Risa solid electric uke/mando

[powercat]

I stumbled upon a company in Germany called RISA (http://www.ukulele.de/menu/). They have a couple of solid bodied electric ukuleles / mandolins (http://ukulele.de/shop/index.php?cat=c14_Other-Instruments.html&XTCsid=63r81gghe5svji9bais7ck9b25). The one that really interests me (probably because I've never seen one quite like this) is the RISA Uke-Solid-Soprano (Ukulele/Mandolin) (http://ukulele.de/shop/product_info.php?info=p10_RISA-Uke-Solid-Soprano--Ukulele-Mandolin-.html&XTCsid=63r81gghe5svji9bais7ck9b25). The DaSilva Ukulele Company (http://www.ukemaker.com/Risa-InstrumentsForSale.html) (in the US) sells both the solid electric "skeleton" version and the more standard solid body electric ukulele / mandolin. Does anyone have any experience with the "skeleton" version? It looks like it might make a great small practice mando when supplied with the right strings (in GDAE tuning) and a headphone amp.

[JEStanek]

This Risa thread (http://www.mandolincafe.net/cgi-bin/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=15;t=45239;hl=risa) had a lot of detail. I pulled it from this set of search results (http://www.mandolincafe.net/cgi-bin/ikonboard.cgi?act=Search&CODE=02&SID=478f6e754031a0fa).

Jamie

[powercat]

Weird. Before posting this I searched for RISA in all of the forums and came up with nothing. What did you search on?

[jefflester]

Weird. #Before posting this I searched for RISA in all of the forums and came up with nothing. #What did you search on?
Keyword: risa
Type of Search "Posts and or topic titles"
Choose the forum(s) to search in "All open forums"
Search in... "Titles and Posts"
Search From: "This Month" and #"Older" (or "The beginning")

I think the "Search From" is what trips up a lot of people. They don't notice it down there at the bottom.

[powercat]

Ah, I had the wrong time setting. That would explain it. I wasn't going back far enough.

Thanks

[Martin Jonas]

That other thread linked above was about my Risa, which I bought last summer. It's been a life-saver since: I was stuck for three-and-a-half weeks on business in a hotel in India in October and having the Risa with me saved me from going spare. It's so small and so robust that I can just throw it in my checked luggage. I play through a Korg PX4-A effects box which I use as a headphone amp, on one of the presets. The Korg has a terrible user interface and is too expensive to use just as a headphone amp, but the Risa sounds great through headphones and tuner, cable and Pandora box all fit into the small gig bag that comes with the Risa.

I have replaced the clear fishing line supplied by Risa for the fourth string with a black-died fishing line of my own, which for some reason sounds nicer (and blends in better with the black lower strings that Risa supply).

Be aware though that the tone and the picking action are quite different from a mando, because of the single string and because of the lower tension of the nylon.

Martin

[powercat]

Would it be possible to use all real strings (D'Adario or somesuch) or would that not work?

[arbarnhart]

They don't have geared tuners, so you might not have much luck with strings that require much tension.