DU-102 Rainbow Soprano Ukulele - Red

I unpacked this and spent a few days just tuning it every time I came near it. This is my first ukulele. I have to admit I decided to buy a ukulele after hearing Amanda Palmer's Ukulele Anthem. (Don't judge lol!) I didn't see any reason to change out the strings even though other reviews recommend Aquila strings for better action and sound, but the manufacturer said the strings are new. New is good enough for my learning needs at this time. I read from other reviews, some had had incidents where the bridge tore loose, or the instrument wouldn't stay in tune. I didn't want to put a crazy amount of stress on it so I gave it some time and the first night after I unboxed it, I just tightened the strings until they felt tight and were close to the standard tuning for a soprano ukulele. Every 15 min to a half hour I'd just keep on tuning it. (Whenever I walked by it)The manufacturer recommends pulling on the strings as per the tutorial in the product description. I tried a little of this, but it was making me crazy thinking with my luck I'd break it. Anyway my advice is, be patient with the strings and a few days later, mine at least seems to be holding it's tuning just fine. I fine tune it a bit right before practicing with it but the stock strings seem to hold the tuning while I play now. The tuning pegs on mine aren't slipping or anything.Other thoughts: These little ukuleles don't appear to have any bracing in them like you would see in guitars. The coating on the one I got is pretty and smooth. Mine is the dark purple. The purple color is very dark. If you are in a dim room it looks almost black. If you want an obviously purple uke you might want to consider the violet. The coating seems thicker than what you'd see on an average acoustic guitar. In my non expert opinion it seems like this will help the wood hold up even without bracing. When it's in tune it has a pretty sound, and the body has nice resonance.My ukulele 's bridge is screwed down to the body. I'm guessing it's also glued but I haven't wanted to mess with it. One screw applied at the factory damaged my bridge a little bit from being applied off center. It gouged the wood and left a bit of natural wood color exposed where the screw went down. This doesn't bother me THAT much. I'm going to probably just take a sharpie marker and touch it up. It doesn't seem to affect the sound. It's just a little ugly. The so called gig bag is just a zippered dust cover with a handle. It's nice to have as a dust cover or to keep spiders out though, but it is NOT a proper gig bag. If you want something to protect your uke, look into a separate case with some padding at least, maybe a pocket too for picks or a tuner etc.Overall I'm happy with the ukulele. If I get another ukulele for myself or a gift, I'd probably get another one of these. It's seems like a nice little instrument for the price. I read on a couple guitar forums that nail polish has the same ingredients as the coating on electric guitars. I am considering painting on my uke with it to make it more unique. Nail polish has nothing to do with the review but I wanted to toss it out there for anyone who might want to do the same.Update to original review: After playing with this every day my review lost a couple stars. I'm still liking this little guy but it has some issues.First: When you hold the ukulele against your body with a proper holding technique the ukulele becomes very muted and dead sounding. This however is super in the wee hours of the morning when you don't wish to disturb anyone but you loose any kind of pretty resonance plucking strings may give you. It also makes recording your progress sound like complete garbage. If you keep the back from touching your body it sounds pretty nice. Because of this issue I am scared to try the nail polish design I had planned.Second: I found some frets are dead in the middle of the neck on the A string, and other frets produce an odd reverb like sound instead of a clear tone. The reverb-like sound is kind of neat in my opinion but the dead frets just make a plunky noise with little to no sustain compared to frets higher or lower. I didn't notice at first, but this could be because my bridge doesn't connect smoothly to the body. There is a semi large gap on one side.Third: Hearing myself on this ukulele compared to others on different brands (and yes some people are worse then me that i'm comparing myself to, just an fyi.) The uke just kinda sounds sub par.Regardless of its issues it has been a good starter ukulele for me. The fact I grew out of it so quickly and am hunting for one that sounds better already is depressing but it wasn't very much money either which adds to it's value as an instrument I don't mind the 3 year old playing with too.I am going to try to contact the mfg. and see if I just got a dud.

Very happy with this Uke! Great sound, great color, perfect for my Music Class!

Not a pro instrument but works as expected. Good for beginners or as a uke you don’t need to be too careful with. Construction is shoddy at best and would not recommend for a serious musician instrument. My wife loves to throw A uke in a bag and bring it with her everywhere for impromptu song writing. So this works for her needs. Would not use for recording or gigging purposes. Rough frets, shoddy paint job on fret board, poor construction of timing pegs, mediocre sound.

