JackLuis
Well-known member
I'm very tempted if only for the solid acacia top. But, I have a trip scheduled this month and I'll need the beer money.
Rubin Ukes -> Caramel Ukes
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spookelele
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Code says expired.
LarryS
Well-known member
I got curious about them so I hunted on youtube for them.
Rambo2
Active member
Ahhhhh!!! It's finally here!! 
Im so happy!! My solid acacia top concert finally made it! Everyone is right, pictures dont do it justice. Action was a bit high, but easily fixed with the magic of sandpaper. Intonation was a teeny bit off, but that was fixed after the sand down. I might sand it down a little more. Its louder than my Kala Ka-ce. It LOOKS and SOUNDS AWESOME! Best investment I've made in a while. I'm already thinking about getting the solid spruce. The only issue i have is that there is 2 super tiny dots of glue on the sound board. Which doesn't really matter to me bc its hardly noticeable.. Aaand ..i just scratched it off. Haha. Worth every penny! 
Im so happy!! My solid acacia top concert finally made it! Everyone is right, pictures dont do it justice. Action was a bit high, but easily fixed with the magic of sandpaper. Intonation was a teeny bit off, but that was fixed after the sand down. I might sand it down a little more. Its louder than my Kala Ka-ce. It LOOKS and SOUNDS AWESOME! Best investment I've made in a while. I'm already thinking about getting the solid spruce. The only issue i have is that there is 2 super tiny dots of glue on the sound board. Which doesn't really matter to me bc its hardly noticeable.. Aaand ..i just scratched it off. Haha. Worth every penny!
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LarryS
Well-known member
Looks lovely Rambo!
UkeStuff
Well-known member
Hello, everyone! I'm the guy in the video that keeps getting posted here (strange to see yourself on a thread). As a disclaimer...most (if not all) of you have more expertise and experience with the ukulele. At the same time, I am a music teacher with 20 years of experience as well as advanced degrees. So I come at this whole ukulele thing from the perspective of a music educator using ukuleles in the classroom, and as a person whose love of music has been rekindled by the ukulele. My main focus is the marriage of technology and music education, and I blog at techinmusiced.com.
I'm new to the ukulele (started playing in January) with the idea of bringing ukulele to my 340 middle school choir students. Long story short...it is a suburban school in the Twin Cities, and kids have to take music--band, choir, or orchestra. The way things are set up, kids that want to sing take choir, and so does every other kid that doesn't want to be in band or orchestra or music. I saw the ukulele as a way to meet those kids half-way, and my "singers" realize the power of learning an instrument that they can buy themselves and sing along with. A good number of the non-singers are happy to spend some time on ukulele.
All that said, we bought 58 (my largest classes have more than 50) CHEAP Mahalo MK1 ukuleles (most were $24 each) using fundraising money (no funds from the school/district), and then Kala graciously donated 40 Makala Waterman ukuleles (I actually wrote them just asking for some posters). The goal will be to replace the Mahalos over the years (selling the old ones to students for a low cost).
I found the Caramels on eBay, and gambled. Most of the YouTube videos of purchasers didn't offer much valuable information--people basically talked about how pretty they were. "Pretty" is nice, but playability and sound are more important.
My initial thought with the purchase was to have an example of a concert and tenor on hand so my students could see the difference--and if they played well--for the students with bigger fingers.
I don't take back anything I said in the video...it is all true. The braces are crooked in every model, the tuners can be crooked, the nuts are a bit sharp, and the fret bands are sharp, too.
Since I bought the two Caramels, we added two tenors, and will add two more concerts when they come back in stock. Tenors for $39 and concerns for $36 are a bargain. The last batch of two tenors arrived in less than a week. The first order took nearly a month.
The cheap Mahaols go out of tune all the time. Granted, they are just above the level of "toy" but when we purchased them, the goal was to get ukuleles. Replacing strings might help, but we don't have $300 right now to make that happen. Even a similar set of Caramels would have added $800 to the project, which we didn't have The Watermen are remarkably resilient to temperature fluctuations (we're having a lot of those in Minnesota right now), and I send those home with students to practice. The Caramels, as laminates, also hold their tuning quite well.
