BugsGear Aqulele Ukulele REVIEW

It's seems that the plastic fantastic revolution is gathering some pace as yet another crossed my path recently - the BugsGear Aqulele, sent to me to have a look at by Normans Music.

There is, as they say, nothing new under the sun, and the last ukulele boom saw its share of plastic instruments come along, such as TV Pals and Maccaferris which these days have become collectors items. The current surge in plastic seems to have been mainly pushed by the much hyped (though in my opinion much over-rated) 'Outdoor Uke' (discounting the plastic backed Fleas and Flukes of course), and more recently you may have seen my review of the Korala Explore - an instrument I really quite liked for the price, albeit one with some issues.

The BugsGear name may mean something to you as being the brand behind the Eleuke range of solid body electric ukes, and this plastic foray is something Philip at BG has been working on for some time. In other words, this is not an instrument they just grabbed from a Chinese factory and silk screened their name on, rather something they have been experimenting with and working on for some time. How does it stand up?

The Aqulele is based on the BugsGear range of entry level laminate wooden ukes, and whilst generally traditional in shape feature some rather eye catching design features we will come on to a little later. That Aqulele name comes from the fact that the uke is waterproof. Well, yes, insofar as wood is not really waterproof, it is, but a few dunks of the metal tuners in the drink will soon see those rust and deteriorate. But I will let that pass. Metal tuners are employed on the Korala too, and whilst Outdoor offered a totally waterproof peg design on the original uke, I have not yet found someone who thought they worked.

The whole uke apart from the tuners though is plastic, with the back sides and back of the neck made of one piece of plastic (or, more accurately, polycarbonate) with the top of the body, fingerboard and facing of the headstock applied as separate pieces. And that plastic is thick and also unexpectedly heavy. The Korala in comparison is thin and light as a feather, but that seemed to have come at a trade off with build stability with a dipping bridge and bendy neck. Not on the Aqulele - this thing is solid as a rock, and that solidity can be further seen inside where the inside of the instrument is braced with further strips of black plastic. It gives the instrument a nice solid feel in the hands, with more of a matte finish than the Korala, and I prefer that. That said - there are some rough spots where it has come out of the injection mould, leaving some sharp edges.

Generally speaking, the body shape is a traditional double bout shape, but things start to get freaky near the top of the body. We have a significant cutaway to the body (which I quite like, but more on that later) and an offset sound hole. I've stared at it from all angles and from all distances, and sorry, no. I don't like it at all. I get that it keeps in line with their wooden ukes, but I don't like those either. It seems that it is just to allow the large cutaway and strange end of the fingerboard arrangement and I think it just looks odd. Purely personal opinion of course, and I would have no issue with anyone liking it.

Apart from a black silk screened rosette around said sound hole, the body is otherwise unadorned over its orange (ish) finish. A word about the colour. This reviewer is extremely thankful that these also come in pink and purple as this orange colour is not to my tastes at all. Don't get me wrong, I like the colour orange, but if you are going to build a uke in such a standout colour, make it BRIGHT! This on the other hand looks muddy, as if something else got into the colouring pigment of the polycarbonate mix and made it go a little 'off'...

The bridge arrangement is interesting. Its a one piece affair, incorporating the saddle, and has some idiot proof notches for attaching the knotted string ends which I think is both different and clever. The fixed saddle would make taking down the action a little tricky. I think it could be sanded, but it could end up looking a little rough. Thankfully though, whilst the action at the 12th fret is a little high, its acceptable and I wouldn't bother tweaking this one.

Moving on to the neck, it has a nice profile, but is a little on the thin side at the nut width. The frets are moulded into the fretboard meaning intonation should be very accurate, and there are black painted fret markers at the fifth, seventh and tenth frets (with, sadly, no markers on the side for the player.

