Fanner Ukutele

I bought a Fanner Ukutele via Etsy.

It's amazing; beautiful; unique.  It's also really heavy.  I don't think it weighs much less than many fully size electrics.

I feel bad about this, but I've left it too long to leave a review on Etsy.  There's a 60 day limit, that I wasn't aware of, and I really wanted to live with the instrument for a while before leaving feedback.

Communication with Brian Fanner was superb through the whole process.  I asked for something unique, and got exactly that.  It hasn't turned out to be quite what I expected, but it's exactly what I asked for. Any issues are purely down to me.

I wanted a steel string electric ukulele.  I'd considered the Risa LP Tenor, but it's a little expensive, and I wasn't sure if it could be set up as I wanted it.

The standard Fanner Ukutele uses steel guitar strings (1,2,3,1) with re-entrant tuning GCEA, as on a regular uke.  If you fancy one, this is what I'd recommend.

What I asked for was twofold. First, I didn't want re-entrant tuning. Second, I wanted to drop an octave, making the G *two* octaves lower that a regular uke.  I wanted GCEA because my musical brain is limited and transposing (to, say ADF#B) on the fly is beyond me.

Brian was concerned about the additional tension, and decided to install a truss rod. In order to do that, he needed to make a unique neck-plate (using 4 bolts, not his usual 3).  I made some calculations based on the scale length published on Etsy and figured that the strings would be a little loose, but OK.  I think the scale length is a little longer though, and they turned out a bit too flappy.  Tuning up a tone helped a lot, but I still had the mental problem of transposing.

The E string had a kink in it at the 4th fret. I'm not sure how. Strings needed to be replaced.  I took a gamble on some Ibanez 7-string light strings, and restrung with 4,5,6,7, back up to G. I was worried that they'd be tough to bend, and that they may not sit well in the nut,  but they're fine.

What I have though, I'd hesitate to call a ukulele.  It's much more like a small 4-string guitar.  It's well suited to blues/punk/rock rhythm.  I'm playing it differently to a uke. More power-chords, do a D will be 2-2-4-4 rather than 2-2-2-0 or 2-2-2-4.  I'm also finding blues patterns that work well on the ukutele that don't work on a uke.

The only downside is that it's missing some high-end jangle.  I may have to order a standard one for that.