I did e-mail Caramel with my thoughts, letthing them know that I would appreciate the instruments coming with smoother nut and fret band edges, and a little more TLC placing visible braces straight and tuners straight. They seemed grateful for the feedback. While the visible braces and tuning heads are a cosmetic blemish that many would return a ukulele for, they don't impact the playability at all. Caramel's biggest problem, I feel, is the inability to keep the instruments in stock and the time it takes to get them to the USA. I suggested that they might want to look into having a US location for a warehouse and shipping. It would have to be cheaper to do that than to ship individual ukuleles from China to the US.
I have recommended these ukuleles, as well as some of the basic electro-acoustics with built-in tuners, to my students, and it is fun to see a number of my students start buying their own ukuleles.
Ukuleles in schools is a completely different topic, but I know of a number of local schools where individual teachers have started ukulele and I don't know of a single place where such programs are unsuccessful. I won't say that the ukulele is easy (I see enough kids that struggle just to make a C Chord--no kidding), but it is less complicated and "softer" to play than the guitar, which has six strings (Obvious statement of the year), metal strings (so does a Baritone Uke, but we aren't using those), and closer placed strings. Plus, anything you learn on the ukulele has the potential to guitar (in a way) later, but the ukulele is just fine as an instrument of its own. I'm sad that my own music teacher preparation (20 years ago) focused on guitar and recorder, and never mentioned ukulele.
So..as long as you aren't looking for a high-middle or high-end ukulele and are willing to put up with some things (or spend the money or have the skills to make corrections), you can't go wrong with a Concert ukulele for $36 or a tenor for $39. Or any other model that you find interesting and affordable.
And no company offered any discount or product for my statements. Sorry about the long post.
I'm new to the ukulele (started playing in January) with the idea of bringing ukulele to my 340 middle school choir students. Long story short...it is a suburban school in the Twin Cities, and kids have to take music--band, choir, or orchestra. The way things are set up, kids that want to sing take choir, and so does every other kid that doesn't want to be in band or orchestra or music. I saw the ukulele as a way to meet those kids half-way, and my "singers" realize the power of learning an instrument that they can buy themselves and sing along with. A good number of the non-singers are happy to spend some time on ukulele.
All that said, we bought 58 (my largest classes have more than 50) CHEAP Mahalo MK1 ukuleles (most were $24 each) using fundraising money (no funds from the school/district), and then Kala graciously donated 40 Makala Waterman ukuleles (I actually wrote them just asking for some posters). The goal will be to replace the Mahalos over the years (selling the old ones to students for a low cost).
I found the Caramels on eBay, and gambled. Most of the YouTube videos of purchasers didn't offer much valuable information--people basically talked about how pretty they were. "Pretty" is nice, but playability and sound are more important.
My initial thought with the purchase was to have an example of a concert and tenor on hand so my students could see the difference--and if they played well--for the students with bigger fingers.
I don't take back anything I said in the video...it is all true. The braces are crooked in every model, the tuners can be crooked, the nuts are a bit sharp, and the fret bands are sharp, too.
Since I bought the two Caramels, we added two tenors, and will add two more concerts when they come back in stock. Tenors for $39 and concerns for $36 are a bargain. The last batch of two tenors arrived in less than a week. The first order took nearly a month.
The cheap Mahaols go out of tune all the time. Granted, they are just above the level of "toy" but when we purchased them, the goal was to get ukuleles. Replacing strings might help, but we don't have $300 right now to make that happen. Even a similar set of Caramels would have added $800 to the project, which we didn't have The Watermen are remarkably resilient to temperature fluctuations (we're having a lot of those in Minnesota right now), and I send those home with students to practice. The Caramels, as laminates, also hold their tuning quite well.
I did e-mail Caramel with my thoughts, letthing them know that I would appreciate the instruments coming with smoother nut and fret band edges, and a little more TLC placing visible braces straight and tuners straight. They seemed grateful for the feedback. While the visible braces and tuning heads are a cosmetic blemish that many would return a ukulele for, they don't impact the playability at all. Caramel's biggest problem, I feel, is the inability to keep the instruments in stock and the time it takes to get them to the USA. I suggested that they might want to look into having a US location for a warehouse and shipping. It would have to be cheaper to do that than to ship individual ukuleles from China to the US.
