Review: aNueNue Hummingbird’s Curvaceous Shape and Beautiful Inlay Complement Its Gorgeous Tone

BY EDDIE SCHER | From the Spring 2025 issue of Ukulele magazine

It’s hard to know where to start a review of the aNueNue Hummingbird concert ukulele (UC200HB). The most obvious thing to talk about should be the colorful inlay, but the sound and feel of this ukulele were even more remarkable. One of the hallmarks of a fine instrument is that it inspires you to play more and to play better. The Hummingbird is a premium ukulele that looks great, but more importantly, once I picked it up, I didn’t want to put it down.

aNueNue (pronounced ah-new-ay-new-ay) is a Taiwan-based company whose instruments are handmade in China. They started in 2008, and aNueNue USA, based in Honolulu, was founded in 2020 by Kalei Gamiao and Corey Fujimoto, who are also part of online store the Ukulele Site. There’s no doubt in my mind that this uke is built by expert luthiers who know their business, as the fit and finish of this ukulele is first class.

This instrument is part of aNueNue’s Moon Bird series of guitars and ukes, developed in collaboration with Japanese luthier Mitsuta Morihiko. There are several Moon Bird models available in different sizes and made with different tonewoods. The company mentions a unique “Mount Fuji–voiced brace design,” but my attempts to get a view inside the ukulele didn’t give me any insight into what that design might be. Whatever it is, you can plainly hear its positive results.

The review ukulele had what I would describe as a modern tone, not dry and woody but balanced, vibrant, and warm. It has a clarity that allows you to hear the individual notes in each chord while maintaining plenty of the snappiness that will cut through an ensemble. This ability to cut through while retaining a round, beautiful tone was a pleasant surprise. The tone was also surprising because this ukulele isn’t particularly lightweight. Usually, weight is a direct indicator of the tone; the lighter the build, the more the instrument resonates with the vibrations of the strings to produce a more responsive and louder sound. But it’s always a tradeoff, as thicker woods add weight to make for a more robust instrument that will survive the lumps of a life of music. So, I imagine the brace design is a factor here. And since this is a brand-new uke, it will only get more nuanced and complex as the wood opens up with time.

The all-solid woods on this ukulele are magnificent. For starters, the creamy yellow, tight- and straight-grained moon spruce top, with very slight bear claw rippling across the grain, is stunning. Moon spruce is a European spruce from Switzerland that is harvested with specific techniques for musical instruments in mind. One of those techniques is timing the felling of the tree based on the cycle of the moon to ensure less sap content, and therefore less moisture, in the wood. This purportedly translates to a more stable wood with less splitting and warping, and a clear, brilliant, and warm sound.

The dark reddish-brown Indian rosewood used on the back and sides is straight-grained and wraps around and onto the top of the ukulele unlike anything I’ve seen before on any instrument. Like enhanced binding, the strong contrast between the rosewood and the blonde spruce top accentuates the curvy shape of this uke, especially where the neck meets the body and at the waist. The dark rosewood also has the effect of deemphasizing the asymmetry of the body from the cutout, which allows easy reach up the fretboard all the way to the 20th fret.

The name of this model comes from three brightly colored hummingbird inlays—two on the top hovering around colorful flowers set in the soundhole rosette, and another floating against the black ebony headstock. Made of bright and translucent mother-of-pearl, the green, red, yellow, brown, and blue colors in the birds and flowers look like stained glass. Just as the binding defies expectations by running over onto the top, the inlaid flowers reach outside the nonsymmetrical rosette and even peak out from the fretboard. This is a nontraditional approach that is aesthetically very effective. 

The bridge is made from thick dark ebony, as is the fretboard, which sits on a comfortable mahogany neck. The compensated bridge and nut are buffalo bone. The body is finished with a thick gloss, which protects the wood from scratches. This often comes with the downside of smothering tone and volume, but not in this case. The geared Gotoh UPT tuners function flawlessly, and they preserve the look of classic friction tuners. The Hummingbird concert comes in a blue leather hard case. 

The aNueNue Hummingbird is a first-class, hand-built ukulele with premium woods that really delivers on tone. It’s a remarkable looking instrument with its hummingbirds and flowers, and shows some impressive lutherie skills. But at the end of the day, it’s the playability and tone that make this a great ukulele that you’ll pick up and not want to put down.

BODY Solid Swiss moon spruce top; solid East Indian rosewood back and sides; gloss finish; rosewood binding

NECK 15.25″-scale mahogany neck; 1.42″ nut width; ebony fingerboard; ebony headplate; 20 frets; buffalo bone nut and saddle; satin finish; Gotoh UPT tuners

OTHER Black Water strings; aNueNue blue leather hard case

MADE IN China

PRICE $1,898 street

anuenueusa.com