This ‘Oli ukulele from their X1 series is an impressive beast, a real classic. You could be forgiven for having your head turned by one of the more eye-catching beauties that ‘Oli produce. Some lovely koa grain, or some exotic turquoise inlays perhaps. But there is a lot to be said for a straightforward combination of spruce and rosewood. It’s been good enough for musicians for centuries, and there’s a reason for that - it just works.

With a good Engelmann spruce top like we have with this X1SP-TSR tenor, when paired with Indian rosewood, you get a brilliant, articulate voice. If you had a brightness scale for different tonewoods, spruce would be at the bright end… and yet it doesn’t mean it’s shrill, or tinny (well, it certainly doesn’t in this case!) While yes, it has power and brightness, projection and volume, that is balanced by a fullness of tone, a thicker sound than you might imagine, and plenty of bass response too. With good quality instruments like this, when you employ this combination of woods you enjoy the best of both worlds, with brightness and depth coming together in a sensational sonic marriage. (OK, OK… I’ll dial it down on the crazy phrases, but what can I say? It’s a lovely ukulele!)

Just because it doesn’t stand out in terms of how exotic it looks, that’s not to say the ‘Oli X1SP-TSR isn’t a particularly handsome uke. It’s classy and has loads of little details that work well together. These ukuleles have been developed by the team at The Ukulele Site in Hawaii, and you can almost see them sat around with the list of optional extras from the factory in Indonesia. Side sound port? Yes, we’ll have that. How about rosewood binding with rope purfling? Yes please. Rosewood soundhole rosette, maple fingerboard binding and tamarind position markers on the fretboard? Why not! How about some gorgeous maple inlay on the rosewood faced headstock, from a template provided by a Hawaiian artist? It’d be a shame not to!

The X1SP-TSR comes with ‘Oli Uke Logic fluorocarbon strings, supplied with a low G as standard, and excellent Gotoh rear facing 1:4 ratio geared tuners. It has a gloss finish (apart from the mahogany neck, which remains satin), a radiussed fretboard (giving extra comfort for barre chords), and a 37mm nut width. It also comes in an excellent hard case.

Optional extras at the bottom of the page, beneath the pictures, include the fitting of strap buttons. (As it comes with a great case and a low G is already fitted - that’s pretty much all you might want to consider from those optional extras).