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Showing posts from 2022

PSA - It's that time of year, low humidity season. Humidify, Humidify, Humidify Your Ukulele!

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UKE Republic here to deliver this most important Public Service Announcement to all ukulele players; Humidify, Humidify, Humidify your ukulele! And here's why: Low humidity levels can be highly damaging to ukuleles, as they can cause the wood to become dry and brittle. This can lead to cracks and other structural damage, which can significantly affect the sound and playability of the instrument. In addition, low humidity can cause the strings to lose their tension, resulting in poor intonation and a less pleasant playing experience. One of the most common causes of low humidity levels in ukuleles is exposure to extreme temperatures and changes in humidity. This can include exposure to forced heating systems commonly used in homes and buildings to keep us warm during the colder months. While these systems are essential for maintaining a comfortable environment, they can also have a negative impact on the humidity levels in a room, leading to dry air and potentially damaging your uku...

What sound are you wanting out of your ukulele? Consider tone wood attributes.

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Tonewoods are essential to musical instruments, as they significantly shape their overall sound and quality. Different types of wood have unique characteristics that can affect an instrument's tone, resonance, and projection, making them a crucial consideration for musicians and instrument makers. This post will explore the various tonewoods used in constructing musical instruments and the sounds they produce. Mahogany is a dense hardwood commonly used to construct guitars, ukuleles, and basses. It has a warm, mellow tone, good balance, and plenty of mid-range punch. Mahogany also has excellent resonance, which helps to enhance the sustain of an instrument. The wood has a smooth, even grain pattern that adds visual appeal to the instrument. Mahogany is versatile and can be used for various musical styles. Maple is a hard, dense wood often used in constructing guitars, mandolins, and violins. It has a bright, crisp tone with good clarity and definition. Maple also has a robust pr...

The Big Ukulele Setup - What's It All About

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UKE Republic's PRO UKULELE SETUP IS ALWAYS INCLUDED The ukulele brands that we carry will apply their quality control standard during the building process. Allowances are made for adjustment and improvement beyond that initial quality control and final factory setup. It's always possible that the factory could overlook issues in their last inspections. Also, instruments endure environmental changes while being imported and stored from great distances, significantly affecting the instruments' playability.   ​By keeping our pulse on the ukulele community and our years of experience setting up different brands of ukuleles, we have honed our standards to meet our customer's preferences and stay within the instrument's full playing potential. Our experienced setup technicians thoroughly inspect each ukulele to address areas that call for attention and make any needed adjustments. Our wish for our customers is to have joyful playing experiences.   We setup every instrume...

Unpacking Paradise - our occasional newsletter

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Did you know that UKE Republic will post a newsletter from time to time? The same goes for a blog post. Keeping up with all the social media outlets, newsletters, and blog posts is a full-time job. That would require us to hire more staff, causing a domino effect and essentially having to pass any added expenses onto our customers. We don't want to do that. The best way to keep up with the latest news with UKE Republic is to follow us on Facebook. There, we have spontaneous live feeds whenever Mike gets a wild hair, and it's what works for us.   Our newsletter informs our ukulele ohana of the latest models, upcoming events, featured products, sales, and promotional items. We individually put the newsletter together; these are not produced by a third-party automatic service. In other words, we won't jam up your email with newsletters and ads. You will occasionally hear from us from time to time with relevant content. If you like this avenue of insight and information, please...

Happy Friday FaceBook Live July 15, 2022 with Mike at UKE Republic

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HAPPY FRIDAY FROM UKE REPUBLIC Week of July 10 - 15! FACEBOOK LIVE! NEW PRODUCT UPDATE! THIS JUST IN AT UKE REPUBLIC! NEW! Kala Solid Body Tenor Ukuleles in Maple and Acacia. KALA KA-SB-MAP-T SOLID BODY MAPLE (also in acacia) TENOR UKULELE W/ BAG The performer’s dream, the all-new Kala Solid Body Electric Ukulele brings a new dimension to ukulele recording, studio use, and amplified play. With the same traditional playability, light tension feel, and classic ukulele tone as the best of our acoustic offerings, this new Kala collection utilizes a fully-solid body design and powerful pickup to create the ideal instrument for performers across genres. The perfect ukulele counterpart on-stage to the Electric Guitar and Electric Bass, this unique instrument can be played clean or paired seamlessly with external effects such as Chorus, Delay, and Distortion — all without the concerns of audio feedback. FEATURES: Tenor Scale Solid Maple Body ( Also in Acacia ) ALSO NEW AT UKE REPUBLIC! KALA UK...

UKE Republic's FB Live Happy Friday July 8, 2022 - What's New?

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Let's join Mike 👨 at UKE Republic for this week's Happy Friday recap of what's NEW at UKE Republic. Tune in every Friday evening around 5:30 ish to catch Mike LIVE on our FaceBook Page.  These featured ukuleles are available for purchase at UKE Republic , where Pro Setup is ALWAYS included! KALA KA-CB-DECO-C ART DECO CIGAR BOX CONCERT UKULELE W/ BAG Join the Cigar Box instrument movement! Kala’s homage to this innovative era of grassroots luthiery, our new Cigar Box Ukulele collection, brings this old-school bluesy practice to the world of ukulele with two original designs:  Art Deco  and  Victorian. With  Art Deco , jubilant personality blooms from this thoughtful, polished framework! The Cigar Box Ukulele is where ornate design meets quirky ingenuity. This model comes in a traditional rectangular “Cigar Box” body shape with Meranti wood construction and a detailed laser-etch design top. **UKE Republic includes Pro Setup for optimal sound and playability. FEA...

🍍🍍🍍Pineapple Ukuleles!

🍍🍍🍍Pineapples! Pineapples! Pineapples! Perhaps you own one or two in your own personal collection or maybe you've thought about trying one out and wanted to know something about them. To start the pineapple's design was patented first by Samuel K. Kamaka in Hawaii, in 1928. The design and style proved to be popular and over the years others have produced their own pineapple-styled ukulele in various scales and tonewoods. Some that we carry are Kala, Makala, Ohana, Kamoa, Mainland Ukes, Pono, Ko Aloha, Ko'olau, Makai, Magic Fluke's Flea and sort of a pineapple shape from Pepe Romero's Tiny Tenor . Tone-wise it seems the pineapple shape produces more bass than the traditional figure-eight shaped ukuleles. Using a variety of tonewoods changes the sound as it would with any other ukulele. mahogany and Koa tend to produce the warmest tone with mango adding a bit more treble. Very lively sounds are coming from the spruce and cedar tops. The sizes UKE Republi...