Roundup: Comparing the Sonic Quality and Playability of 5 Vintage Baritone Ukes
BY SANDOR NAGYSZALANCZY | FROM THE WINTER 2024 ISSUE OF UKULELE
I started playing baritone ukulele in a band called the UkeAholics back in the early 2000s. Because one of my bandmates played a tenor uke and the other a soprano, I reasoned that adding a bari would help give our sound a little more “heft.” I was lucky enough to own a 1950s-era Martin baritone, which was a great instrument to play.
Over the years, I acquired four other vintage baritone ukes made by American manufacturers Favilla, Vega, Harmony, and Mastro. Recently, I wondered how these baris stacked up against my Martin. Hence, I decided to do a little face-off of these five instruments, comparing not only their sonic qualities, but their construction and playability as well.
MARTIN B51
First produced in 1960 (selling for $75), Martin’s style 51 baritone uke wasn’t the first baritone to come to market, but it did set the standard for these instruments. The construction and finish of this all-mahogany instrument is stellar. It features a solid mahogany body and neck, with a rosewood fingerboard and bridge. The B51 has a 20-inch scale, with 14 frets clear of its Spanish-style body. The body is bound both front and back with the same kind of dark celluloid binding found on Martin’s Style 1 ukuleles. Besides the stock B51 model, Martin also produced small numbers of fancier baritones on custom order, some with mahogany bodies and spruce tops; some with koa bodies. After 1977, the B51 was only available as a special-order instrument until it was discontinued in 1994.
FAVILLA B-2
Over the course of its nearly 90-year history, New York City’s Favilla Bros. Musical Instrument Company not only built fine quality guitars, but several different sizes and styles of ukuleles as well. Sometime in the late 1940s, founding brother John Favilla’s son Hercules (nicknamed Herk), a former vaudeville performer, guitar player, and teacher, created what many consider to be the world’s first baritone ukulele (also see the following section on Vega). Herk designed the baritone with the goal of simplifying guitar study for beginners by making a four-stringed instrument tuned the same as the first four strings of a guitar. He made the baritone a member of the ukulele family both to distinguish it from the tenor guitar (which uses a different tuning), and because of Favilla’s long history of manufacturing ukes.
All Favilla baritone ukuleles, including the model B-2 featured here, sported solid mahogany bodies and necks, with rosewood tie-style bridges and rosewood fretboards with a relatively short 19-inch scale. Appearance-wise, the B-2 is rather plain, with no body bindings or headstock inlays; just a simple soundhole rosette, small pearloid fret marker dots, and a gold “Favilla” company crest emblazoned on the headstock.
VEGA SOLO-LUTE
Sometime around 1950, the Vega Company of Boston, Massachusetts, a firm primarily known as a guitar, mandolin, and banjo manufacturer, began making baritone ukes at the request of TV and radio personality and ukulele aficionado Arthur Godfrey. Evidently Godfrey had asked a friend, CBS musician Eddie Connors, to design a larger-bodied, lower-pitched ukulele, with a body based on the shape of a Martin tenor uke. Given the similar timeframe of production of Vega and Favilla baris, it’s possible that Connors, and not Herk Favilla, actually created the first baritone ukulele.
Vega produced three different Arthur Godfrey baritone models: the Standard; the DeLuxe; and the oddly named Solo-Lute, featured here. The latter was their fanciest model, with a body and neck fashioned from solid mahogany with a sunburst finish and white plastic binding around both the front and back of the body. The Solo-Lute’s neck features a rosewood fretboard adorned with a series of pearloid fret marker inlays, both dots and rectangles. At 21 inches, its scale length is the longest in this group and is more typical of a tenor guitar or tenor banjo than it is of a baritone uke. What’s even more unique is that the Solo-Lute’s neck joins the body at the 16th fret, which makes it ideal for playing leads or melodies far up the neck (Vega’s DeLuxe model shares this feature, as well as the sunburst finish).
HARMONY NO. 695
When the Harmony Guitar Company of Chicago first launched its model 695 baritone uke in the mid/late 1950s, it was described as, “a super-size instrument with warmth of tone and ease of response that will delight the exacting player.” Although the quality of construction doesn’t quite hold up to the baris made by Martin, Favilla, or Vega, the No. 695 is quite a decent instrument with an all-mahogany body and neck, with a rosewood bridge and fingerboard. The scale length is 19-1/4 inches and the width of the fingerboard at the nut is just under 1-5/16 inches, the narrowest of any in this group.
The top of the body is bound with dark celluloid and the soundhole is surrounded by a simple three-band rosette. It’s said that the Harmony baritones from the 1950s are built a bit lighter than the ones produced in the 1960s, some of which have bodies made from mahogany plywood. It’s unknown when the model 695 went out of production, but it was likely well before Harmony went out of business in the mid-1970s.
MASTRO ISLANDER #147
I’m sure you’re wondering, why on earth would I include a plastic instrument in this comparison?
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Well, first of all, it was designed by Mastro Industries founder and master luthier Mario Maccaferri, whose instruments were always intended for serious players (with the exception of Masto’s smallest toy ukes). Mastro introduced its first baritone uke, the model 610 TV Pal, in 1964, and then the model B-1 Islander, featured here, just a year later. Both were molded from Dupont Styrene plastic. The Islander’s neck and cutaway body are a single piece molded from multi-colored plastics, primarily dark grey with streaks of red and white. The soundhole is accented by a thin brown plastic rosette depicting vines and flowers.
