Saturday, November 17, 2007

Clearwater Roundback Concert - Sound and Intonation

When I first started looking to upgrade from my cheap coloured Mahalo, other than reading what others have have said about particular ukuleles I could not find examples of what the ones I was interested in sounded like and how good or bad was their intonation. While this is no replacement for actually trying out a ukulele, I thought it would be useful if I recorded a sound sample and a few intonation diagrams for the ukuleles that I own. Therefore this is not a review of the Clearwater Roundback Concert ukulele (UCW7R), but I am hoping that what is included on this post will help someone who may have bought one of these ukes cold. At some point I will also be doing posts for my other two ukes, a cheapo Mahalo and my Ohana SK25 Soprano.

Clearwater Roundback Concert ukulele (UCW7R)- Really Useful Music Company
The following sound sample was recorded in Audacity, no effects applied using a Logitech USB Desktop Microphone. Just a simple chord sequence from a familiar song (can you recognise what from the chords?). They are first thumbed slowly so as to hear individual strings and then played at normal and faster speeds.

Sound Sample


I used AP Tuner 3 ( a fantastic shareware tuner) to generate the intonation pictures, I hope they are self explanatory.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting





Finally a few pics of how it looks, note the plastic back and how it joins to the neck, very well constructed.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting


Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting


Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting




It would be great if there were more sound samples for other ukuleles, if you want to do one or have done one send me your urls and I will link to them.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good work there, Keith!
Nice looking and sounding ukulele, too.

Keith said...

Thanks Arch, I believe Ohana do one of these that looks to be exactly the same minus the pickup.

LouiseFK said...

Hi, I found your review and sound sample really helpful, and are planning on purchasing the Clearwater u7cwr. I've played the guitar for 20 years. I'm no pro, so I play a cheap end Martin. I decided to try the ukulele and bought a cheap red star soprano. The sound is not great, and it sounds like it's out of tune while playing, even though each string is perfectly tuned. I would like an upgrade like the Clearwater. Do you have any information about who manufactures the Clearwater brand?