Fender Dhani Harrison Uke - Turquoise Reviews

My first Ukulele and I am very pleased. As a huge Beatles fan I was always bemused when I would see one or the other of them playing a ukulele and then hearing the stories about George Harrison carrying a boot load of them around to friends' houses and passing them around. I am currently on a bit of a "Island Time" bent in my songwriting and, while visiting relatives in Hawaii, was allowed to play their ukulele and realized I needed one of my own. Before we left the islands, I checked out Sweetwater and came immediately on the Dhani Harrison Signature Model. Being a Fender Snob, I fell for the headstock and then watched the video with Dhani explaining the finer points of the instrument. Ordered it to arrive home about the same time I would. Picked it up, tuned it (using the incorporated tuner) and started playing. The tone is perfect, and the action is good; making very nice to play. Since I plan to use it for recording in my home studio, I love that it is set up for play through an amp with a good electrical pickup system onboard. Of course, as it uses nylon strings, it will need a pre-amp to run into my recording equipment for best results. I love the tranquil blue color and having Dhani's name engraved into the back of the headstock gives me a certain connection to him and to he father as I am playing. I am sure I will have many years of fun and joy exploring this instrument. Oh, and as for the "More" reference in the title of this review, I was totally surprised to find that it came packaged in a durable Fender Gig Bag.

I just got this uke yesterday-and cannot put it down-- ease of playing this uis incredible- so weell designed! I'm in love with the Dhani Harrison Fendr UKE!!! My new fav instrument!

This uke is the real deal. So great to play live, a really nice instrument. Worth a lot more than this price.

I knew when I first saw this that I would have to add it to my collection of ukes. I ordered it as soon as I could and it arrived well packaged as usual. I am a long time Harrison fan, both George and now Dhani. I love the beautiful blue color, matching headstock, and the Hindi mandala on the back. Most of my ukes are baritones, but this sounded great as a tenor for months. Then I ran across a comment that you can change a tenor to a baritone. I was skeptical and afraid it would ruin the neck. I ordered a set of Pepe Romero Baby Baritone strings, as they were recommended. I tried them today and it sounds great. The neck looks fine and the volume from this uke increased both plugged and unplugged significantly. I like the baritone sound and ease of playing from guitar to uke. Nice to have handy and to travel with on camping trips. Doubt I ever change it back to a tenor as I am loving the tone I am getting now. And it is so cute! Always encourages me to pick it up.

I purchased the Fender Dhani Harrison Ukelele and I love it. When I don't feel like getting my guitar out, and I need to be more quiet, the Uke is the perfect instrument. I'm having fun learning songs on it, and it's so easy to play and has a nice sound. I have plugged it into my amp, and it sounds great. I'm very happy with my purchase and you can't beat Sweetwater's customer service, and it was packaged so well, it was in perfect condition.

This is my first tenor ukulele. I purchased it with Bonus Bucks from an Acoustasonic Stratocaster purchase. What a twofer! Both are a kick in the pants to play and make joyful noises.

I'm all smiles when I pull the uke out of its gig bag. A longtime fan of George Harrison's ukulele playing, it's an honor to play Dhani's tribute instrument. It is a gorgeous though understated brushed turquoise that lets the ovankol figuring bleed through. The laser cut mandela design on the rear is peaceful and inspirational. And the roughly outlined phases of the moon fretboard markers shimmer.

This instrument is pleasing to the ear and so much easier to fret than my mahogany Vinyard (a name once used by Ohana) soprano. The sound is bright and crisp, it just makes me want to sing along with it. The built-in tuner is perfect (matches my TC Electronics PolyTune clip on) and easy to use. I don't often play it plugged in, but love the result when I do.

Highly recommended for any player at any level. It really can run from rank beginner to seasoned pro.

This is a purchase with no regrets. Plays great and is a sight to behold. Have not plugged it in yet, but will shortly. I love having the tuner on board. Getting the gig bag with it is pretty handy too.

I pre-ordered this while looking for a uke with a pick-up. I liked the look of it, and love my Fender basses, so I thought it was worth a shot. My uke arrived even before the Fender site said they are available, so kudos, Sweetwater on fulfilling your orders.

Unplugged, this has a nice bright tone. The built-in tuner is a great feature, but the strings seem already stretched in, so it has stayed in tune remarkably well. The frets are well dressed and the action is just where I like it for strumming and picking. I've tried it, also, with a variety of amps and this is a uke I could play out. The tone is just fantastic.

