Solid Body 4-String Sunburst Fretted U•BASS®

I purchased this bass a couple of weeks ago and it has barely left my hands since. This thing is so much fun.

The neck is nice and clubby like a regular bass. It has proper bass strings, unlike a lot of ukulele basses that have floppy rubber strings which I don't like. It sounds great; if you only heard it, without seeing it, you'd swear it is a full size bass. It quite heavy, so definitely needs a strap. It is nice and balanced and doesn't neck dive. It is a simple pickup and the tone knob goes from a muffled vintage sound to bright and punchy. The gig bag has backpack style straps and is sturdy.

About a year ago I won an acoustic bass ukulele (Donner DUB-1) at the Roseville, California Ukulele Festival and a few weeks after that took all of the bass ukulele classes offered at the Reno Ukulele Festival. Within a few months I became the bass player for my ukulele club. Recently I was invited to back up other ukulele players at open mic sessions and I knew it was time for an upgrade. I finally ordered this beauty strait from Kala, and I am so pleased with this instrument. As is typical with Kala, the fit and finish are flawless, and it came out of the box ready to play. I wasn't happy with how the 4th string played and sounded on the Donner, but this U-Bass gives deep, clear, resonating notes. The tuners are not your typical heavy bass tuners, so it feels balanced and stable on my shoulder when using a strap. Tomorrow, I'm bringing it to my ukulele club meeting for the first time and I'm looking forward to hearing what the other club members think.

I just received my new UBass the other day, so I'm still messing with it. I'm not sure if the E string was set up properly, as when I move up the frets, it sounds off. It might just be that I'm not used to it, but watching this issue. I'm not sure what to do if the intonation really is off.

Other than that, it's way different from my acoustic UBass. It's heavier and has more frets, which is what I wanted. Plus, it sounds more like a guitar bass, which fits better with the music our group plays and my husband's originals. It's also showing me how much I have to learn. My other bass was more forgiving for me as still a novice bass player. This one will help me grow better, I think. I'm glad Kala finally came out with a California UBass that can handle the metal wound strings! Thank you! And, it's pretty! Now, if they can just offer a UBass stand to support it, that would be great, because none of my stands work!

The new solid body bass feels great in my smaller hands. Perfect neck radius and neck length just short of a Mustang type neck. Strings feel firmer, and sound punchy. A great bass right in between the tried and true UBasses and any traditional short scale. Love it. A great addition to my Ubass family.

A beautiful instrument. I am a California U-Bass player and the is definitely an adjustment period going from poly strings to metal strings. One thing negative is that it comes with roundwounds, I prefer flatwounds and according to the person that I spoke with flatwounds are not yet available. Lovely instrument to touch and play. Fine workmanship. Highly recommended.