Luna High Tide Zebrawood Baritone Review

Lovely tone, lovely instrument, lackluster finishing

I absolutely adore the sound of this bari uke. A rich bottom end, with mellow upper registers reminiscent of a classical guitar. It's a gem to play, with a nice neck, and it is downright gorgeous. I'm in love...despite its flaws. And there are a few flaws. There are some extremely sharp edges on the wooden bridge that stab & scrape at the forearm--I intend to knock them down with… read more some fine grit sandpaper once the honeymoon phase is over. The two lower steel strings bind in the nut, and one of the tuners is rotated about 5 degrees off from the others. And the factory strings are already showing signs of the wire overwrap failing at the frets with only about 8-10 hours of play time. All of these things are extremely minor. Some are "setup", nobody expects perfection from factory strings, and the slight misalignment of the tuner has no impact beyond aesthetic. So there's no way in heck I'm sending it back, but it all points to some QC / cost issues that do not exist on my less-expensive Gretch tenor. Would another Luna of the same model have similar fitment? Better? Worse? I simply don't know.

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Great with pedals

I have a tenor uke and was intrigued by the tuning of the baritone. I play in a group in church, complementing three guitars playing basically the same thing, so the ukes stand out. It sounds great with my TC Electronics Hall of Fame 2 Reverb, Corona Chorus and Pipeline Tremolo pedals -- a lot better than the tenor sounds plugged in and with pedals. Yes, you have to learn variations… read more on regular guitar chords, but when I am just playing by myself I can also play music with standard uke chords - the C becomes a G, the G becomes a D, etc. It looks beautiful too.

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Rich and soothing

I'm very impressed with this uke! I have been playing ukulele for 3 years now and was looking for another uke to compliment my tenor. Because this is a baritone, I was hesitant because it is not keyed the same as I am used to. I thought I would restring to GCEA, however once I strummed it, I was in love. It took less than a weekend to learn to transpose tabs I know with the standard… read more uke to baritone- now it is second nature. I love the high tide inlays, the zebrawood is gorgeous, this is a quality instrument that feels so comfortable and sounds very rich and soothing. Sweetwater did a fantastic job shipping this out safely and quickly, my sales rep Mac Hatton was superb- I look forward to buying more from him and Sweetwater as the years go on. Sweetwater has the best online shopping experience hands down. I love browsing and comparing specific guitars side by side-especially handy if the instrument has a visible, pronounced woodgrain. Great experience.

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