Harley Benton Kahuna CLU-Bass Ukulele FL Reviews

I love the sound from this bass

I am beginner bass player. I ordered this bass because I wanted something acoustic, fretless and cheap. I always loved the sound of fretless basses. Build quality is very good - it does have some small imperfections in finish which does not affect sound at all. I love the sound from this small bass! Like some reviewers stated - it sound like small double bass :) The tone is lovely. I use it mostly for practice unplugged and as it sounds great, it is also very smooth and easy for playing - certainly easier than my electric basses :) Strings does have some strange feeling at first but I get used to it. They resonate less after some 12-13th fret, and those frets are harder to reach because it doesnt have a cutout body. When plugged into amplifier it sounds good... however it is best to leave the treble slider in middle... Preamp and tuner work Ok. Batteries for preamp in package were dead on arrival but this was no big problem to me ;) Strings settled in tuning after week or two. Conclusion - great sounding small uke bass that is very easy to play!

Surprisingly good product.

I expected a mediocre product and I was extremely surprised with the bass as it exceeded even my bravest expectations about it. Just changed the strings and it became even better. Totally recommended. Quality is far beyond the price.

Harley Benton Kahuna CLU-Bass Ukulele FL

A very beautiful instrument that sounds good.

I don't have much experience with FL, so I may be wrong, but I think that the intonation (bridge position) and the fret-indicators on the fretboard is a bit off.

Fun piece of kit

I bought it almost as a toy but had plenty of real fun with it. Don't expect hi-end quality from the electronics, but other than that the instrument is fun and a great introduction to bass ukuleles and perfect for portable jams

Very good ukubass

The finishing is not perfect, however the acoustic and electrified sound is very good. For this price, you cannot get anything better.

Could be great

Overall, I'm loving this bass. Sounds almost like a small contrabass with less bass and more midrange honk. The rubber strings take a little getting used to, and I'm trying to get the hang of it at the moment.

PROS:

Fun, good instrument you can use to mimic the contrabass without the bulk. Well-made, fun, and plays great if not for the rubber feel of the strings - which really isn't anyone's fault. I think the strings are aquila thundergut, because I ordered thundergut along with the bass and they seem exactly the same.

CONS:

The piezo, like everyone else seems to mention, is problematic and needs to be taken care of. the D,A strings are very loud and even clips in my case. In comparison, G is soft and E is very soft.

Recording it with a mic (with noise reduction + eq) makes it sound very, very convincing. Recording with the piezos are a problem at the moment, but we'll see how the piezo fix holds up.

UPDATE: I sawed the saddle so each portion will accommodate 1 string each. It sounds great now, the volume between strings is very well-balanced and removed the clipping problem as well!

a joy!

for the price point, this is gold.

nice quality and sounds really good.

the in-built tuner works

Great uke bass !!

I enjoyed so much this instrument which is fantastic when played via amp but has little to say unplugged. I loved the sound in recordings which is similar to upright bass in texture (not so in depth). I use it in home recordings and I like even standard practice with it. Super interesting instrument!

Very Nice Harley Benton

I love my new HB Bass FL. Good quality instrument and very well put together. I'm definitely a Harley Benton fan now. I would buy again.

Fun Fun Fun.

I have given this 3 for finish as it is very soft and really could do with a tougher finishing, that said its so much Fun to use its 'Small' & 'Light' and over a 'Meter' shorter than My Double Bass so very easy to transport. The Electrics are more than adequate and the Fretless Neck is a joy to play I wish I had got one of these years ago. This is one Bass I will be gigging a lot.

Very good for its price.

Does not stay in tune

Nice to play around, but unfortunately it does not stay in tune, so worthless for recording sessions

Good value for price

If you are a beginner trying to learn to play (just like me), I would say go for it as the price is very affordable and the build quality is pretty good. I cannot really give an expert opinion but I can say that playing the rubber strings takes some getting used to but it is really fun.

All in all I am very satisfied with the purchase.

a little bit low on sound

Everything is amazing , but its not loud enough

great bass for money

Nice straight neck

good action

electronics ok not great

Fret lines are a good guide and nearly spot on

Body size is bigger than most u basses i have seen

resulting in more volume when using unpluged

Electronics are functional

low e string volume not as loud as others

the saddle is flexable and results in the d and g string having more down force pressure because of the higher tension,

So what i did was saw the e string part of the saddle away from the rest and i am getting more even volume now.

apart from that it is a good instrument

Great value for money

I wanted a Kala u-bass but when I found this one, I was very tempted by the price tag compared to the Kalas.

It is a well built instrument and plays precisely. It has good acoustic projection for a "rubber" stringed bass. The strings are stated as Aquila Thunderguts which have good reviews. The stock strings that came on the instrument, however, had some irregularities on the surface. They are easy to change, so not a big problem, only slightly annoying when you get a new instrument.

Plugged in it sounds wonderful, like an upright bass if you use the settings on your amp well.

I prefer the Kala u-bass, of which I now own two. Mainly for the size, though. The HB box has the dimension of a 1/2-size guitar, and I find that a little big. I prefer ukuleles :-)

Also, it does not come with a gig bag, but given the price that is OK. I bought a 1/2-size guitar bag for it, and it works OK. I suggest taking the instrument to a music store and try the bag. The tuners are protruding more than guitar tuners, so if the bag is too narrow at the top, it won't fit.

Great value instrument.

I bought this for my son who has been playing guitar and bass for a number of years. I bought it as something a bit different. He loves the sound. The strings take a bit of getting used to. For the cost, the bass is very good quality and value for money.

This instrument sounds absolutely amazing, like an upright bass almost. The eq and piezo are also cool, but the tuner is a bit unresponsive and shaky. The intonation, however, is really poor. Either it needs to be checked by a pro, or it shouldn't be used for more than toying at home. Since it's fretless, you can always compensate a little bit using your ear, but sometimes you just want to rely on muscle memory, and that's not really possible here.

Very interesting, but...

Firstly, sound-wise this is awesome, very interesting and useful for acoustic gigs or ethnic-jazz stuff.

The hardware is pretty nice, especially the tuners.

But: The fretboard and the finish were almost half-finished, the fretboard was not flat and leveled, the finish was rough and not uniform, the nut was too high, so the first position was out of tune and most importantly, after about 1-2 months the piezo died because of the tension of the strings, when I tune way down the piezo comes back, but in standard tuning it just can't handle the string pressure.

I fixed the fretboard, the finish, the nut, I put flatwounds, installed a guitar pickup in the soundhole and it's way better now, but I wouldn't recommend this instrument and I wouldn't buy it again.

CLU-Bass Ukulele

Bought this uke as joined a local ukulele club with no intention of playing bass. I joined purely to learn ukulele. But once they found out I used to play bass in cabaret bands years ago and the club had no bass player then I was badgered into playing bass.

Thought I would give this little fella a try.

It arrived very quickly and I had all sorts of reservations until I plug it in to an amp. OMG it sounded like a classic 60's double bass. I immediately fell in love with it.

Stretching of the rubber strings made staying in tune impossible at first, having to tune after every 5 mins but no problem with the built in tuner.

All in all for the price I would recommend this as a good starting point for anyone wishing to give bass uke a try.

You won't be disappointed!!!