Comments on: RISA Uke-Solid Electric Tenor Ukulele Review

By: tony

tony — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 23:27:32 +0000

Haha! You’re right! Sorry if I sounded like a bloody Simon Cowell there! I’m just a big ol’ Wordsmith about these things. Also am a little passionate about throwing in my 2 cents :) Happy 2010 everyone!!

By: Woodshed

Woodshed — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 11:26:26 +0000

Tony: I think it was more of an ‘in a perfect world’ suggestion than a pitch on Dragon’s Den.

By: andy

andy — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 02:05:28 +0000

Bloody Hell tony, that’s some response ! Speaking as someone who spends a fair amount of time getting cabin fever in hotel rooms (the weekends are the worst), I disagree that it’s a “terrible idea”, but I completely agree that it’s not the most commercially viable idea that I’ve ever had :-)

By: tony

tony — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 14:43:18 +0000

Andy- your instrument rental ideas for hotels would be a total and complete dud, other than maybe (and that’s a huge maybe) hostels where young college kids would stay at. First off, most adults would never bother to rent an instrument in ther first place. There are two reasons you stay at a hotel- for two or three days on business trips, where you’re on meetings the whole day and come back too exhausted to want to do anything else other than hit the lobby bar, or for pleasure when you show up for a week with the wife and kids, and both adults will be too busy with the kids to play the instrument at night, and the kids’ll probably (more than likely) break it before the stay is over. Plus, being a hotel, a place designed and aimed for foreigners and tourists, just think of the ridiculously high hotel price they’ll charge to use a musical instrument! Hell you can’t get a Martini at a hotel bar for less than $10 bucks, and a 12oz beer’ll cost you $4, just imagine an instrument rental price! And Heaven forbid you break them during your stay (which will happen in several, several instances), then the bill added will be huge. Then guests will say that the instrument was like that when they got it just to try and get away from paying that huge bill, and the lobby will say otherwise, and then lawsuits and poor hotel reviews come around from that.
Add to all that the huge cost of buying the instruments from a company, and maintaining the instruments, plus the cost of any insurance for them in case the guests break or steal them (small instrument such as ukes could EASILY be tucked in a suitcase. Sure u could ask for a valid Credit Card before the rental just in case of theft, but you’d still be out one uke- and in the case of Prom kids or Bachelor parties, you could be out several ukes, and it could be a while before your distributor sends in replacement ones).
On top of all that, the hotels would then have a huge surge of noise complaints, because some clown with a reservation who walked in and rented a uke or what other instrument, thinking he was a GOD on it, would go into to his room and start unleashing horrible UNGodly noises from it, therefore waking up everyone in the rooms around his who have to wake up early in the morning to go to an important business meeting, or to take the family to Disney or whatever. The lobby couldn’t ask for the guy to turn it down, since he rented it fair and square, and he could play it however he wanted, and now you got a whole other assorted wave of complaints and people who’ll never be coming back to stay at your noisy joint ever again.
So you see, a hotel manager or owner would never go for that, since it would be too much of a liability, and generally a usueless loss of money, especially nowadays when the economy’s so down the crapper every business is struggling just to stay afloat. Same liabilities would apply for hostels, but theft and damages would be triple the amount, and most of those kids pay in cash cuz college kids are always so piss-poor broke all the time (if they weren’t they wouldn’t be staying at a hostel to begin with), so they’d be pretty much either 1) be unanble to rent, or 2) be completely untraceable when they walk out with ukes stuffed in their sacks.
So, while I give you points for the creativity, that idea is absolutely terrible, and would highly likely be a bigger disaster than the Hindenberg.

-Later everyone!

By: Woodshed

Woodshed — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 17:05:12 +0000

John: I did say “push a pin” I said “bash a pin” because that’s what I had to do. It was jammed fast. It’s a design fault. And a big one.

By: John

John — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 04:22:53 +0000

mictoboy,

I’ve been playing my Risa soprano left-handed for a couple of years, and you’re right. Having the pegs on the bottom is not only more comfortable, but it’s much easier to tune with them in this position.

Tony C.,
Try running your Risa through a Roland MicroCube. I had a HoneyTone ofr the first two years, and the Roland is a WHOLE NEW WORLD!

More generally… am I missing something or does the reviewer fault the instrument because a string broke??And because he had to use a simple tool to remove the string remnant? It doesn’t seem to me that string breakage is confined to Risa instruments, or that to be that demanding to push a pin or toothpick through a hole to get a string end out. I’ll grant that that is about the worst think I’d be able to say about my Risa; it’s a great little axe!

By: Olly

Olly — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 21:41:50 +0000

haha! yeah, it just stays on there until payday…

By: Woodshed

Woodshed — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 15:26:47 +0000

shawnb: It’s all done with the Boss GT-10.

Thomas: The toys are a lot of fun to play with. Have to agree with that.

Ron: I think it could happen if an act came along that used the electric ukulele extensively. Even so, I’m not sure it would overhaul the acoustic uke – I think it will stay a more fringe thing.

Anne Marie: Like Tony said, it’s just the same output as an electric guitar so you can use any effects you like. I’m using one of these – which is like a whole bunch of pedals in one. You plug the uke into that, it does all the fancy stuff and you plug that into your amp/headphones/recording device.

Tamster: It is good for practicing – but it would be even better if it had an active pickup so you could plug straight in rather than going through an amp.

Tony: I agree, good uke for travelling. Particularly since it’s very sturdy.

andy: Damn good idea if you ask me!

mictoboy: The only issue I can see with playing it left handed is that you’d have the lead coming out of the top – it might get in the way when you’re strumming.

alec: Thanks.

Marcelo: They do sound good with a full band – Toy Horses use a RISA.

todd: You’ll make a fortune!

karl: Thanks for the info. I didn’t know that’s why they changed the name.

Olly: Once a uke is on the to-buy list it never entirely gets off it.

Ian: The only problem I have with the Uke Ellie is that I can’t stand the way it looks – even the ones that aren’t covered in glitter.

By: Ron Hale

Ron Hale — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 10:24:09 +0000

The new Elderly Instruments catalog includes a nice toy for the electric ukulele owner – an Electric Kazoo, “…a kazoo paired with
a pickup. Marshall stack sold separately,” $18.00US. Consider the possibilities.

By: Ian Emmerson

Ian Emmerson — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 19:30:16 +0000

I had the soprano one of these, and have had or tried pretty much every electric uke out there. That review is pretty spot on. I now favour the Risa Uke Ellie, which is a sort of upgrade on the ukesolid, in that it is more traditionally uke-shaped, with a headstock and a symmetrical oval body (and side dots on both sides for lefties). A little bit bigger, a fair bit more expensive, but it does resolve every one of the issues you raised in your review Al. And Risas are very well made.
You could really hurt someone with one!
I x