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Original Post By:
scrooner
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Date: 8/5/2008 1:09:47 PM |
Since the general consensus seems to be that a resonator's sound depends more on the cone than the body build, I'm surprised the Chinese manufacturers haven't started making these. Seems to me that Ohana/Kala/Lanikai/Bushman could make a body with whatever fancy looking wood they like, drop a National cone in it, and sell it for under $200 no problem.
When is this going to start happening?
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Posted By:
Diesel
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Date: 8/6/2008 3:08:21 PM |
| Aren't Johnsons Chinese made?
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Posted By:
scrooner
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Date: 8/6/2008 4:13:26 PM |
| Yeah, but those are brass body.
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Posted By:
allenhopkins
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Date: 8/6/2008 5:45:52 PM |
Good question; lots of Chinese-made wood-bodied resonator guitars available. Perhaps the market size isn't sufficient to generate interest. Yet, for a year or so, there were Chinese-made metal-bodied resonator octave mandolins that you could buy on-line, and I have to feel that's even a smaller "niche market."
Suggestion: get hold of Republic or Gold Tone, and suggest that there's a market for these instruments. I mean, Gold Tone just started marketing a cello banjo, and if that ain't "niche," what is?
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Posted By:
William
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Date: 8/7/2008 12:53:17 AM |
| Can someone tell me how it is the best interest of the USA economy to buy any chinese made ukulele? Seeing what Bejing is trying to do to get the air so you don't have to chew it before you swallow it makes me ask if this is the result of buying what is wanted rather than what is needed. Is price all that matters? No, I am not a treehugger!
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Posted By:
allenhopkins
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Date: 8/7/2008 1:12:40 AM |
William, I respect your viewpoint, but at the present time there are darn few student-grade or intermediate instruments being made in the US. If scrooner wants a wood-bodied resonator uke, and doesn't want to spend a thousand dollars, he can't buy a National, and what else is there? Maybe he can luck out and find a used National, or an old Dobro; maybe he settles for a metal-bodied or fiberglas-bodied instrument.
It doesn't "help the US economy" to buy Asian import instruments (other than the income of the American distributor who imports and sells them), but the US economy isn't producing medium-priced instruments any more. Visit your local music store and look at ALL the student- and intermediate-grade instruments. Bet you find every one of them is an Asian import. Not just ukuleles -- stringed instruments, brass instruments, woodwinds, whatever.
China's no exemplar of progressive environmental, human rights, or economic policies. That's true. But as things stand now, if you'd like to find a medium-priced wood-bodied resonator ukulele, your only viable choice is to get it built in some Asian country, or find an individual builder here in America who'll take it on as a custom job. Welcome to the global musical economy!
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Posted By:
Pete Howlett
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Date: 8/7/2008 8:48:27 PM |
| China is going through it's Industrial Revolution. Western societies have been there and worn the T Shirt. We shouldn't be too snotty - they'll get it right one day. Anyway, sooner or later they will own half the world... do some research as to their interests in Africa. Better start learning Cantonese and Mandarin - could be the new English!
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Posted By:
Russell
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Date: 8/7/2008 10:35:51 PM
(Updated: 8/7/2008 10:37:09 PM)
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I'm curious, what do you consider 'medium-priced'? By the way, Pete, I agree with you completely about China.
Russ
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Posted By:
stevo
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Date: 8/8/2008 1:07:18 PM
(Updated: 8/8/2008 1:08:13 PM)
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William , you live on a different plane than me. I guess.
I will be glad to buy a American made reso, Send me the 1500.00 plus and I will gladly take a picture with me and the uke in front of a American flag.
No, price isnt all that matters. But if you dont have the money , you dont have it.
Dont mean to be harsh, but the idea that since I cannot afford a American inst. " you just dont need one" doesnt set well with me.
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Posted By:
scrooner
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Date: 8/8/2008 3:52:44 PM |
China aside, it just seems weird to me that there are *very* few ways to get a wood-body resonator for under $1000. Should be cheaper to make than a brass body resonator (I would imagine) but they just aren't around.
Is it possible to build a cigar box resonator? Are any cigar boxes deep enough?
