Hadean Acoustic Electric Bass Ukulele UKB-23 FL NM Fretless Ubass

Cool bass! The grain of the wood is beautiful and while the instrument doesn't have a lot of "heft" to it, being a bass in roughly the form factor of a ukulele, it feels as solid as any good acoustic guitar I've held.The tone of the instrument is awesome. On cheaper amps, it tends to stay a bit "electric-bassy" but on good amps you can dial in tones ranging from fat funk sound to rich, mellow upright bass-like sound (of course a lot of that also has to do with technique - where you pluck, whether you add slaps and ghost notes etc.)It's really nice having the integrated tuner as it makes tuning a cinch (although it admittedly could be more accurate).The strings did take a few days to settle in, but i sort of "forced stretching" on them by tugging them straight out from the fretboard every once in a while. Made the tuning lock in a LOT quicker than the expected 2 weeks - took mine maybe 3 days this way. Might not be safe but nothin was damaged and I saved myself 2 weeks of waiting!!You WILL have to get used to the feeling/sound of playing fretless, the extremely short neck and fret distance when compared to a normal bass guitar or even short scale or electric, as well as lack of upper range notes that you normally would get on a standard bass neck.The strings are also pretty weird - they're made of some rubber or nylon or something, and they're VERY sticky, so much so that your overall bass technique will probably involve a bit more lifting of your fingers off the strings between notes and stuff as sliding can be a bit difficult.Overall at this price-point, not having played better U-basses like from Kala, I'm very satisfied with this purchase and it meets my needs of being a decent acoustic bass impersonator and for just gumming around and having fun.

This thing is stupid fun. The sound is incredibly similar to an upright bass and is easy to play. It came playable out of the box, but the nut on mine was cut poorly leaving a lot of buzz on the open E. The A string was tied poorly and popped out of the bridge at my first jam with the bass too. These are all issues I fully expected at this price and I still feel this bass is well worth it. If you're prepared to put a little work in you can get a great playing bass at a idiculous price.

So I played a Kala uke bass in a store a few years ago and was blown away by the tone, just like anyone who has discovered these thing. I went online and found a few of my favorite channels reviewing the Kala with some really fun and great demos. I'm not sure that the Hadean Bass Uke is better or worse than the Kala, because I don't own one. I do own a Hadean now, and I'll keep this quick because there are two important deal breakers with this sort of bass IMO.The first is that vibrato is off the table. Traditional (vertical) or Classical (lateral) doesn't work at all. The strings are so flexible and they don't dare what you do to them, they'll pretty much stick to where you are on the fretboard. I got the fretless version so that I could use a lot of Classical vibrato - it works better than Traditional because when you try to push and pull a fat rubber string up or down, it just rotates. It's a weird sensation.This does tie in to my other complaint, which is that sliding is very awkward with these strings. The rubber is just sticky enough that when you slide you stretch the string a bit and then when you release it your tuning is off. Metal strings are available for these (for kids of the 80's - "metal strings sold separately" aw man!) and some other reviewers were very happy with that upgrade. My 3/5 stars relates to the general design of the instrument - rubber strings sound great, but aren't very playable. The Hadean seems like it's pretty well made for a super low price - I'm pretty sure that if I played a Kala and wrote a similar review it would be clear that I just don't like the strings. So maybe this is useful to you.

If your thinking of getting a uke bass. Get this one! I have tried a kala and i think this one is as good. The tuners are slightly cheaper quality, so it takes longer to tune, but this is less than half the price of a kala ubass. If your debating on Fretted or fretless, Fretted ubass are hard to play because of hitting the fret on such a small neck you will get fret buzz often. Fretless avoids that but i like fretless bass myself for preference. The strings are a rubber material which takes time to get used to. I may buy a guitar glove. I tried it with a winter mitten on and it feels better to me. The electronics are great, plug this in and get a nice Large bass sound.

I filed a return. Then, I didn't.First, a lesson learned almost the hard way. If you buy an acoustic electric Bass uke, be sure to check out the electronics. I think I've played close to a dozen now and it's very common for one of the pickups to be nonresponsive. It's even happened to me with three different Kalas involving two different dealers. Never a problem with 3 Hadeans.This instrument was fine for a week and then for some reason started buzzing on the D string. But I really liked the instrument. With a little experimentation, I found the old "put a piece of paper under the string at the nut" trick did the job. It would be nice if I hadn't had to do it, but at this price point I'm good with it.Why five stars? Because I'd buy another without hesitation, considering how hard it is to find one with four good pickups. This includes two brands other than than the Kalas and Hadeans.Also the distributor is great to deal with. I purchased another only to find that the price dropped 2 days after it arrived. I wrote to the distributor about it. I got an immediate response saying that I would be credited with the difference and my PayPal account was credited in 2 days.

I normally play a Hofner bass but a friend turned me on to a bass Uke. I didn't want to put out a bunch money so I took a chance on this one. It's great ! Plugged into one of my bass amps it sounds like an upright bass. I played it all evening at a Winery gig this weekend.