The Islander’s 17-fret neck has an 18-5/16-inch scale, the shortest in this group. The separately molded fingerboard has pearly marker dots and 12 metal frets clear of the body. There’s also a “zero fret” next to the nut; a feature found on all of Maccaferri’s instruments. The Islander’s bridge is molded directly into its ivory-colored plastic top, with a separate plastic strip serving as the saddle. The silk-screened headstock features the Maccaferri shield as well as U.S. patent numbers granted for the Mastro uke’s design features.
How Do They Sound?
In order to make this a fair comparison of sound quality, I re-strung all five ukuleles with the same D’Addario EJ87 titanium baritone strings, which are described as having a “warm, bright tone.” I was immediately impressed as to how much better all five sounded with these new strings. (I think the strings on the Mastro and Favilla might have been original!)
After playing the instruments, I decided that the best way to get an accurate head-to-head comparison was to record myself playing each one in my home studio, both strumming and fingerpicking. I used a metronome to assure that I kept the same tempo for each recording. I then aligned the audio files in my computer’s digital audio workstation. This allowed me to solo any of the baritone tracks and switch rapidly between them, listening carefully to directly compare their volume, timbre, and string balance. The first thing I noticed is that each of these baritones has an overall sound that’s quite distinct; no two sound completely alike.
In terms of balance and overall clarity, the Martin B51 edged out all the others. It has a satisfying “woodiness” without sounding boomy or muddy in the lower frequencies. The Martin was also my favorite bari for fingerpicking, as it sounded the most natural to my ears with good balance between the strings and a great nylon guitar–like sound.
Compared to the Martin, the Favilla has a much deeper, warmer sound with decent treble, but lacks the Martin’s clarity and presence. The Favilla’s low-mid tones are dominant and get a bit muddy when playing certain chords. Fingerpicked, the Favilla is a mixed bag: its trebles are clear and present, but its lower mid tones sound a bit dark. Hence, it’s not a great uke for this style of playing.
Next in ranking, sound-wise, was the Vega. It had decent string balance when strummed, although it sounded a bit thin compared to the Martin and Vega, with less low end and lots of middle-high and treble that often sounded a bit tinny. There’s a bit of a trebly sheen that
surmounts the overall sound of the instrument, giving it a more airy and less woody quality than the Martin. The Vega didn’t sound as well balanced as the Martin when fingerpicked, with the lower pitched strings sounding muddier.
I’d characterize the Harmony’s sound as abundant in bass and relatively weak in treble. It probably has the worst sound in terms of the balance of strings, especially when fingerpicked, with certain notes jumping out louder than others. However, the Harmony has a bit more volume than any of the other baris. Overall, it’s not a terrible choice, especially given its affordable price on the vintage market. If I needed a uke to take outdoors and play around a campfire, it would be a fine pick.
The biggest surprise of my listening session was the plastic Mastro Islander. While it sounded different than any of the other baris, it’s surprisingly well-balanced, with good volume and presence, and clear treble. It lacks just a bit of the low midrange that helps the Martin sound so good. If this instrument were included in a full recorded song (with vocals, bass, etc.) I don’t think anyone would guess that it’s a plastic instrument. The Mastro also sounded quite good when fingerpicked, aside from a certain edgy quality in the initial string attack (I used my fingernails). Not a deal breaker, but not as natural-sounding as the wood-bodied baris.
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Playability
Comparing the playability of these five baritones was admittedly a bit uneven, as the particular instruments I have were played “as is” without any attempt to optimize their setups, including string height and intonation. That said, all five played in good tune and I found it quite easy to play chords at least up to the fifth fret on all five models. Surprisingly, I least preferred the feel of the Martin’s neck, which felt just a little too thin for my big hands. I also had issues with the narrowness of the Harmony’s neck, which made my fingers feel cramped when playing chords near the nut.
Tuning-wise, four of the five baris came stock with friction-style ukulele tuners; only the Vega Solo-Lute had geared-type tuners, which definitely made it easier to fine tune than the others. At some point, someone replaced my Favilla’s friction tuners with Gotoh UPT 4:1 planetary-geared tuners, which also made tuning a breeze. Unless you are concerned with a vintage instrument’s originality, I strongly suggest you replace friction tuners with these lightweight planetary gear style units.
Why Choose a Baritone?
Why play a baritone uke instead of a regular soprano, concert, or tenor? For starters, if you’re a guitar player, the transition to a bari can be relatively easy, as a baritone uke is tuned exactly the same as the four highest-pitched strings of a guitar. Hence, you can play regular guitar chords, albeit that some, such as a “G” in the open position, will only be part of the same chord as played on a six-string guitar.
Another good reason to choose a bari uke is that when playing with higher-pitched ukes the baritone adds a nice bit of variety and low end to the sound of the ensemble. Also, if your voice is in the soprano or alto range, the lower pitch of a baritone uke can also help your vocals stand out.
While you may opt to buy a brand new baritone uke, older instruments have a sound and a cool vintage vibe that new instruments lack. By the way, the five companies represented in this article aren’t the only ones who produced baritone ukuleles in past decades: Gibson and Regal made some nice quality baris which are scarce today. There are also dozens of other vintage brands out there, including Marathon, Stadium, Lyle, Giannini, Crestline, and Bobby Henshaw, just to name a few.
