit, start your hole with a small awl . You can get fret markers on Ebay, they are made of white or black plastic ,about 4 bucks. Mask your neck with tape to protect it, leave small spaces where you want your markers, start the hole with the awl, drill a whole about 1/4 inch , put a little titebond on the marker and stick it in and clip off the excess. After it is dry trim carefully with an exacto knife. Thats the way I did it and it worked great. P.S. I put markers on the neck not the fingerboard.

Good tip, Pete.

There's someone selling an SO on eBay now as a vintage uke. Lemme find the link.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-C-F...852237?hash=item1a0c5207cd:g:KE0AAOSwUV9WmQUu

I don't know how ro report this to eBay, but seems an unknowning seller is going to rook some unknowing buyer.
 
Bought my second SO , I like them so much that I now have two. I have 6 vintage Martins but the one I play the most is the SO. The latest SO , I put a side marker on the
5th fret , sort of a bench mark that helps me find my way. I leave it out all the time even in winter , it is always on the coffee table . I've had no problems at all with humidity or cracks.
Its a great uke I'm not afraid to really wail on , sounds great , loud with Martin m600 strings, pretty durable . I dont need more than 12 frets ,I really dont like the extended fretboard on S1's .
Right now they can be had pretty cheap , I paid less than 200 for each . One of the things I like best about Martins is the nut width , seems just right for me.
 
Have they stopped making these? Could not find them on the Martin & Co. website -- or is the newer model the S-1? What are the differences?
 
Yes, yes they have. The S0 were simply not very good.
 
Dada, a few differences between the S-0 and the newer S-1 are as follows: a) the S-0 has frets that seem "fatter" to me, which is a feature that I like; b) the S-0's fretboard stops just past the 12th fret, whereas the S-1's fretboard runs on down closer to the soundhole and has more frets (I prefer the shorter fretboard of the S-0); and 3) the S-0 doesn't have any kind of "lining" inside the body to reinforce the connection between the top, back, and sides. I had a pre-owned S-0 a few years ago on which the top began to come apart from the sides in one place, which was definitely not a good thing, but on my current S-0 (which I got just a couple of months ago) all seems to be very secure. Honestly, I like my S-0 better than my S-1. It feels really light, vibrates noticeably against my chest when I play it, and has the strongest, clearest, and sweetest voice of any soprano I've played; I keep it strung with Martin M-600 strings, tuned up to "a D F# B"; I would have to say that the S-0 that I currently own is my favorite uke, though I realize that these things are very subjective!
 
I own an SO that I picked up this past summer. Tonally and playing-wise, I love the dang thing but the back is coming away from the sides for about 1/4 of the total circumference. Since the separation is in a area that has both inside curves and outside curves, and since the back no longer aligns with the sides (proud in some areas, shy in others) it's going to be a bit of a project to fix it...and I'll probably add kerfed lining and new braces so the problem does not recur. But it was very cheap.
 
Top Bottom