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Posted By:
Grampie
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Date: 8/8/2008 4:02:39 PM |
| William, I suggest you talk to all the American companies that have sent jobs offshore and persuade them to return the jobs here. Now THAT would help the U.S. economy. When I call the circulation department of the local newspaper I get someone in Indonesia or somewhere. I think Pete's closer to the truth of what is happening in the real world. I keep wondering when U.S. companies are going to figure out that they've cut off their noses to spite their own faces by eliminating the well-off, middle-class consumers that would buy their goods. Apparently in their new world, that doesn't matter so long as there are enough wealthy folks to buy the high-ticket items or enough folks offshore to buy imports. They seem to be willing to leave the low- and middle-price brackets to anyone else who can produce them. Our wealth has become a double-edged sword in the global economy: Industries like steel disappeared into China and Japan because of labor costs here. What next? You tell me, but it appears that right now China and Saudi Arabia own a big chunk of everything. One up side: This may benefit some small artisans who are willing to make specialty goods like ukuleles at prices ordinary folks can afford. And I'd say right now ukes (but so far not wooden resonator ukes) are among the best bargains in stringed instruments. Just MHO, YMMV.
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Posted By:
Flyin' Brian
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Date: 8/8/2008 4:55:42 PM |
A National wooden-bodied resonator can sometimes be found for much less than $1000, and even at $1000, they are well worth the selling, saving and waiting necessary to get one. A custom resonator from Pete Howlett for $1300 is a great deal.
Ukuleles are great bargains, especially if you have patience. If you buy a National or a Howlett Resolele and decide the reso sound isn't for you, you will not lose money selling the instrument.
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Posted By:
scrooner
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Date: 8/8/2008 5:17:52 PM |
Everyone says Nationals are worth the price, and who am I to doubt them? Doesn't change the fact that I don't deserve one yet. My main uke, a KoAloha concert, cost me $550 last summer. My wife *still* thinks it was too much money to be spending on a uke, especially with us trying to support two kids. I'm still glad I bought it, and have been enjoying the heck out of it, but I have no plans to buy a $1000+ resonator just to check it out. That's a good way to wake up with my strumming hand chopped off!
If I was flyin' solo, that'd be another story. But it's not just *my* money I'd be spending ;)
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Posted By:
LoMa
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Date: 8/8/2008 5:19:38 PM |
People can afford what they can afford... and it's a good thing when they know how much they really can afford...
Personal debt is a drag on the US economy too...
wow, the word afford sounds really really weird when you say it three times in the same sentence...
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Posted By:
rbeetsme
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Date: 8/8/2008 7:22:48 PM
(Updated: 8/8/2008 7:25:47 PM)
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| Some clarification. US companies (and many other countries) went to China because of the abundance of an inexpensive (cheap) skilled work force. Almost every major electronics manufacturer is there. It didn't take long before the Chinese entrepeneurs started copying the merchandise and selling them at half the cost here. (didn't the Japanese do the same thing) Unfortunately China does not enforce copyright laws. Along came the American music industry. They discovered the same thing, found skilled craftsmen (or to be PC craftpersons) who were willing to build guitars, etc. for much less. I know of one such company that found a luthier family making beautiful all wood mahagony ukes and built a business selling inexpensive ukes rivaling the high end stuff. Somebody took notice and suddenly Kala, Hohner, and others followed suit. In the case of one company, the demand was soon much greater than the supply. This company decided to cut the line, only sells 2 models now, and there is still a long wait, in other words, they didn't shop for a bigger factory trying to keep the quality control under control. I know of companies who designed products, signed exclusive contracts and then discovered that the factory took their product and went shopping. Before long, a half a dozen US companies were selling the same product, all thinking they had exclusive rights. Probably the only way to fight this trend is to simply get Lori, Keith Ogata, Black Bear, etc., to make a uke for you. Yeah, they aren't cheap, but will probably never lose their value.
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Posted By:
Surfink
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Date: 8/8/2008 7:37:01 PM |
| I think resonators are still considered a "niche" instrument that most people can get along without. I built two out of wood I was very pleased with but I don't play them that often. I have a Johnson engraved body as well which looks great, sounds great but I just don't play it that often. I have become selective with my time and some instruments fall by the wayside.. I don't think the market is there though.
