Centuries ago I played bass guitar in an amateur swing band; about 10 years ago I took up the ukulele. Recently I became aware of uke basses. It seemed a match made in heaven. I was particularly interested in the thundergut strings. I toyed between the mahogany and the spalted maple and went with the spalted maple because it looked so unusual. It arrived very quickly and unusually for cheap instruments was playable out of the box: no sharp frets, no high action. The only set-up required was that the E and A strings should have been snipped a little shorter as they are wrapped too many times around the tuner posts, but that was quickly remedied. A quick tune up (courtesy of the built in tuner) and I was bomp, bomp, bomping away. Memories flooded back under my fingers and the shorter scale made it easy under my old, no-longer stretchy hands. I love that it can be played acousticly for practice which bothers no-one, and plugged into an amplifier and sound like an upright bass (ish) or an electric bass. I'm no expert on ukulele basses or bass guitars, but I think it sounds absolutely great. The thundergut strings are squidgy but you very quickly get used to them and for me they feel great to play. It's in tune up the keyboard, and once the strings had settled, stays in tune. The under saddle pickup is even across all strings. It is unbelievably light, I have soprano ukes that feel heavier to hold! The spalted maple is really unusual and very pretty, yes there's more spalt on the front than the back but you don't see the back when you're playing. It's great, cheap fun.