Things get a little odd, fret wise, further down the neck. There are around 11 or 12 frets to the body (hard to tell because of the cutaway, and a total of 14 full frets in all. There are however 18 frets in total, but frets 15-18 reduce in size quickly, with most of them only useable on the first string. I am sure it is just a design novelty, but I don't really like them. Further, such unnecessary detailing seems to be part of the reason the sound hole is off to one side. I would much rather see a central sound hole and get rid of the silly extra frets. One thing I will say about the neck though is, unlike the Korala, I suspect they have this strengthened in some was as it does not bend!

A look at the nut shows that it doesn't use a zero fret like the outdoor, and it is cut for the strings. The cuts though look horribly narrow to me, and on a couple of strings look like the slots will cut into the strings in no time at all. I would want to widen these a touch, and whilst I am at it, would take them down as the action at the nut is too high.

The headstock is square and simple, with the BugsGear logo silk screened in black. The tuners are unbranded geared tuners with rather nice pearloid buttons.  They look, to my eyes, to be the same as those on a Makala Dolphin, complete with plastic cover rings on the outward face. So they are therefore extremely cheap, but actually the ones on this work just fine and do not grind or stick.

The whole package is completed by a thinly padded gig bag of quite nice quality, a clip on tuner and strings that look like Aquila but I don't think they are. I don't believe they are in stores at the present time, but the people who asked me to look at this are considering stocking them in the UK. They are however available direct from the BugsGear / Eleuke website for a price of $90 with a clip on tuner and strap, or $69 without. More on that later.

How does it play and sound? Well with any plastic ukulele, I am naturally not expecting pure solid wood tones, endless sustain and complex harmonics, and sure enough the Aqulele delivers none of those. It is pretty loud when strummed hard, but surprisingly short on sustain, even for a plastic. The Korala has quite a bit more, but otherwise the tone between the two is very similar. To my ears, the Korala is a touch sweeter. Another point I noted was the tightness of those nut slots seemed to be deadening notes at the lower frets. Perhaps that could be sorted by widening them a little, but that is how it came to me.

More positively it is solid and nice to hold, with no dipping or bending plastics. A check on intonation and accuracy shows that it is pretty much spot on right down the neck, as would be expected for a moulded fingerboard.

One other oddity though is back to that sound hole. I found it was playing the tone right into the palm of my hand due to its position. Sure, any sound hole ends up playing into the hand to some degree, but I found that this position exacerbated that. Perhaps that is just my strum technique though, and your mileage may vary.

But on the whole it has issues just as the Korala does, and the sum of the parts is still a good fun little instrument that would make a perfect camping / beach / trekking uke that you would not be overly worried about. Yet there is a final point. At $69 I think the uke is over priced.  That is about £50, whereas the Korala is about £29. I appreciate that the UK pricing has not been set, but if they are thinking of stocking, then there is no way this should be priced at £50. Perhaps £20, plus £10 for the tuner and maybe £5 for the gig bag, but no more than that.

So in summary I would suggest that if you are thinking of getting the indestructible plastic uke into your collection, I would wait to see on pricing for these in main dealers, and if they launch at $70, then look elsewhere. Video review and scores below!

STOP PRESS - I had quite a lot of feedback on this review suggesting they were available for far lower prices. That may be true, yet they are still selling at $69 too - take a look!


PROS

Solid build
Intonation Accuracy

CONS

Price (draft price!)
Soundhole looks
Badly cut nut
Unnecessary extra frets


SCORES

Looks - 6
Fit and finish - 7.5
Sound - 7
Value For Money - 6 (based on draft pricing)

OVERALL - 6.6 out of 10

To understand my review scoring and see this result in context - visit my review page at

http://www.gotaukulele.com/p/ukulele-reviews.html

VIDEO REVIEW

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Eleuke Peanut - Electric ukulele REVIEW

All solid electric ukuleles are a subject that I see constantly discussed on ukulele forums - and this seems to be despite the fact that there are not actually that many choices out there. I am a big fan of the Risa Uke Solid though, which certainly has its lovers and its haters. Since I wrote that review, I had an endless stream of people pointing out that I should try the Eleuke Peanut, that it was a fraction of the price, and why on earth should anyone buy the Risa?