It's a really fun ukulele. The strings are just thick fishing string. I replaced the strings with actual ukulele stings D'Addario EJ88S Nyltech Ukulele Strings, Soprano  These strings brought the cheap ukulele to life. The real strings make it sound so much better.Standard Ukulele Tuning MethodThis is also known as “relative” tuning, why? Well, because you will tune the four strings relative to each other. This is a perfect method if you are playing on your own and you want to have all your strings sound good together, but it isn’t that accurate. This will cause issues though if you are playing with other people. I will guide you through the steps.1. You will use the first string (A) as a reference to tune the other three strings, this is why this method isn’t that accurate. You won’t notice it if you play alone though, but you will if you play along with songs or friends.2. Place your finger just behind the fifth fret on the E string (second string). That’s an A note. Now when you pick the first string (A), it should sound the same. You can adjust the the second string with the tuning pegs on the headstock until they sound the same.ukulele tuning step 23. Place your finger just behind the fourth fret on the C string (third string). That’s an E note. Now when you pick the second string (E), it should sound the same. You can adjust the the third string with the tuning pegs on the headstock until they sound the same.ukulele tuning step 34a. Most ukulele come standard with a High G string. Place your finger just behind the second fret on the G string (fourth string). That’s an A note. Now when you pick the first string (A), it should sound the same. You can adjust the fourth string with the tuning pegs on the headstock until they sound the same.ukulele tuning step 4a4b. If you’ve chosen to use a Low G string on your ukulele you can use this method. Place your finger just behind the fifth fret on the G string (fourth string). That’s a C note. Now when you pick the third string (A), it should sound the same. You can adjust the the fourth string with the tuning pegs on the headstock until they sound the same.ukulele tuning step 4bThis might take some practice to train your ear, but it’s an easy way to quickly tune your ukulele. If you know your notes on the fretboard you could also come up with other combinations.Piano Tuningukulele notes on the pianoYou can also use a piano to tune your ukulele. You can see the keys af the piano above, match the notes of the piano with that of your ukulele by ear, this can also take some practice. As you can see G C E A = sol do mi la.

Absolutely love it

I previously bought a used uke but found it difficult to play because the frets were so low and had to press very hard on the strings. That's what prompted me to buy this. I've been playing guitar for years and thought it'd be fun to learn to play the ukulele.I chose this one because of the colour, price and the accompanying gig bag. I had a few issues with the shipping (it didn't come with a gig bag and the box it arrived in had NO tape holding it shut) I talked to Amazon customer service and we got it all rectified so I'm quite satisfied in that regard.As for the instrument itself, it's not top of the line (which I wasn't going for anyway) but for the price, it's a great value. Another reviewer mentioned it didn't come tuned, and while this is my first online instrument order, I don't think it would be possible to have it shipped tuned due to weather and humidity changes etc... I downloaded a uke tuner app on my phone, free of charge so there's no real need to have one bundled with the uke or buy one separately.As for tuning, I don't play mine every day, and I do have to tune it up and it could be a half note out. BUT the tuning pegs are like what you see on a guitar and while it may take a bit to tune up the tuning pegs do a good job of not turning the other way and loosening the string on you. I've never played a nylon string instrument before so I can't really say if the amount of tuning needed is typical or due to the fact that they are nylon strings. I do know for my steel string guitar, when I put new strings on, it does take a while before the strings are stretched enough that I don't have to tune it as often. I think part of the tuning "issues" others are having could very well be due to it having new strings on it.All in all, I am happy with my purchase, the product and Amazon's level of customer service.

Este Ukelele está bien fabricado y tiene buen sonido.Obviamente no es el mejor pero por el precio vale mucho la pena.Además es bastante fácil aprende aunque nunca hayas tocado otro instrumento. Vale la pena para principiantes.Esta versión es la más pequeña. Así que si eres muy grande de cuerpo es preferible que subas al que sigue.En relación al color morado que compré es fuerte, como una berenjena, casi negro según como le de la luz.El problema con este ukelele al igual que todos los baratos es que se desafina muuuy fácilmente. Sobretodo al principio o después de un tiempo de no usarlo. Así que es casi indispensable si eres principiante comprar un afinador digital.

I love it, may not be the best quality but nothing on mine has broke and I have had it for over a year and a half. I immediately swapped out the original strings for  AQUILA 4U Soprano Regular Ukulele Strings  and havent looked back. Fantastic sound, great beginner Uke. I was only going to use this for a few months to see if I like playing then get a better quality uke, I love playing and will continue to use this great little uke until something on it wears out. After a year and a half of hard playing it still looks as good as the day I purchased it. Im not sure why this has gotten some bad reviews... AQUILA 4U Soprano Regular Ukulele Strings

El ukulele me costó $650 y ahora veo que subió a $850, la verdad me lo llevé en muy buen precio, a decir verdad no tiene los acabados excelentes pero por el precio y para ser un capricho de mis hijos está excelente, no me arrepiento pues de carpricho pasó a ser un gusto. Baja la app Tunefor Ukulele para iphone y afinalo al llegar pues llega completamente desafinado. La funda es muy muy delgada pero práctica, suena muy bonito ya afinado. Voy a comprar otro de otra marca y los compararé. En dos semanas ya sacamos la primera canción.