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Harley Benton Kahuna CLU-Bass Ukulele LH

50 Customer ratings

4.2 / 5

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37 Reviews

Harley Benton Kahuna CLU-Bass Ukulele LH
485 AED 125,21 €
Plus 269 AED shipping
The price in AED is a guideline price only
Since we ship from Germany, additional costs through taxes and customs may be incurred
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A
An excellent instrument by any standard, left hand, too!.
Anonymous 06.12.2015
It's well made, feels right, sounds great, looks great (better than the photos suggested) and it plays in tune too. That isn't always the case with inexpensive instruments - I check them out at the octave harmonics as well as using those handy clip-on tuners. It's not perfect above the octave, but very close. Close enough!
The finish and fit is excellent quality for the price. This is not a hand-made instrument, but it looks good and is fair value. The neck is well done and ours were straight and not twisted.
This was bought as a gift, but you can be sure that it was very thoroughly checked out before being handed over. And yes, I now own a right-hand one.
Playing a 'lefty' can be a hoot!
The B-Band pickup isn't a piezo - it's a contact cousin to those inexpensive electret microphones that have been around forever.
B-Band warn you that they take a bit of settling in, and I agree. The sound does improve after about a week of regular use, and it's pretty darn good to start with.
Like any bridge saddle contact pickup, the string-to-string balance is fixed. You can't "tilt the pickup" to even up the string response as on a bass guitar - so I'd recommend a compressor to help balance the string-to-string response - which will also vary with your tone selection. It also feels right and improves the feel in our view.
So whilst plugging it into a PA (or whatever) will sound good (even compared to my beloved Yamaha SB) it sounds/feels best if you use a compressor.
The Behringer Xenyx mixer compressor works fine, but the best one used to date was the Laney Richter RB3 bass combo amp compressor.
The built-in tone control is excellent!
A dramatic change in contour that goes from thin to PHATT with a very mellow tone in the middle. We do like it.
We liked pretty much everything, in fact.
The Aquila strings are unusual, if you're coming from a traditional bass or bass guitar, but they do work well. After a fortnight of play they feel great, a little string lube can help one get used to them. Hair oil or body lotion is a good substitute!
If you're coming from a guitar-bass or a traditional bass this one will feel very light and (almost) too easy to play - but if this is your first bass it's an excellent place to start.
And it is Left-Hand at a fair price!
Well done Thomann.
Left handed players of the world salute you.
Recommended for left-handed bassists.
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Extremely disappointed UPDATE 31.01.22
IFC 24.01.2022
The following is an update on my initial review which is below. I managed to fix the volume issue, no more than a loose connection. I will however have to replace the machine head.
Regardless of not having a D string I gave it a spin;
Construction is acceptable for this price level, it looks good, the frets are surprisingly well finished.
Sound acoustically is good but very quiet, you would need to be amped for any band situations.
Plugged in through a Phil Jones Bass C4 cab Phil Jones D400 head the bass has extraordinary bottom end, but the treble is a bit too thin near the top of the dial.
Overall an instrument I will mainly use for noodling and technique exercises - but that's fine with me.
Upgrading the scores accordingly, would have scored well without the faults.

Delivered today, out of the box it looked great but noticed an issue with the D string machine head when tuning, it would not rotate, couldn't tune instrument. Decided to check the sound amplified anyway then got a bigger surprise - no volume at all from the pick up, totally dead.
Have dealt with Thomann before and they are usually great, so have contacted them for a return and replacement, when I can hopefully provide a more positive review.
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T
Thx8411 18.08.2023
J'ai commandé ce ukulélé basse pour pouvoir voyager léger et pratiquer n'importe où. Je suis très heureux de mon achat.

Reçu avant-hier, et j'ai déjà passé plusieurs heures dessus. J'ai du mal à le lâcher et j'y prend un plaisir fou. C'est un super jouet, dans le bon sens du terme.

Alors bien sûr, il y a quelques petits défaut. Le vernis n'est pas parfait partout, La découpe et la colle du pontet bavent un peu. Les cordes vont peut-être être un peu dures à changer (il faut passer la main par la rosace), et haut dessus de la 12e fret, ça sonne plus tout a fait juste, et il faut réaccorder souvent (sur ces 2 derniers points, je ne blame pas l'instrument, c'est le principe du ukulélé basse à cordes "gummy"). Mais nous parlons d'un instrument à moins de 150 €, et là pas de doute, il vaut chaque euro dépensé.