OK, OK - I succumbed. Let's take a look.

The Eleuke Peanut

I had actually owned an eleuke before - an SC100PHP - and, despite it looking the part - I sold it for one very simple reason - the one thing it was built to do above anything else - i.e. play electric - just didn't cut it for me. The pickup employed was ultra cheap, noisy and just plain bad. If it couldn't do that right, I thought, then what exactly is the point of it? So it was with some trepidation I took a look at the Peanut - one of Eleukes latest offerings in the electric ukulele range. It's key selling point? At £79 it's about half the price of the Risa Uke Solid.

The first thing that strikes you about the Peanut compared to other Eleukes is the size - this thing is tiny, with a rather cute shape that gives the instrument it's name. I think it looks great!

On first inspection, like other eleukes I have played, it is all put together rather nicely in terms of the main build. I am not sure whether this is a nod to the Risa, but the body on this employs the same stained and smooth satin finish wood as the Uke Solid - it shows off the grain nicely and is extremely tactile and comfortable to hold. A nice job.

The body is, as I say, tiny, but of a decent thickness. Like the Risa, the whole instrument is made from a single piece of wood - no joints, neck included - just one slab of wood from tail to headstock that is finished rather nicely. I think this is billed as soprano scale.

Eleuke Peanut body (shaped like a .... geddit?)

On the top of the body we have a rosewood tie bar bridge with some nice binding trim on the tie bar which looks quite pretty. The saddle is synthetic and underneath it lies the piezo pickup that gives this uke it's electric output. Also on the top are the tone and volume controls for the pickup (this being an active pickup instrument). They are small and unlike other electric ukes I have seen, don't stand out too much - they are in keeping with the diminutive size of the uke. They move smoothly, and the tone is notched at the halfway point so you know where you are with it. It's also worth noting that these controls are one of the plus points people shout about over the Risa which has none at all.

Flipping the Peanut over, we see the battery compartment which takes a standard 9v battery, and the cover for the electric gubbins inside. The cover seem to be made of a laminate with wood veneer and looks kind of cheap to my eyes. Still, nobody will be seeing this.

Eleuke Peanut back - battery cover in black.

On the top edge of the uke are two mini jack sockets - unmarked, but both are used for the other tricks that Eleuke like to shout about. One socket is a headphone 'out' so you can plug 'phones in to it directly and listen to your playing. The other is an MP3 (or line) input - meaning you can stream your own music into the uke, then play along listening in to the headphone out. Quite a nice idea that again, is not employed on the Risa.  The main instrument out is a standard guitar jack affair on the tail of the instrument which doubles as a strap button.

Eleuke Peanut MP3 and Headphone sockets

Up to the neck, and past the second strap button - the profile is chunky like the Risa but not so square. Very comfortable and smooth though, and I think that being such a small instrument, it needs to be that chunky or you would lose control of it when playing it.

The fingerboard is nicely finished rosewood, applied neatly to the neck. It is unbound, but the fret edges are fairly well hidden by the satin coat. There are 13 nickel frets, quite chunky in feel, but all are finished nicely on the ends with no sharp edges. Fret position dots in an abalone material are on the 5th, 7th and 10th frets and pleasingly, there are side markers too for the player in white. A nice touch.

Eleuke Peanut - rosewood neck - nice to see side fret markers

Up to the nut (black synthetic) and then on to the headstock which is part of the same single piece of wood. Its a simple rounded square shape that looks quite nice, with the Eleuke logo screenprinted rather badly on to the face. It's in pale gold so doesn't stand out very well and is also applied off centre. The headstock size, to my eyes looks a little small. I appreciate this is a tiny instrument, but if the headstock was a touch bigger I think it would give the uke more balance to look at.

