My wife and I belong to a uke group at the local community center, and as her technical proficiency (and understanding/appreciation of ukulele tone) has progressed she's finding her Ovation soprano (looks like a baby Adamas) increasingly inadequate; as I've done on a couple occasions in the past, I decided to surprise her with a little early anniversary present...
The obligatory pictures:
https://www.elderly.com/instruments/...or-ukulele.htm
- and a demo video:
(FYI it
is the same instrument in the photos/video - we compared the wood grain/binding patterns)
While koa/acacia/mahogany are traditional - and, truth be told, I
was ready to pull the trigger on the top-of-the-line TK-350G until someone snapped it up
- I was
extremely impressed by the brighter, more modern (and IMO more versatile) tone of this spruce/maple uke. Coming to the instrument as primarily guitar players we tend to take a guitar-oriented approach, for better or worse, and find that the broader dynamic range coupled with the longer scale length allows for not only the fingerstyle that's sweeping the uke world, but also non-traditional techniques (in uke terms) such as flatpicking and electric-style string-bending lead work (would've mentioned jazz chord-soloing, but Andy's got that covered). In addition, like any good maple-bodied guitar this puppy has loads of natural projection, not necessarily in terms of overwhelming volume (although that's also there in spades) but the "cutting power" associated with a fine archtop guitar: the ability to project sound well out in front of the player (not always obvious
to the player, BTW) and be clearly heard in a dense instrumental mix - in our case, twenty local seniors happily strumming away on their $39 plywood Wal-Mart specials...
In terms of construction QC, somebody at Ohana has clearly done his homework: exceptionally lightweight (significantly less than the Kala and Lanikai tenors we've sampled, not to mention the low-end stuff) - which translates to lightning-quick response - tight clean construction/finish both inside and out, no dead spots anywhere on the neck (not exactly commonplace in a sub-$400 uke), first-class fretwork, ready-to-play right out of the box (although Elderly includes setup, I suspect they didn't need to do much if anything to this particular instrument - and it arrived in perfect tune), and let's face it, you don't see maple ukes every day (FWIW saw a video of an $850 LoPrinzi all-maple tenor and the Ohana compared
very favorably - a bit more brightness and "ring" from the LoPrinzi's maple top, but whether or not that's a good thing is a matter of personal taste). Although we're relatively new to the uke thing, I'm guessing there's a good reason Ohana is somewhat of a "boutique," limited-distribution marque among factory-made instruments; if that's how they maintain such a high standard of tonal/structural quality, I say more power to them - they've made two fans here, and if they ever get around to producing some more (haven't seen them in a while) there's an Ohana TK-35G-10 tiple in my future...
