Thursday 17 July 2014

Review: Octopus Ukulele

Yesterday I was helping my friend find a ukulele as she would like to learn and stumbled upon the octopus. I have a makala dolphin which I thought was the best cheep ukulele but soon discovered the octopus' nickname, the dolphin killer. And so was intrigued.
Strolling through Bognor with my grand parents I discovered a small music shop with a ukulele section and as a person with a nasty case of UAS (Ukulele Acquisition Syndrome) wandered in. I asked the assistant if they had the octopus, they did. After trying out their black sparkly one I bought a green sparkly one and was amazed by the quality of the build.

The body is made of a thick plywood, something you would expect for the price. The neck and fret board are perfectly matched with the sides of the rosewood fret board having been rolled, something you only see on high end ukuleles, and an immaculate paint job. The action is already very low for a low end ukulele and there is plenty of scope for lowering it further.
The strings are octopus' own "white synthetic gut strings" which are very stretchy but seem to settle quickly. The tuners are geared and are a little grindy but overall are very good and hold extremely well, the tuner buttons are rubberised which is a nice but un necessary touch.

Overall I think this is a very good quality ukulele for the price and has been well thought out. It sounds like a plywood ukulele and the sound is not particularly exciting or dramatic but that is what you pay for . I like the double logo, one saying octopus between the four tuning pins in the centre of the head and one with a picture of an octopus on the top of the head. I also like the gig bag which comes with it, it is more sturdy than the mahalo or makala cases and has the octopus logo across the bottom in a classy way not in a terrible advertisementy way.

Love 
Eloise

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for your review! I have 2 Octopus concerts, 1 Octopus soprano, and 11 Dolphins (have had more Dolphins, but I give them as gifts from time to time). Your review is accurate in terms of the slightly grindy tuners and overall quality. I found the action to be much higher than my Dolphins, and one of them has a very rough paint job on the sides. Another one had a tiny indentation on the top. These, by the way, are the upgraded versions, not the originals. The tone on all of them is quite good, especially considering the price point. I like them very much. But If the house catches on fire, I'm grabbing as many Dolphins as I can hold - in my view, they are far superior to the Octopus. With proper setup, the Octopus makes a great little uke. I've never had to setup my Dolphins, though. Again, thanks for your excellent review!

    ReplyDelete