I have recommended these ukuleles, as well as some of the basic electro-acoustics with built-in tuners, to my students, and it is fun to see a number of my students start buying their own ukuleles.
Ukuleles in schools is a completely different topic, but I know of a number of local schools where individual teachers have started ukulele and I don't know of a single place where such programs are unsuccessful. I won't say that the ukulele is easy (I see enough kids that struggle just to make a C Chord--no kidding), but it is less complicated and "softer" to play than the guitar, which has six strings (Obvious statement of the year), metal strings (so does a Baritone Uke, but we aren't using those), and closer placed strings. Plus, anything you learn on the ukulele has the potential to guitar (in a way) later, but the ukulele is just fine as an instrument of its own. I'm sad that my own music teacher preparation (20 years ago) focused on guitar and recorder, and never mentioned ukulele.
So..as long as you aren't looking for a high-middle or high-end ukulele and are willing to put up with some things (or spend the money or have the skills to make corrections), you can't go wrong with a Concert ukulele for $36 or a tenor for $39. Or any other model that you find interesting and affordable.
And no company offered any discount or product for my statements. Sorry about the long post.
JackLuis
Well-known member
How are the Caramel Baritones playing after you guys have had them a while?
My Big Zebra is a joy to play. Despite the reach, I find it one of the easiest to play of all my Caramels. The sound is lush and the Aquila's don't sound bad at all. I have changed out all the others to fluorocarbons of one sort or another. It doesn't make much difference if I play Bari or Tenor chord forms it sounds nice with most any song I play.
I haven't learned to finger pick yet, I'm just a strummer now. I did down load some tabs for a few songs to start practicing finger picking but haven't started that yet. I re-tuned one of my Tenors to dGBE and have been using it to learn the new forms. That has had me distracted for a few weeks but I do know the forms for C and G tuning now, a few anyway. I've kept the C tuned concerts in the rotation to force me to remember the C forms and keep my mind nimble. I even grab the soprano once in a while, but it sounds so tinny after the G tuned ones that it's amusing.
Choirguy, have you contacted James Hill about your Uke teaching? He seems to have had a lot of expierence in teaching Uke in schools up North. He might have a few tips for you.
My Big Zebra is a joy to play. Despite the reach, I find it one of the easiest to play of all my Caramels. The sound is lush and the Aquila's don't sound bad at all. I have changed out all the others to fluorocarbons of one sort or another. It doesn't make much difference if I play Bari or Tenor chord forms it sounds nice with most any song I play.
I haven't learned to finger pick yet, I'm just a strummer now. I did down load some tabs for a few songs to start practicing finger picking but haven't started that yet. I re-tuned one of my Tenors to dGBE and have been using it to learn the new forms. That has had me distracted for a few weeks but I do know the forms for C and G tuning now, a few anyway. I've kept the C tuned concerts in the rotation to force me to remember the C forms and keep my mind nimble. I even grab the soprano once in a while, but it sounds so tinny after the G tuned ones that it's amusing.
Choirguy, have you contacted James Hill about your Uke teaching? He seems to have had a lot of expierence in teaching Uke in schools up North. He might have a few tips for you.
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UkeStuff
Well-known member
JackLuis,
I haven't reached out to any of the "traditional" ukulele teachers...James Hill and the system he grew up in (Langley, BC). I am using the ukulele as a secondary focus in a choir class--a forced elective that kids have to take if they are in band or orchestra--rather than a pure uklulele class.
There are certainly plenty of resources on the web...not to mention UU's own materials...that can be used by individuals or classes.
A pure ukulele class would have a different focus, and a greater emphasis on picking...my emphasis is chordal accompaniment to,singing. The students are welcome to take it further if they would like to!
I haven't reached out to any of the "traditional" ukulele teachers...James Hill and the system he grew up in (Langley, BC). I am using the ukulele as a secondary focus in a choir class--a forced elective that kids have to take if they are in band or orchestra--rather than a pure uklulele class.
