Harley Benton Kahuna CLU-Bass Ukulele 5-stars Reviews

Value for money is awesome!

Comes with a nice pickup and a built in tuner. Sounds very nice, lightweight. Low end is a bit lacking, at least when I compare it to other brands, but there is still plenty to enjoy. Its not a tiny Ukulele, its the size of a 1/2 guitar, which means that its easier to play than a standard Ukulele. It also works well with special nylon core strings such as GoldTone Silverback (do NOT use standard acoustic bass strings on this!) which makes it sound very close to standard acoustic bass. All in all, its great value for money, and I'm very happy with it.

Can’t put it down!

This is a great instrument, It’s the only bass small enough to keep it in the living room, it’s really quiet so I use it to jam along with whatever TV programs the wife is watching, TV doesn’t interest me otherwise! It stays in tune pretty well and I can get a TON of tones out of it! Everything from dbl bass flubber to Jazz honk. Really fun to play and sounds good plugged in too, in fact I’m going to record some live backing tracks with it for a pub gig. The small scale does take some adjustment & getting used to, but I totally recommend it, great fun!

Great little bass

Love this thing, easy to play (for a guitar player), good sound (sounds a lot like an upright bass). Silicone strings need a little time to get used to but once you get the hang of it, it’s fine. Included pickup and tuner is definitely a plus.

I have not expected excellent bass sound from small body instrument. I like it a lot

Fun toy - Might not quite hit all the marks

Big Jacob Collier fan here - His Kala U-Bass playing always strikes me as awe-inspiring. What a fun, cool instrument. For a fraction of the price, this Harley Benton gets close... In recording scenarios, I have to do a little bit of extra work on the back end to get it to intonate well (AKA autotune... It works!), and there's a couple spots where certain frets are mis-leveled causing the wrong note to sound. But the electronics sound quite nice and for the most part, achieve that thuddy upright-y sound. I'm keeping it just because it's also fun to play, and for a little over $100... who can complain!

Love it!

Pro’s:

*portability & sound is brilliant!

* quiet while unplugged makes practicing at any hour of the night great :)

* Price for what u get!

Cons:

* tuning & keeping the strings in tune can be a pain but I have yet to look into upgrading the strings.

Overall happy customer :)

Top Quality Portable & Travel Bass.

This little bass has a BIG sound using the Aquila poly strings which were fitted when arrived or the Kala Flats or even the Flat Black Nylon strings (though found the latter better or Fretless model). On several busking sessions folk came up & were convinced they heard an upright bass until they saw what I wash playing! Love it to bits!

Great for its price!

Really fun lil' instrument! The sound is pretty good and the quality is decent too! I've had it for a few weeks now and it's great fun to play around with. It has a nice, unique sound that works well in many scenarios, whether amplified or not.

The tuner is pretty convenient too!

Excellent for the money!

Excellent for the money!

The best affordable U-Bass

Play it at home all the time, also took it to the rehearsal room a couple of times - was surprised how good it can sound with an amp. A couple of things could be better: 1) when played outside, it's not so loud, better take a portable amp with you 2) the 4th string sounds not as good as the other ones when unplugged - again, can be solved with an amp. The best thing about it is it's highly portable and you can take it anywhere with you easily. For this amount of money I definitely recommend this.

Very nice

Just amazing. for the price it's just amazing

Great U bass for the prize

I bought this bass because I wanted to test a U-bass.

For this price you can't go wrong.

the quality and sound is amazing at this price point.

The only thing I did, was change the strings tot nickel wound.

Gave the bass a little more volume and tone.

Overall an excellent bass if you don't want to spend a lot of money.

Fun add-on for a bass player

It's a great add-on to use if you don't want to carry a double bass. Amplified the sound gets quite near. And it's unbelievably cheap.

If you want the real sound I guess the fretless one is better but then the finger positioning will need to be very accurate because of the short scale.

Impressive

I was looking for an instrument that could replace a bass + amp, for jamming / songwriting session, so an acoustic bass seemed to be the ideal solution, but I don't like how big regular acoustic basses seem to be.

This is perfect, as the (acoustic) sound is impressive, and way louder than you would expect. It is very light and small to carry around everywhere.

I had my 1st gig ever with it yesterday night, so it was plugged into a sound system, and it did not disappoint at all, as the sound was very round and warm... and loud! :)

The build quality is also very nice and solid, nothing bad to say about this.

The only negative point I would have to say against bass ukuleles in general is about the strings: as they are in a different material than regular basses, they tend to grip, both on the left and right hand, so it is a bit harder to play: you can't strum too hard, and you can't really slide on the neck.

Excellent

Couldn't be better for the price tag. It's a joy to play this beauty. Sounds awesome connected to a amp.

heap and fun

Decent and fully-utilized instrument for the low price. Not professional quality but still incredibly fun to play.

Fantastic little bass.

Just the job for practising, playing acoustically with friends or amplified to get that upright bass sound.

Tried a few others out before settling on this and I?m glad I did.

One piece of advice is - be patient when when you first get it when tuning the strings, they stretch a lot at first, like a lot! but once they have settled down they hardly need to be touched.

All in all a fantastic little bass. Terrific value for money. Well recommended.

Found my acoustic bass

Have it for almost a month. This ubass has a perfect acoustic tone. It is unbelievable how such a small instrument can deliver this tone. For home practice you don't need an amp. With a guitar and drums you can plug it in an amp. Played in an acoustic setting (two guitars and vocals), and sounded like a charm. The strings felt a little bit weird at first, but got used to them very quickly. No particular problems with tuning. Highly recommend it to anyone wanting to have a true acoustic sound.

Great little instrument

This is a fantastic Ukebass, small, lightweight and great sound. I am a guitarsit but bought this bass so i can play sometimes for fun. I played at some gigs, and my friend played it on a radio show. Definitely worth the money!

Fun Ubass.. don't expect miracles

I ordered this Ubass with a pair of thundergut strings because on the internet, people where complaining about the "sticky" strings (they're like rubbery elastic). It turned out the Ubass actually is equiped with thundergut strings which are still very "sticky". The CLU Ubass is a fun instrument and it does sound a little like upright bass. I was planning on taking it to gigs as a backup for my URB but to be honest, even though it's great fun to play, I doesn't come close and I would not gig with it. Some positions have serieus rattle 'n' hum, it's fun but no more than that. When connected to an amp, the sound is impressive and the controls are very efficient. Also the internal tuner is handy (but not that accurate compared to a "serious" tuner). A fun but not a professional instrument. Of course you can't expect that for the price but still, for a gimmick it's a little too expensive. I'm ordering the HB electric URB, probably a better backup.