If I had one nit to pick, it would be that I prefer D'addario low G strings, and the G won't fit unless I modify the saddle (since the diameter is too large). I guess this is my incentive to try other low G sets. For now I'll just use the stock strings, however, since I'm loving the sound.

I've nothing bad to say about this ukuleles ability to create noises that are kind and pleasing to the human ear. i play the ukulele like crazy along with guitar, bends vibrato solos all that stuff. my only complaint is through the beating the strings have taken my tuners unfortunate have lost their abililty to tune well . one is done for now and gives no play at all. i've had it for about 2 years and it has received constant everyday playing so it does make sense but i do wish that they would've lasted longer then the amount of time that i have had it . Thanks Fender! Great uke! Maybe some stronger tuners tho :D

This is a cute ukulele, but I don't yet know how I feel about it. I bought it based on looks and the Harrison name alone. Prior to this I had been playing around on a very cheap ukulele I bought in a strip mall many years ago for about $40, which I had never changed the strings on. As a full disclaimer, I am not an accomplished ukulele player and I'm still firmly in the beginning stages of learning to play ukulele (or any stringed instrument), so allow that to color your perception of this review accordingly.

I expected this ukulele to come out of the box easier to play and richer sounding than my cheap ukulele, which was probably a mistake as it's possibly messed with my perception of this ukulele. As I'd seen mentioned elsewhere, this ukulele comes with high quality strings on it that feel very tight compared to my cheap ukulele with years old strings on it, which makes it slightly more difficult to play right off the bat... takes more work to hold the strings down, and strumming is a little less forgiving on the fingers. Maybe the strings need to get broken in so they feel a little looser, I'm not sure. This isn't really that much of a bad thing, I appreciate the quality, and I'm getting used to it.

This ukulele also has a thinner body compared to most ukuleles at this size, which was purposeful to make the ukulele a little easier to handle. The downside is that this ukulele is much quieter during bedroom play, which is exacerbated by the really tight strings. To get a full rich sound from the ukulele I have to really pluck the strings forcefully. When you get a good tone, it sounds great, very rich and full and definitely much better than my cheap ukulele. But it takes more effort and determination to get a good tone from it.

The built in tuner is fantastic. But I've had questionable results with the plugged in sound of the ukulele, and some reviews say the good electronics offset the thin body / quiet tone (most reviews say this ukulele was designed for live/amped play). This is another situation where I don't know if it's my lack of experience with acoustics with electronics in general. I've plugged the ukulele into my iRig 2 HD into my PC and my iPad and in both cases, it does not sound good. There is a definite uncomfortable to hear 'pop' at the beginning of every string pluck when finger picking or strumming that will only go away if I turn the volume on the electronics way down, but at that point I can't really hear the ukulele anymore. I've also plugged it into a Fender Frontman 10G, which I've read is a good bedroom amp for ukuleles as well, and it still didn't sound particularly good to me. After messing with sound settings in Ableton for a while, I was able to get a vaguely decent sound out of the ukulele, but it still didn't sound very good at all. I really expected to plug the ukulele in and get good sound from it immediately, similar to my electric guitar and electric bass, but that wasn't the case here. I'm inexperienced enough that I'm honestly not sure if I am doing something wrong, or if there is something wrong with my ukulele. I've been contemplating taking it somewhere to ask someone more knowledgable if there is something wrong with it, or if it's something wrong with me.

I can't complain at all about the look and feel of the ukulele. It feels very, very nice in the hands. It looks great. I do feel like the first string is very close to the edge of the fretboard and it's forced me to change the way I finger chords, because otherwise my hand will mute the first string. This wasn't a problem on my cheaper ukulele where the first string is a bit further away from the edge of the fretboard. This annoys me a lot, but I'm learning to deal with it, and I understand it's probably due to a bad habit I have of doing the baseball grip for certain chord fingerings so I don't want to subtract points from the ukulele for it.

So yeah, I hate to curse this ukulele with faint praise, because it's so nice looking and it does sound pretty good when played properly, but my expectations did not match up with the reality of the ukulele. Maybe that's my bad, maybe I don't know what I am doing, but I can't say I came away from this purchase fully satisfied like I had expected to be.