MK-T Makala Tenor Ukulele

I bought this as an upgrade to my first Uke, a Mitchell Soprano. I wanted a Tenor for more stability and space to move around on the finger board.I really love this uke. Beautiful dark wood, satin finish. Brass colored frets, which aren't sharp. It tuned up no problem and holds tune well. It has a beautiful sound, and nice low action right out of the box. I can barely put it down, I love it.I have only a few "complaints" and they're not really even complaints.1) The instrument is made in China. I ordered a Kala because it's an American company with a great reputation. I was disto find a "Made in China" sticker on the back of the head stock. That being said I understand the need to cut production costs to keep the price down, and the instrument is fantastic so I'm really not mad.2) The instrument I got doesn't match the picture. I think I may have received an older model. The current model Makala has a lighter stain, and a lighter colored Laurel fingerboard and bridge. My instrument has a darker stain and a rosewood fingerboard and bridge. To be honest I think I prefer this model, but the description and photo should be accurate. Just know you may not be getting what you expect.3) The wood on the bridge is appears to be dried out. It's significantly lighter in color than the fingerboard. This confirms my suspicions that they sent me an older ukulele. Hopefully they didn't unload some old merchandise on me. I'm still really happy with the instrument but will look into conditioning the bridge.Anyway, hope this review was helpful. Excellent instrument. Great value. Somewhat questionable seller maybe.Happy strumming.

I've played guitar for a few months now and felt comfortable with it so I decided to branch out and buy a ukulele. My sister's soprano was a little too small for my fingers, so I went with a tenor model.This is a great uke for beginner players. It sounds good, especially considering how inexpensive it is. The finish looks great and the color is gorgeous. Mine was a little darker than the picture, which I like better anyway. Mine came with a mini-booklet displaying chords and typical tuning schemes as well as a few simple songs.I found that the learning curve is quite steep (in the good way, like a growing log function) coming from the guitar, but it does take some getting used to. A few things that I should point out about it:When I first got it, the strings were quite loose. Initially I tuned it an octave too low. It sounded terrible. I realize this is pretty basic, but keep it in mind if you've never owned a uke before. It should be the octave right around middle C on the piano. I use a Korg CA-30 chromatic tuner.Secondly, the strings relax quickly right away. By the time I had tuned it correctly the first time, the 4 string was already out of tune. Over time this will diminish and it will hold in tune much better, but be aware of this at the outset. I expect to be tuning it pretty constantly, even song to song, over the next week or so (maybe longer).I kept the stock strings because they sounded ok to me and perform well enough, but my sister upgraded hers right away and found that to be better for her. Beginners can probably get away with using the factory strings as they sound fine.TL;DR: This is a great uke for the price if you tune it to the correct octave and keep in mind how quickly the strings relax.

Buyer beware. This is a gateway instrument and is very addictive.I recieved this uke 13years ago as a gift and am still playing.

I bought a couple of these tenor ukes before the holidays (one for each of our two houses). When our children and grandchildren got together with us for the holidays, my daughter fell in love with it, so I gave it to her. I just ordered a few more for our other kids (and myself) and will likely order some more for our other house. Everyone in our family is into music, and my boys and I have played guitar (among other instruments) for a LONG time. This tenor uke is a great size for my big fingers (soprano uke = too tiny). The tone is very impressive for such a cheap instrument, and the woodwork, visually, is much better than I expected at this price. I like everything about it, so far. I can't speak to its durability yet, but it bounces around pretty well. It looks like it might be a bit tricky changing out the strings, but I'll deal with that when it happens.There seems to be a bit of a ukulele "revival" going on these days, and the simplicity of uke playing coupled with good sounding, cheap, and easily portable ukes like this one could be a contributing factor. I needed a "gig bag" to send my daughter home with it so I quickly fabricated something with a drawstring from one leg of some old sweatpants. At first I thought it would be a great product to market to the new uke crowd, but, then again, everybody has some old sweatpants......so I'm offering out the concept royalty-free right here on Amazon (Amazon and I go way back).