How much to spend on Ukulele?

ash23

Hi all

My 14 year old is after a ukulele for Christmas. She started guitar but wasn't too keen and then tried her friends ukulele and loves it. She plays it whenever she comes over and also plays in school and at her music group.
She's starting a ukulele class in the new year. So she definitely has an interest in it and has done for about a year.

So I want something that's decent but at the same time, not too expensive.

The price range is so vast and I'm not sure how much of a difference there is between a 20e uke, a 70, a 100 or 200 etc.

I'm not musical at all so really am clueless.

Essentially what I need to know is what I should be aiming to spend for a soprano uke which will get a fair bit of use but also a fair bit of being messed with so not something crap but not something that I'll go mad if it gets a bit of a scuff on it.

I'm thinking about 70-100 should be ok?
Any brand recommendations or other advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Strings.ie

Under 50 you're really in the toy/firewood category. Over 50 you'll get a reasonable Soprano that should be fine for starting out. Once you go higher you're getting better woods, better tuners, and so on up to something beautifully made and gorgeous.

Alanstrainor

I have wanted a Ukulele for a good while, and just never took the plunge.

After playing a lot in the 100€ range I found the following to be very good. It's a concert ukulele so it's slightly larger.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ibanez-UKC10-Concert-Ukulele-Natural/dp/B0076FOTY0/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1479466157&sr=8-5&keywords=ibanez+ukulele

Yenwod

ash23 wrote: »

I'm thinking about 70-100 should be ok?
Any brand recommendations or other advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks

For a starter uke, you'll get a fantastic one for that price. I would tend to steer clear of Mahalo as these are generally the cheaper end of the market.

I would recommend getting aquila strings, if the uke doesn't have them already. I find them fantastic, rarely go out of tune

ash23

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kala-KA-C-Mahogany-Concert-Ukulele/dp/B00172YM40%3FSubscriptionId%3DAKIAJQI4WMRX5G4E5LIQ&tag=forsalecouk-21

Was thinking about this one? Seems to have good reviews.

Help!!!!

Lidl are doing Ukulele's for €17.99 they look ok. I'm keen to start learning to play & was wondering if they were worth it?

Strings.ie

Lidl are doing Ukulele's for 17.99 they look ok. I'm keen to start learning to play & was wondering if they were worth it?

Most garages sell kindling wood for a few Euro ;-)

greenspurs

Can you tune a Uke off a guitar ?

Hoagy

greenspurs wrote: »

Can you tune a Uke off a guitar ?

Uke is tuned GCEA which corresponds to the fifth fret of a guitar except that G on the uke is an octave higher.

Go and get cleartune from the Google app store, best couple of euro you will ever spend.

Dord

Hoagy wrote: »

Uke is tuned GCEA which corresponds to the fifth fret of a guitar except that G on the uke is an octave higher.

Go and get cleartune from the Google app store, best couple of euro you will ever spend.

The BOSS TU-3 app is free and excellent for tuning.

Gaspode

That boss app is one of the better tuner apps I've tried.

languagenerd

You'll usually find a load of multicoloured ukes around €30 and then they jump to about €80/90. It's definitely worth the jump - the sound will be much better, esp as you'll get some with solid wood tops at that price (the cheap ones are made of laminates and sound doesn't resonate as much). I & several of my friends got the Laka VUS50, which was about €85 a couple years ago with a built-in tuner. Great starter ukes if you can get them - good sound and they hold their tuning well

EoghanIRL

Just want to say that I bought one of the 20-30euro mahalo ukuleles last year and having many years of guitar experience I quickly "grew out of it". They aren't great tbh. Its a struggle to get non-basic chords to sound good on it imho.
Fine for messing around but just know their limitations.