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Posted By:
DougD
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Date: 8/8/2008 7:55:25 PM |
Hey scrooner - I don't think that its you don't deserve it, its that you shouldn't spend that much, and I understand completely.
I wonder if, instead of a cigar box, you could fit a cheap uke, like a Mahalo, with a resonator. I mean you can buy the cone, and I assume all the metal parts. Maybe the soundhole of the uke would be in the wrong place, but maybe you could turn the extra part into a moon shaped port or something.
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Posted By:
RSteve
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Date: 8/9/2008 5:17:57 PM |
DougD wrote: I wonder if, instead of a cigar box, you could fit a cheap uke, like a Mahalo, with a resonator. I mean you can buy the cone, and I assume all the metal parts."
You need adequate room for the cone and coverplate. Assuming a 6" cone. From the center of the existing saddle, you must have at least 3.5" in all directions, if a cone retainer is glued to the underside of the top or 3" if you use a 6" diameter soundwell glued to the inner back. Cones and biscuit bridges are readily available, coverplates, not so easy to find.
If cosmetics aren't an issue the Amigo tenor uke, which IMHO is unplayable without alteration, is actually a 15" concert scale in a larger body. There is room for reso cone and coverplate, but the coverplate mayslightly hang over the sound hole, depending on how you engineer mounting the cone. The Amigo also doesn't have a separate fretboard; frets are inserted directly in the neck.
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Posted By:
Allison's R
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Date: 8/10/2008 3:25:50 AM |
| Pete is right, it happened all over Europe in the 60s where in order to compete, the businessmen went looking for "cheap labour" in Southern Europe and North Africa, and brought them in by the bus load. With Europe opening up now, skilled artisans from East European countries are keen to do any work that their West European colleagues do not want to do any more. Business people are happy as they can exist a while longer. That "juggling" practise in my opinion has not stopped in most rich countries. To avoid any further cross border movements, the businessmen rather fly to the East and try to set up businesses or place orders with existing businesses there and import it to the West. Eventually they are going to run out of cheap labour, but for now these large people movements will make for some interesting ever evolving populations, with some changes of habits and maybe traditions and cultures. Don't forget there are some large continents with enormous populations fighting for "a piece of the pie" . Poverty does that to anybody. That's also why our past generations moved to "greener pastures" in foreign countries (initially colonies). But don't worry, it will happen gradually. The younger generations will have to deal with that, and today's children need to be made aware of that. It's all about money and survival. Somebody has and makes the money that others need to survive on. They poor will do their utmost to get themselves near those opportunities. This is only my opinion. I'll get off my soapbox now. Thank you
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Posted By:
allenhopkins
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Date: 8/12/2008 12:54:32 AM |
Just finished poking around on Google looking for signs of a less-than-$1K wooden resonator ukulele. No luck, though there seemed to be a National or two offered for $950. Custom and small-builder instruments considerably more.
Discussions above about the "global economy" aside, it's pretty clear that there are few domestic sources for lower-priced instruments, and that no American distributor has commissioned an Asian factory to build wood-bodied resonator ukuleles. Plenty of Johnson/Republic/Recording King/Ashbury brass-bodied imports, in the sub-$300 range, but no wooden ones, not even plywood (which would probably be OK, since the instrument's sound is produced by the resonator cone).
So: try a conversion of a larger-bodied (tenor) uke to a resonator, buying the resonator and coverplate. Building a sound-well inside the instrument to accommodate the resonator would be the real challenge, IMHO. Or talk to one of the FMM builders about what they'd charge to do the conversion. This may be the only route to go.
I will avoid any China-bashing. Since the demise of the American Harmony and Kay factories, now more than 30 years in the past, large-scale production of introductory-level and medium-priced instruments has become "imports only." First Japan, then Korea, China, Romania, Indonesia, wherever less-expensive hand-work could be obtained. Still a lot of instrument building in Mexico and Central America, but not resonator ukes, apparently.
It's the reality of the 21st century, and we have to deal with it. Good luck!
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