Friendly Fred

Hi, I'm FriendlyFred and running this blog. I play 'em all from soprano to baritone, acoustic and electric. Yes, big hands can handle small instruments. Enjoy strumming around and have a good day !

Mahalo Smiley Face Ukulele ( U-40 / Smile U ) Review

This is a yellow painted soprano ukulele made of maple. It has simple geared guitar style tuners which do their job. The binding of the neck and the painting is not perfect, but ok for a low budget ukulele. There are no sharp endings of the fretwires. The playability of the neck is good. The headstock is shorter than usual in other soprano ukes. The height of the strings is fine for me. A residual of glue is visible at the back end of the bridge. But this isn't really a problem. I don't know why the bridge is glued and screwed. In earlier models there were some ukes with a shortened first fret. Mine has a correct fret placement and a good intonation. It has a mellow sound. If you buy this ukulele, the first thing you have to do is change the strings. I put on Worth carbon strings. This ukulele is worth it's price. I recommend it for beginners or if you just want to strum a little bit on a funny looking instrument.  

2 Comments

  1. Simon Pearce

    What tune are you playing in the video. Sounds fun and I would love to learn it.

    Reply
    • Friendly Fred

      Hi Simon,

      I just tried some chord changes, but didn’t tab it.

      Best regards
      FriendlyFred

      Reply

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