There are certainly plenty of resources on the web...not to mention UU's own materials...that can be used by individuals or classes.
A pure ukulele class would have a different focus, and a greater emphasis on picking...my emphasis is chordal accompaniment to,singing. The students are welcome to take it further if they would like to!
JackLuis
Well-known member
Sounds like I need that class.
I'm trying to learn to sing to make my strumming sound more like music. I never had any music lessons and no singing in school. My wife makes me sing outside as it scares the cat!
LarryS
Well-known member
Eh,Baritone ukes use metal strings?
They often use metal wound third and fourth strings but they are nylon or some other core. So they are way softer than say metal acoustic guitar strings.
Hey Jack,
My spruce top is great. I have changed strings several times trying to find the right the sound I'm looking for. Right now I have a set of Aquila Lavas on it except I switched out the wound third for a nylon classical guitar string. It sounds good and my heavy handed style and regular bending aren't tearing it up like I was the wound strings.
I have plugged it in to an amp and the pickup is completely acceptable for me.
JackLuis
Well-known member
I haven't tried any different strings yet. The wound strings do hurt a bit more than non-wound though. I may try some non wound strings. I have a set of Worth Brown Fats but I'd have to go re-entrant as the D is a high D. I used half of them for my tenor and tuned it dGBE and have been pretty happy with them. I hope to get some sound samples of the Big Zebra and my tenors in the next few days to put up.
I ended up getting a saprano zebra wood model. Not bad. The pick up and tuner work great. I will say I had to take a fine grit piece of sandpaper and sand down parts of the wood and also down the sides of the neck. The frets were sticking out and not sanded on the sides. I had the issue resolved very quickly. Sounds pretty darn good for a $35 ukulele though. I still prefer a concert size but this will be a fun knock around uke. I have it tuned a full step higher than normal GCEA tuning and I get a really melodic tone out of it.
Congrats. I would encourage you to go ahead and try one of their concerts. I have had and played a lot of caramels now and the concerts are the most consistently great. A laminate zebrawood without the pickup is only $36. I haven't done a review yet, but I also got a solid mahogany top concert a while back. Its tone is fantastic. It plays great and its beautiful. If it was a lurker considering one of these caramels, I would get a concert.
I've got to say after playing this for a few weeks now I'm extremely impressed. I changed the strings to D'addario Nyltechs and it sounds fantastic. Also having the built in tuner is very convenient. I'm pretty happy with it. I'll take your advice and when I get some extra fun money I'll definitely order a concert size. That E chord is so much easier to grab on this saprano though. It's a lot of fun to play.
JackLuis
Well-known member
I agree with UkeiOkie, my concert zebra is better sounding than the soprano. It may just be my preference for a fuller toned instrument though. My concert is a bit better that my Tenor Zebra as well. It may well be the individual instruments though. I have been debating ordering another Tenor but have been considering a solid acacia topped one. Living where I do I kind of worry about solid tops and humidity (lack of it in my case) and maybe another Zebra Laminate might have the tone I'm looking for.
But as I beat back my UAS, maybe I should just save up for a whole lot better instrument after I learn to finger pick? I saw a beautiful Kala Koa Tenor the other day at my local, it was over $1600 though, but there was a very nice mahogany Baritone that was only~$500. Maybe I shoud buy a lotto ticket?
But as I beat back my UAS, maybe I should just save up for a whole lot better instrument after I learn to finger pick? I saw a beautiful Kala Koa Tenor the other day at my local, it was over $1600 though, but there was a very nice mahogany Baritone that was only~$500. Maybe I shoud buy a lotto ticket?
Nickie
Well-known member
"I saw a beautiful Kala Koa Tenor the other day at my local, it was over $1600 though"
Wow, that seems a pretty penny for a Kala! It must not be Chinese....?
Wow, that seems a pretty penny for a Kala! It must not be Chinese....?
cpmusic
Well-known member
It's probably one of the new Elite models Kala is building in Petaluma, CA. I don't think any of Kala's imported models sell for that much.