Petite astuce pour un accordage plus facile : J'ai passé un très léger coup de papier de verre grain très fin dans les gorges du sillet, puis un coup de graphite (grosse mine de crayon un peu grasse, B voir 2B), les cordes glissent bien mieux.

Prévoir une petit temps d'adaptation. Le touché main droite est curieux au début, et main gauche les cordes graves on tendance à "rouler".

Quoi qu'il en soit, c'est le meilleur achat "musique" que j'ai fait depuis pas mal de temps.
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G
Great budget U bass for lefties!
Giorgio.bordiga4 28.11.2021
As a lefty bass player, the choice of instruments always feels limited.
So if you want a lefty U-bass, you either have the choice of entry-level models or expensive top brands.
Luckily this HB bass has all the things you need and feels well built and pleasant to play.
the only features where I notice a difference with more expensive models - which you can expect at this price point - are strings and preamp. Strings sound good, but are a bit sticky and temperamental in terms of tone and tuning stability. I upgraded with Aquila ThunderReds and it sounds and play like a much more expensive instrument.
Preamp is good enough for me (use the bass for practice and home recording), but I guess in a different environment and plugged into higher quality equipment you would want something more.

Overall a great instrument!
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bb
goog to Great
big balls Den 07.02.2022
Great little bass for the money
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CA
Great value for money and easy to play
Cyprus Andrew 16.04.2018
This is my second bass uke. My first is much smaller - around the size of tenor uke - this is more of a small guitar. However, the larger size means the strings have more tension and make it easier to play.

The built-in tuner is a bit disappointing - it cost it a "star" in the rating! - it switches to tuner mode automatically when you plug the uke in; so until you get used to that, you wonder why there's no sound coming out. And the tuner is a bit slow reporting if it's in tune.
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Jp
A fun little bass
Jazz/blues player 09.02.2024
I use it mostly indoors or jams, as it might well feedback in a gig situation. It’s always fun to pick up, but I switched to Thunderbrown strings in the hope of better intonation and volume on the E string. It worked.
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M
A lot of fun to play!
M-Lo 19.03.2024
I love this bass. I got it to noodle about watching late night UFO shows and it's quiet enough not to wake up anyone, even the cat snoozing on my lap whilst I play. I use a felt plec which has a really nice round and fat tone with a bit of bite. Didn't take very long getting used to the big rubber strings but I'd recommend applying a lighter touch with both hands. I found no flaws with the construction and the pickup is very clean sounding and simple to operate (volume,bass&treble) which is great. Has a lovely punch and definition through a portable amp, even with overdrive. Built in tuner works ok. Machine heads require a bit more turning than a regular metal string bass but the strings have only required a handful of tiny adjustments since it arrived in early January and it's played just about every day. If you want a fun, very light, easy to play bass that also offers something off the beaten track in a mix, this'll do just nicely!
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R
Not a true Lefty
RensG 17.04.2021
It has a good value for the money, however, the left hand versions are fitted with a right hand saddle, so intonation is way off (you can also see that in the pictures in the site). Also this saddle is integrated with the piezo element, so it's not really replaceable without losing the preamp function.
It does have a truss rod, so that's nice.
The rubbery Aquila strings sound nice but are very sticky, so you can't really slide over the strings. I tried to fit it with steel Bass Uke Strings, but because of the higher tension and different gauges you have to fit the bass with a new nut and saddle to get good contact and a playable action. The nut is no problem, but the saddle is. The truss rod works fine, bur for the action and intonation you really have to refit the saddle.
Acoustically it sounds ok with the Aquila strings, somewhat quiet. These sticky, rubbery strings do limit your playing (if you used to a regular bass guitar like me). Amplified it sounds quite good.
Steel stings don't sound good acoustically without a good setup, and as I explained, that is difficult because of the right hand piezo saddle.

Update: When changing the strings to Ubass flatwounds, the tuning machine of the E string broke. I took it apart, and apparently the Headstock is too thick for the shafts of these tuners, so they are likely to go loose at some point. Removing the thick black washer on the front of the tuning machine dit some the problem.
I also refit the bass with a new saddle that fits in the piezo, and a new nut, and now the action and intonation is fine. The fretwork is not great, because they are not level, but I'll fix that in the future. Besides that it's fine now.

All in all it could be a great product, but all these flaws make it not so great.
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U
nice quality LH uke bass
Ukuduky 13.06.2024
Typical good quality and value Harley Benton instrument.
Nice looking and sounding ,
Left handed option which is not so common,
recommended
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Harley Benton Kahuna CLU-Bass Ukulele LH