Tuning is provided by unbranded geared tuners which stick out a little too much for my liking (again, bigger headstock may help here), but generally look ok. They are finished in chrome.

Eleuke peanut headstock

So in terms of describing the instrument, that really is about it - a simple affair. It also comes with a thin padded and zippered gig bag and a strap - much like the Risa, and the uke arrives strung with (what else) Aquila strings. Very simple - as it is intended to be. But... what you really want to know is how it plays.

Well, firstly let's look at the general setup before we start looking at the electronics.  Action for me at the saddle was a touch high, but not too bad, but at the nut things were much worse with most strings throwing out of tune at the lower frets. I filed them down a little and got things sorted quite quickly. If you are buying I would ask your dealer to give this a thorough setup!

To play, the uke is quite comfortable - helped by the chunky neck and feels balanced. Sitting without a strap can find you losing the instrument a little, and whether sitting or standing I found the strap was a real bonus. It's not that light, but not overly heavy to hold, and in fact feels secure in the hands.  I am also no fan of Aquila strings (I dont like the strumming feel to them and find they grip to fingers too much) so swapped them out for Worth Clears and it feels great now.  With the nut adjustment and the saddle down a touch, intonation all over the neck is perfectly respectable. So things are looking positive before I plugged it in.

A quick word on the tuners before we move on to the electric sound - they really are pretty nasty. Two of them are overly loose with some real slop and play in them - meaning that when you turn them  you have a couple of millimetres of turn before anything actually happens at the post. The E string tuner on the other hand is extremely stiff, to the point that once every full revolution of the post it needs a vice like grip to turn it. I used a string winder to put the new strings on and actually thought the tuner was broken beyond repair. It does turn though, but with lots of effort. In short - for £79, perhaps not surprising, but bad tuners really should still be weeded out of quality control checking (and plastered all over the back of the neck are a multitude of quality control stickers....). On the plus side, once in tune, they hold just fine, but really, they are horrible.

Eleuke peanut - wonky tuners

So - the sound.... Let's first look at those onboard headphone and MP3 sockets.  Well, the MP3 first - yes, it works just fine. Plug in your headphones and an MP3 player and you can hear back the tune you are streaming it to it. It's a nice feature that many beginners will welcome I am sure.  But the playback really ends there, because when you then actually start strumming the thing, the sound of the uke through the headphones is really rather dreadful. The volume and tone seem to do little more than switch the sound between awful and distorted to less awful. It's a thin, odd sound, that really doesn't sound like a ukulele at all, full of noise, hiss and hum and to my ears is nothing more than pure novelty. Sure, yes, I suppose it 'works' but if you like your tone and clarity of playing you will cringe at the headphone sound. I tried various 'phones with little improvement, and also found that the uke was not capable of driving much more than tiny in ear bud earphones. I suppose that at a push it works fine for, say, late night practice without disturbing the neighbours, but really, the sound would very quickly start to grate on me. Interestingly this was exactly the same complaint I had about the first Eleuke I tried some years ago. Things haven't improved then.... For me, I don't miss not having these sockets on my Risa - for £30 you can buy a decent headphone amp for any electric ukulele with a sound quality that far, far exceeds the output from the Eleuke sockets.

In listening through the phones, something else was abundantly clear to me - some strings (namely the C and the E ) were significantly higher in volume than the others which, naturally, renders playback pretty useless. This is a sign of either a cheap pickup or a bad setup of the piezo strip under the bridge saddle. I took off the saddle (as part of my plan to lower it as I mentioned above) and found that the issue was both a cheap pickup and a bad setup. The pickup piezo strip was a fat, wonky piece of braided copper around the piezo - far too chunky and difficult to lay flat. Perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised at £79, as good piezo strip pickups can cost more than that alone, and that is before you add tone and volume control and other gizmos employed on this instrument. The strip was also not covering the whole of the base of the saddle slot which would explain why the G string in particular was so quiet. In addition though, the base of the saddle was not sanded flat - and this is essential to getting balanced tone from a piezo pickup. I re adjusted the piezo strip, sanded the saddle base flatter and also added in a thin wood shim to ensure the strip was nicely seated and put the thing back together. Thankfully the volume balance was corrected, but it was a setup hassle that I could do without.  Again - I question the quality control checks....

