Kala Exotic Mahogany Travel Review

Good uke. Nice, different tone. Light-weight. Generally well built. !BUT! Not worth the 80% more than the listed "sale" price.

As soon as I opened the plastic, I thought "this could easily become my favorite ukulele".... That's not going to happen, at least not right away. First: what Sweetwater Sound and Kala did right: 1) Sweetwater double-boxed the uke. 2) Sweetwater did NOT include any candy in the order! :-D I have Type 2 diabetes mellitus, am overweight (but, under the "obese" borderline, still,… read more for several years). 3) Kala put the uke in a good box. 4) The uke was inside it's included soft-case "gig bag" (with some stiffening panels, front and back; but, this isn't equivalent to the protection one gets with a true hard-case). 5) Inside the gig-bag, the uke was in a plastic, thin-foam bag. 6) The gig bag is simply the best gig-bag I've ever purchased when included with a lute-family instrument (Google "lute"). 7) The neck bow looks good. Hopefully, it won't change with time. 8) The fretboard had only a very tiny twist to it (my "good" tenor uke by another manufacturer has much more twist developing in it and it doesn't affect that ukes playability at all). 9) The frets were well done, even, proper height, nicely sanded at the edges of the fretboard (unlike my Kala banjolele with it's sharp edged frets). 10) The inserts were well made, fitted, glued, etc. 11) Overall all fitting and gluing were good, especially fretboard to neck. Second: what Sweetwater and Kala did wrong: 0) (from computer science--when you need to insert something before 1, use 0--negative numbers from thereon tend to look a bit wierd): KALA PUT THE CHEAPEST, GRINDING-EST, BADLY-MADE-EST tuning machines on this otherwise (slightly blemished but still) beautiful uke. The pinions are the problem, apparently, as they're visibly not cut and finished to the same dimensions. One of them grinds so horribly that it's like scrapping my fingers across a chalk-board. For this simple reason alone (well, with the glue stains, the neck-to-body fitting problem, the cheap strings) THIS UKE IS NOT WORTH 80% MORE THAN I PAID FOR IT. NOW, maybe when this obviously initial factory run is replaced with a regular production run, this little uke (it's an alto--ALL concert ukes are alto ukes), light as I wanted it to be, well constructed ('cept as noted) as I wanted it to be, will be a major player in my onstage performances!!!. BUT UNTIL THEN, THIS UKE IS REASONABLY PRICED FOR A MEDIUM QUALITY UKE. 1) Sweetwater sent a hard-copy catalog which will just go in the trash (COVID wiped out the communities all-too limited recycling center). 2) Sweetwater advertised this as "80% off while supplies last".... Keeping with Sweetwater's review guidelines, I won't tell you what I paid for this uke. I paid roughly 40% of what my mother paid for my "good" tenor uke (my secondary instrument and go-to instrument-version after my voice, which only comes in one version). Or, roughly 40% of what I paid for my Kala banjolele. ... 3) Kala made this out of a "porous" wood (the grain has gaps in it, meaning it's less dense) and failed to adequately apply the required number and thickness of lacquer coats with sanding in between that is necessary to seal the grain. I know--my baritone uke has similar wood with a similar finish--that some people like this rough, "un-polished" wood finish. I don't. And, musically, having enough sanded lacquer will eventually--when all the glues in the glued-joints dry out completely--better lacquering and sanding would only help the tone (that and a Fatfinger make my tenor uke sound fantastic for it's cost). 4) Kala got wood glue on the back and one side. 5) The fitting around the base of the neck and the body is the only place where Kala let me down in construction of the uke. 6) The cheap strings sound cheap, tinny (which doesn't really hurt THAT much as ukes sound tinny any way; that's why their ukes and not guitars), but, it won't help the strings last, especially as I pulled them off, reversed them top to bottom, put them back on (without doing it as "prettily" as Kala originally did) and made this physically-gorgeous right-handed uke ('cept for the glue-stains) into a left-handed uke--2nd time i've "gotten away" with that r-to-l conversion on ukes). Now, Joseph Secu, (if your unhappy with your sales engineer, maybe ask for "Joseph"? No? OK), I am not returning it. If someone had stepped on the neck and broken it, yeh, I'd return it. Otherwise, except for tried-but-decided-I-wouldn't-ever-use-it items, I simply don't return items based on blemishes. Those give them character. They give me projects for my old age--trying to remove the blemishes without screwing up the instrument. And, as a parting thought, I know I'm the proverbial "customer from hell" that e-mails a lot and buys very little, but, when Chuck S. assigned me to you, I was--and am--grateful as our e-discussions ALWAYS help me further along my musical journey in a more--rather than less--musical state of existences. And that is purrrrrrfectly a gift, Joe.

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Nice Ukulele

Bought for my older daughter who wanted to learn Ukulele. Nice sound and easy to play. Did some noodeling and like everything about it. The gig bag that came with it is good quality and has a nice Artwork label on the front.

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