Oh come on aNueNue… no soprano ukulele is supposed to sound like THIS! It’s absolutely flipping amazing! If there’s a superlative you can think of when it comes to sound, you can throw it at this aNueNue US-214 Cedar Bird soprano ukulele. Does it have bell-like clarity? Yes. Epic volume for such a small body? Certainly. Chiming sweetness, check. Smooth, long sustain? Yes sir. And a bass response that simply does not belong on such a diminutive instrument? Absolutely.

I remember getting a comment when Idescribed the first of aNueNue’s Bird Series ukes on my website (the UT-200 Moon Bird). I’d gone on and on about my delight when I first opened the box. The incredulity when I heard the low roar of the bass that had no place on a ukulele. The comment I recieved said, ‘well, that’s all a lot of marketing speak’. I thought about that a lot, and yes, I sell ukuleles. Yes, if you’re reading this and you’re tempted, I hope you pull the trigger. But no, I don’t go for ‘marketing speak’… I might go on and on about how lovely I think something is. And yes, I guess that’s marketing. But I believe it. And I believe this is a simply stunning soprano ukulele.

The US-214 has a Western red cedar top, paired with rosewood back and sides, under a beautiful gloss finish. It’s very shiny… in fact, I didn’t display the ‘head-on’ shot of the back of this ukulele as you could see my baldy head in the reflection of it, taking the photo. I’ve got it into my head that the Bird Series shape will become the new ‘vintage Martin’ for future generations - the classic design that peope will covet 50 years from now (oh, he’s on with the marketing speak again) - but I really think it could. It’s becoming, in the relatively small nice of the ukulele world, iconic. The organic lines of the binding are lovely, and the spalted maple off-centre soundhole decoration is both fancy and yet understated.

The Cedar Bird soprano uke has a 36mm nut width, aNueNue black water fluorocarbon strings and top of the line Gotoh UPT geared tuners. It is also supplied with a nice blue hard case. Although there’s a case there, you might want to add other common extras, like a strap button or strap, which you can do by scrolling to the bottom of the page.

What else can you say about the US-214 cedar bird? Well… (hang on, let me leaf through my tattered copy of ‘The Marketing Speak Manual’), it’s beautifully made. It is quite a lot of money. But it’s just so ‘right’ that somehow it seems very good value when you look at other instruments of this price or higher (and I mean a LOT higher).