Harley Benton Solid Uke Natural

Good build quality, good sound, notes are in tune across the fretboard on and on all strings (are off by less than 5 cents which might as well be due to my heavy fingers). Since the strings are new and still stretching, I have to tune them every now and then, but that is not unexpected (from me experience, this should improve in time).

I tested the pickup with two audio interfaces (instrument connected to a computer). Interface with a built-in preamp had very inconsistent volume (had me worried that the electronics were broken in the instrument), however another interface without a preamp worked well (one of those jack-usb cables). Also, the 9V battery needed for the pickup, was already included, so it saved me the hassle of getting one.

If i had to complain about something, it would be the high-G tuning, but that can be easily fixed with a new low-G string.

I'm an amateur musician and I play at home for my own amusement. This ukulele was meant as a replacement for a cheap soprano ukulele from a DIY kit and it does exactly what I wanted it to.

Edit: After playing with the instrument a bit more I noticed that the highest string is only half as loud as the rest on pickup. I've replaced the strings with baritone ones, but the issues is still present. Maybe this is down to my unit. I mostly use this ukulele for silent practice, so it doesn't bother me that much, but it's a shame nonetheless.

I have played a lot of electric ukuleles. This one isn't the most feature-rich, but honestly, it doesn't need to be. It's simple and does what it does very well, especially at this price point.

I love that the tone knob has a catch at 50%-- it almost gives the feeling of a pickup selector, and tones are genuinely usable all across the dial. Bottom it out and send it thru drive and it gets big and thick. Dime it out and put on some chorus and you get very plinky cleans, as close to "sparkly" as nylon strings are gonna get.

I did have to make a few tweaks to get this up to my standards, but none of them cost me any money. The action was very high out of the box, so I shimmed the neck to lower it, and it's great that that's even an option thanks to the neck being bolt-on. If this were a one-piece uke, that would have been a fatal issue for me. I also needed to tighten the nuts on the volume and tone knobs, but that took all of 10 seconds. Finally, I find it extremely difficult to get the battery out of the battery box, to the point I suspect I have to be doing something wrong with it.

Overall, this is an extremely playable and useful instrument being sold at half of what I'd pay for it. Helped convince my band to let me add some uke to the set 🤘