Sam checks out the Ferndale range of Tenor & Concert sized ukuleles. Find out more about each model at PMT Online...
Ferndale UT-S Tenor Spruce Ukulele: https://bit.ly/3JwTEC6
Ferndale UC-S Concert Spruce Ukulele: https://bit.ly/3O1Kh0u
Ferndale UT-W Tenor Walnut Ukulele: https://bit.ly/3v8tb8O
Ferndale UC-W Concert Walnut Ukulele: https://bit.ly/3DYLv8l
Ferndale UC-E-W Electro Concert Ukulele: https://bit.ly/3xkVCDe
If you’re unfamiliar with Ferndale as a guitar manufacturer, they take their inspiration from the Ferndale region of Northern California, a classic American small town steeped in musical tradition, and surrounded by beautiful redwood forests.
This is reflected in the design philosophy of these instruments, which emphasise quality, feel and tone, over anything flashy or gimmicky, resulting in a range of honest, unpretentious looking acoustic instruments, that offer the kind of playability and tone that you don’t always get at these kind of price points.
You can go and check out the full range of Ferndale guitars in separate videos on the PMTUK channel, but here we’re talking about their ukulele models. Just like the guitars though, these ukes offer really well crafted instruments at a great price, with lovely comfortable, easy to play necks with beautifully finished fret board edges, decent quality machine heads to ensure accurate and stable tuning, and they all come fitted with dual strap buttons, something that’s not very common on most ukuleles, plus each uke is checked over by a quality control team here in the UK to make sure it meets Ferndale’s standards before shipping.
In total, there’s 5 ukuleles in the range, the first two of these being the Spruce models, offering either concert or a slightly larger Tenor size to choose from. These feature a Layered Spruce top with Mahogany back and sides, and as these are the more stripped back, straight forward acoustic models, there’s just a simple spruce binding around the body, a pretty little decorative sound hole surround and the entire uke has an open pore satin finish, giving it a lovely rustic aesthetic.
In terms of sound and playability, that satin finish gives a necks a really smooth feel and they offer quite a bright, lively tone thanks to those spruce tops, with the tenor model sounding slightly richer and fuller with it’s bigger body and larger sound hole…
In contrast to the stripped back Spruce models are the other 3 ukuleles in the range which use layered walnut for the the top, back and sides. Again these are available in either concert or tenor sizes, but the third model offers a concert sized, electro ukulele, ideal for anyone looking to gig one of these.
These walnut models look really stylish, with a bevelled armrest in the body making them super comfortable to play and giving them quite a unique appearance. There’s a decorative binding around the body and sound hole and unlike the the satin finish of the spruce models, these ukes are finished in a hardwearing gloss, which not only offers a bit of protection for the woods, it also brings out the natural beauty of the walnut grain.
Being a denser tone wood, these walnut models offer a slightly mellower tone than the spruce versions, and if you do go for the electro concert model, the onboard preamp offers controls for volume, bass and treble so you can tweak your tone before it hits the mixing desk, and there’s also a handy onboard chromatic tuner with the tuner button doubling up as a mute switch so nobody has to hear you tuning up between songs.
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