So the onboard playback is a huge let down, but how about plugging it in direct? Well not much better I am afraid. Plugged in to an amplifier the sound is muddy and extremely noisy (lots of hiss, background noise and other unwanted nonsense). It's extremely bass heavy, and the tone control has no real range to it - more a case of it being either extremely muddy on most of the dial, or with the tone set to full, 'slightly less muddy'. There is no zing or brightness to the tone, no clarity between the strings, and it really doesn't sound like a ukulele. Only a lot of mixer twiddling is giving anything close to a nice tone, but still there is no separations between the string notes. The volume control when set above two or three really adds to the loss of clarity, meaning amplification at the amp side, and that only increases hiss and noise. It also seems to lack any sustain at all, meaning quite a staccato sound to picking.

I plugged both this and the Risa Uke Solid in to the two separate channels on a Marshall AS50R acoustic amp (a lovely amplifier). The difference was night and day. The Risa really sings, it is sharp and crystal clear with little noise, and despite it having no onboard controls, changing tone settings on the amp gives a real range of sounds you can play with. (see the Soundcloud clip at the end of the review - not perfect example but recorded from ipad microphone directly off a monitor speaker) The Peanut on the other hand still suffered from the bad to the 'only slightly less bad' in the tone stakes. In fact I tried to get them matched in sound, and only got close by cranking the Risa treble down and bass up, and the Peanut treble up and bass down. Even then, the Risa still far exceeded the Peanuts tone.

I also tried it through a couple of micro amps, and the issue is the same - muddled noisy tone with no clarity.

Eleuke Peanut - standard guitar jack / strap button

All in all - rather disappointing when plugged in and requiring a massive amount of tweaking of tone for only slight rewards in sound quality.

Therefore to conclude - for me it seems a real shame that the one thing this ukulele is designed to do, is not done well at all. It is not as if it is an electro acoustic where you could say 'sure, the pickup is a bit rubbish, but it sounds ok unplugged' - you can't - this uke is pretty silent unplugged. It's purely an electric uke and it doesn't deliver that single thing very well.

Perhaps I got a bad one - but then this is the second Eleuke I have played and thought exactly the same issue, and a quick browse of ukulele forums will find others with the same complaint. Actually though, the first Eleuke I played was more respectable plugged in direct than this, so perhaps things have gotten worse at the Eleuke production line..

On the plus side, it looks great, feels good to play and the price is hard to ignore for beginners - but that is the problem for me. When even an entry level under saddle pickup will cost you around £40-£50 (and many cost much more) then it comes as no surprise that at £80 for a whole instrument, with bag, strap and strings, that the sound isn't up to much.  For me it should really only be considered as an emergency practice or travel uke, or as a novelty. There is no way you would want to plug in and perform with this on stage. In fact, if you wanted to I suspect you would be spending good money on DI boxes, pedals or other amp modelling shenanigans (together with a noise gate pedal) to get the sound even slightly respectable for a gig performance - and with that much money being spent - just buy a Risa...

Perhaps I am being harsh - as a beginners uke, I suppose it will suffice, but it's just a shame that it will never be much more than that. My answer? Eleuke should crank the price to just over £100 (still a bargain in ukulele terms) and fit a better quality pickup.  Simple as that.




