Blue Moon ƒ Hole

This has a scale length of 48cm, (19 inches), which would put it as a small Baritone, however since there is the "Jumbo Tenor" and all of the marketing for this particular model refers to it as a Tenor, I will put it in the Jumbo Tenor bracket. That said I have tried it with a set of wound GHS Baritone strings on and tuned to D~G~B~E. This worked better than the original set of strings, (which were not good), or a set of Tenor Aquilla's and tuned as a g~C~E~A Tenor. Currently it has a set of Tenor d~G~B~E Aquilla's with a wound G. This is giving a very nice tone and reasonable volume - it certainly work better with the Baritone tuning.

I got mine branded by the importer Gremlin Music as Blue Moon, but I have seen the same model sold by lots of other people. I believe the actual manufacturer is Jisheng.

Another thing with this Ukulele, to make it even more of an oddity along with its size and shape is the thickness of the body. Its body is quite thin, (5.5cm or 2.2 inches), in the style of a "travel" Ukulele. This does mean it is quite quiet, particularly when tuned as a Tenor.

My Amazon Review - I gave it ****

This probably should be a 5 star Ukulele. For the money, you won't find anything better. 

Looks; This ukulele is stunning. The ƒ holes are great and so is the " a style mandolin" shape It is slightly bigger than a standard Tenor scale, (I have seen top Hawaiian Ukulele manufacturers refer to this as a "Jumbo Tenor" scale and this fits into that). It fits quite happily into a Baritone gigbag, (though not a Tenor one), should you need to transport it.

Build; this is what lets it down a bit and why I only give it 4 stars. The machine heads are ok and it holds tune well. the overall build is solid and its not going to badly fall apart on you. The laminate and plastic work is excellent I can't fault that. On mine the fretboard cracked at the end and a little, (unimportant for playing purposes) bit fell off. Also the bridge nut has a funny sharp corner that digs into your hand if you are not careful when playing, and the string guides on it are poorly lined up. This part could definitely have been better produced. Finally the strings that came on it are pretty poor.

Sound; this also adds to knocking off a star, with the strings that came with it this was a very quiet Ukulele and replacing them with good Aquila strings has made it better but it is still quiet. This may be due to that fact that the body is quite thin? Apart from volume the sound is a bit weedy anyway, its ok, better that a really cheap Ukulele, but not as nice as some of the other, (but then it is a lot cheaper than them), Ukuleles I have. I guess what I am saying here is the tone is not going to set you soul on fire. 

On the other hand, playability wise this is excellent. The large scale neck makes it easy, even for a fat fingered person like me, to get all of the chords in, it might even be too big for a child. The thin body might not add to the tone but it does make it easy to hold whilst playing adding to its overall playability.

It has been mentioned in other reviews that you can tune this to a baritone, (guitar), DGBA rather than the standard Ukulele gCEA. I have not tried this yet so I don't know if this will improve the tone, (if it does I will come back and add to the review so look out for an extra comment from me). What is the case though is if you want to do this you should replace the strings it comes with, (and you should replace them anyway), with Baritone strings not Tenor ones.

To sum up; great Ukulele for the money and an ideal first uke for a big person who feels their hands are to much for a beginner soprano. When you have had it for a while you will want to get a better one but you will still want this for its unique looks and to experiment with things like alternative tunings so it will always be a good investment.

Well I said I would add to this when I tried it with Baritone Strings and a Baritone DGBE Tuning. I have now and I think it works a lot better than the Tenor tuning. It certainly helps with the volume and it helps too with the weediness giving a louder, fuller sound.