I'm looking for a small—quite small—guitar-like instrument. I've thought about a ukulele, and although I know there are musicians who can get some pretty fantastic music out of one of these "jumping fleas," I have mixed feelings about a uke. I went googling, and found that there is such a thing as a "uke-guitar."
I found only one, the Mahalo uke-guitar. As far as I've been able to tell, this is the only one in the mass market. Apparently a fairly rare configuration for a uke, there are others available, but they appear to be custom made and very pricey—much more than I want to spend.
I e-mailed this vendor to ask a few questions about the instrument and they responded, but I can't say I'm totally satisfied with the answers. For example, I asked what notes the uke-guitar is tuned to (I assumed that it might be the same as a guitar but an octave up), and was informed that it's tuned to exactly the same pitches as a guitar. I really doubt this, considering that the pitch length is 141/4 inches. Unless, of course, it's strung with elevator cables. I also commented on the fact that it's less that $50.00, and although I said I wasn't all that concerned about great resonance and tone, the intonation (pitch) had to be right on—this is essential. They said that it sounded pretty much like any uke, and that they were accurate as far as pitch is concerned. They also said they had a 15-day no-questions-asked return policy, so I could try it out and if for any reason I didn't like it, I could send it back.
I also asked about the availability of strings. If the relative tuning is the same as a guitar, I can see that it would probably use regular ukulele strings for the top three. But how about the three "bass" strings? They said they'd have to check into that, but I haven't heard from them about that yet. If I can't get replacement strings, then no deal.
They come in three colors (Hosanna!!). I don't particularly fancy the red or the electric blue, so if I decide to get one, I'd probably opt for this one.
Does anyone have any experience with these things?