PROS

Good body build, looks, neck profile
Price (if you know the limitations)

CONS

Tone and sound - woeful through both headphones and muddy and fussy through amplifier
Poor setup
Poor pickup setup
Poor pickup!
Sticky tuners


SCORES

Looks - 8
Fit and finish - 5.5
Sound - 3.5
Value for money - 6

OVERALL - 5.8

To understand my review scoring and see this result in context - visit my review page at

http://www.gotaukulele.com/p/ukulele-reviews.html

And - the sound comparison - not the best recording, but you get the idea.

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I do hope this doesnt mean Eleuke's are hard to find in the UK

(article courtesy of mi-pro.co.uk)

Sutherland and Eleuke split by mutual agreement

Wales-based supplier and electric uke manufacturer go separate ways after Stringnet begins making acoustic ukuleles

Sutherland Trading has dropped the Eleuke brand, made by Stringnet (the manufacturer of Eleuke), following the diversification of the electric ukulele brand.

Eleuke, known primarily as a brand of solid-body electric ukuleles, recently began producing acoustic ukes, which left Sutherland feeling that this conflicted with its existing distribution agreements with Kala and Lanikai.

Stringnet and Sutherland have agreed not to hold each other to the existing distribution agreement.

Sutherland’s stockholding of the Eleuke brand is minimal and it has ceased to order new stock. Stringnet is now free to find another UK distributor for its Eleuke product.

“Our relationship with Philip Kwak of Stringnet has been excellent and we wish him all success in finding a new trading partner," said Alan Townsend, Sutherland's ukulele product manager. "Any distributor interested in discussing this with Philip should contact him directly."




Bazmaz says - they are great ukes - and I hope this doesnt make them tough to source..

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The eleuke has gone... sob

sadly, (well, cos I am saving for a different uke) had a long hard look at the collection, and sold the eleuke on ebay as it just wasnt getting the play.

Good luck to whoever bought it, and I just wanted to say to those thinking of an eleuke - they are brilliant - my sale says nothing bad about them.

Knowing me, will end up with another one soon enough....

Needs must for now though..

sob

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Ukulele Beginners - What to spend? How cheap is cheap

** IMPORTANT NOTE! This is a VERY old post. Things have changed. And things are constantly changing. It was written before I was writing regular reviews. I thought about updating it, but I'd be updating it every year.

Instead - I would recommend looking at the full review list which is organised into price categories.. Anything scored over 8 out of 10 is recommended one way or the other. Higher the score the better

FULL REVIEW LIST! https://www.gotaukulele.com/p/ukulele-reviews.html

A common question this one, and I was here 2 years ago myself. Thought i'd share my experiences.

Generally speaking, buying a uke is like buying any musical instrument. Go too cheap and you will end up with something that may hinder your learning and put you off, not a good thing!

I appreciate however that not everyone has lots of cash, and certainly not cash to blow on something they are not sure of. Heck, ukes can cost more than £500 but how low can you go?

A quick search of eBay will show a variety of brightly coloured ukes in the £15 - £20 range. Do beware. I bought one of these and it really is pretty ropey.

Step up a level into the £30 £50 range, and you are in to the level that I would recommend for beginners who really can't spend much. Look for Makala ukes for example ( including the brilliant Dolphin series), or others from Makala. Bear in mind that these entry ukes won't be solid, and will definitely benefit from changing strings to aquilas ( so budget another £6 ). They may also need a tweak to set up such as slight lowering of action. This will be a breeze if you are a guitar nut, but complete newbies need to take care, take advice or possibly pay a luthier.

Moving up into the £50 - £100 bracket and you start to get more improvements in quality, and some solid woods. This is though the category to take care with. We are getting into more serious money, and sadly there are more bad ukes here that shouldn't in my view command higher prices. In my view look for Kala, lanikai, ohana and Baton Rouge. If you can reach 100, check out entry level Bruko. Great all solid handmade ukes! All ukes in this range may still need action checking and may benefit from better strings.

