Our ukuleles feature great tone and playability, top quality Hawaiian koa and other fine solid tone woods and detailed inlay work.
For nearly 30 years, Mele Ukulele continues to offer what can be considered among the best values in musical instruments today.
Designed for great sound!
Each Mele ukulele is designed to offer excellent playability. You will find Mele Ukuleles as the ukulele of choice by top Hawaiian entertainers and world famous musicians like Joe Walsh, John Fogerty, Jesse Colin Young, Steve Miller, Mick Fleetwood, Colin Hay (Men at Work), Sammy Hagar, James Hetfield, and members of Bonnie Reitt, Bon Jovi and Jimmy Buffet’s bands.
Baritone +
Guitarlele
The baritone offers deep, rich tones and is tuned down from an ukulele to the four high strings of a guitar.
The guitarlele is a travel size guitar.
Tenor
Many professional musicians opt for a tenor ukulele because it offers the loudest sound, richest tone, and most space on the fretboard
Concert
The next size up from soprano is the concert. It has a little more room on the fretboard for your fingers and a richer and louder sound.
Soprano
The smallest & most traditional of the ukuleles is the soprano. It is the classic ukulele.
Choice hardwoods for clear tone and lasting beauty.
We use choice tropical tonewoods such as koa and mahogany, to provide the resonance and beauty that makes Mele ukuleles so special. The most valuable and sought after Hawaiian-built ukuleles have always been made of koa wood, once known as “Hawaiian mahogany”. (Koa and mahogany are both hardwoods and members of the acacia family.) Genuine koa is found only in Hawaii and is becoming rare and expensive, so any genuine solid koa uke is an investment in the future. Our koa ukuleles, as well as having excellent sound qualities, are living works of nature’s art, each unique, with its beautiful ripples of color in the koa’s grain.
Mahogany, when properly selected and cured, makes for excellent ukuleles with great sound. The great Mainland ukulele makers of times past, such as Martin, Gibson, Washburn, Regal, etc., used mahogany for most of their production. Our mahogany ukuleles are great sellers, combining outstanding performance with great value.
We also use Sitka spruce, Western red cedar and redwood tops on some of our ukuleles. These are the most popular woods for guitar tops and they also are excellent for ukes. Cedar imparts a warm, mellow, rich tone and spruce is the choice of many professional virtuoso ukulele players because of its volume, punch and brilliance. Cedar and spruce tops are valued for the distinctive tone qualities and beautiful and distinctive appearance they can impart to a quality hand-built instrument.