Up a step again into the £100 - £200 category and your choice widens considerably. I think this is the range where you really can get ALL the uke you need without going boutique / pro. All of my upper end ukes are in this range. Wooden ukes will tend to be all solid in this range, and whilst still made in Asia probably finished in USA, such as brilliant Mainlands. Very nice Kala and Ohana ukes in this range too as well as the standard model Fleas and Flukes ( everyone should own one! USA made)

Higher still and it's a case if 'where do you stop'. You are looking at upgraded versions of the above in fancy woods, or with pickups fitted, or into beautiful hand made Hawaiian instruments!

So, what did I do in the early days? Simple!

Mahalo - horrible horrible, sub 20- junk waste of money
Vintage - £20 - kinda junk, works, 'sort of'...
Lanikai - £50 - nice sound, stayed in tune, well set up.... Sold to fund...
Flea £120 - brilliant and unique, can't really go wrong
Bruko £100 - solid wood
Mainland £160 - concert scale, solid, beautiful, bought to compliment Flea with warmer tone and longer scale neck.

Beyond that I ended up with about 60 ukuleles at one point!

Hope this helps if you are confused. Email me if you have any questions. Above all, select a couple of models, research them ( ukulele underground site forum is your friend here) and try if you can to play them ( saying that, I never have myself!)

Good luck! Go buy one, you know you wanna!

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Got an Eleuke? Fancy 15 grand?

Think I might have to give this a shot?

http://www.eleukeusa.com/contest

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Another new toy! Eleuke SC100 PHP

My new BARGAIN uke arrived this week - a Eleuke for £65!!

These are my initial views on how it arrived, looks etc - not really played it yet.

This is the SC100PHP model - I think its rosewood - basically a dark wood all over, fingerboard included. Its billed as a Soprano, but I have no idea why, as it is virtually the same scale length as my Mainland Concert. 20 silver frets.

Its branded Harley Benton, which is the Thomann company brand name, but it is clearly a Eleuke - came in Eleuke box, and Eleuke warranty card.

Finish is pretty much flawless, not a mark. One tuner needed a bit of a tighten (they are silver geared (open geared) with thankfully small buttons so it doesnt look like Mickey Mouse) Couple of fret ends need a very slight sanding but nothing too bad. Dark, kind of a matt gloss finish if you know what I mean (very smooth, but not mirror finish)

It has a wood nut and wood saddle (may think about changing the latter), and volume and tone pots on the face. On the base, standard guitar jack, plus two mini jacks, one for headphones, one for MP3 input. The guitar jack doubles as strap button, and there is another strap button on the back at the base of the neck.

It looks to my eyes to be a single piece of wood, which is impressive.

Came with MP3 player lead, and headphones - headphones are biggest piece of junk I have ever seen!

Also comes complete with rather nice rugged padded gig bag.

The uke arrived strung with some really nasty black, soft, low tension glossy strings. ugh. Terrible tuning, no sustain, and intonation WAY off on the G string. Wasnt even prepared to give them a chance, so on with Aquilas, and the thing now feels tight, and the intonation issue on G has gone away.

Its a solid little thing, and feels great and nicely balanced. Heavier than my wood ukes, but not much.

Had a very quick play on headphones - bit hissy and terribly thin sounding,  - need an amp test to be sure (EDIT - since amp tested - just thing the pickup in this is pretty cheap sounding). Like the tone control which has a very wide range of settings.

Anyway, based on looks and finish alone, I am kind of impressed - and for only £65 it seems a bit of a bargain I suppose - just wish it sounded good plugged in.

The MP3 feature is very cool - plug in your ipod, and plug in headphones, and you can listen to yourself playing over the top of your mp3s!

So long as you know what you are getting I suppose it's worth a recommendation - but I do wish they could use a better pickup...

SCORES

Looks - 7.5
Fit and finish - 7
Sound - 5
Value for money - 8

OVERALL - 6.9

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Eleuke ukulele ordered!

Have ordered a Eleuke (soprano rosewood model) Cant wait!  Electric ukulele fun! Yay!

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