My wife will kill me but owning a guiro has always been a weird desire of mine. Thanks for helping me live the dream Woot!
A professional violinist weighing in on the violin sale: be warned that this might be “some assembly required.” In the second picture the bridge is not on the violin. I would also be very surprised, based on outfits like this I’ve encountered before, if the bridge were correctly “adjusted” to the instrument (carved down to the right curvature of the feet and the right height). I’d also warn that I’ve often encountered violins that looked a lot like this that were not just crappy-sounding, but actually had flaws that made them unplayable, like pegs that wouldn’t stay in place or fingerboards that came unglued. Caveat emptor—there’s no way of telling the state of this instrument over the internet, and I’d give you a 90% chance of needing a “setup” by a professional, $30-50, and a 50% chance of just having a pretty, violin-shaped decorative object. Oh, and a 100% chance of, at best, having a violin that doesn’t sound very good.
On the plus side, this outfit includes a lot of necessary accessories that typically add up to ca. $50. The catch is that it’s the absolute cheapest of each. The shoulder rest looks flat and uncomfortable, the music stand is flimsy and short, and the included strings look like off-label, hideous steel ones. Think of this outfit as an expensive toy for pretending to learn violin, but if you spent another $100 you could get better versions of everything and a couple of lessons with a teacher, and wind up actually able to play something.
hey man, we’ll always support your weird dreams!
i’m eyeing the ukulele, myself. for the office, obviously.
Definitely caveat emptor.
What Hamlet said about the violin applies to pretty much every item listed.
If you’re buying for a young child who will eventually destroy it, either shortly before or after getting bored with it, then these things are perfect.
If you’re looking for a durable, playable musical instrument, look elsewhere - and spend more.
The one possible exception would be the harmonica - a cheap Hohner harmonica will still be better than a more expensive no-name brand.
Dear Woot,
Please don’t let the cowbell sell out. I don’t know if my body can take all the SNL references.
Love,
firebirdude
A very similar, if not the same, ukelele set looks to be $99.99 at Costco. 2 Reviews say it’s decent. So get it here for $10+membership fees less.
You can never have enough cowbell.
if i could, i would summarily probate all SNL referencers.
we’ll get through this. together.
Flashback to kindergarten! Have to have the Guiro for my son. I remember we all used to fight over who got to play it. I got stuck with the stupid “sticks” a lot 
Now it will be all mine!! Uh…I mean his.
Look on the bright side, if it does, a lot of people will be getting their prescriptions filled for their fever.
I’m thinking about the Kona Guitar Amp… I need a cheap one for outside that I won’t mind if it gets weathered. Anybody ever played on this lil’ amp?
i’m interested in one of the ukuleles but can anyone explain the difference between the two? is the more expensive one only more expensive because of the extra gear or are the actual ukuleles majorly different? thanks for any help
Klave? Love that sound. It’s like the wooden cowbell.
On another note, I was eyeing the ukes and basically found out that the Kona is cheap. But, in my journey on the interwebs, I found the very helpful and interesting website, Ukulele Hunt. They have a very helpful beginner section.
I also learned that the Kohala ukelele is made by Lanikai, which is apparently a very respectable ukelele company with well-made products. I guess, to make a guitar analogy, Kohala is to Lanikai as Squire is to Fender. Hmm… now I want it more…
As much as I love Woot, as an avid guitarist I would be very leery of any musical instruments sold in one of these side sales. In the musical instrument world you really get what you pay for and if you don’t know much about the craftsmanship of the instrument you’re looking into then I would suggest doing some research, because every little detail makes a huge difference in quality!
I think I might pull the trigger on the Kona Uke. My husband is a good guitar player who likes to mess around with other music out in his office (has a keyboard too). He actually plays my daughters $30 kids guitar we bought last Christmas at Target just for the fun of it, and has mentioned a time or two about learning the uke. His birthday is coming up…
Yeah, the few Kona reviews I could find were very discouraging. I think there may be more to this Kohala thing, though… The image for the Dummies package does have the word Kohala printed on the uke, but the specs tab identifies it as a “Kona Ukulele”. Furthermore, when I look up the UKFD package on Amazon, it is sold through Kona.
Can anyone find any more info on this?
I’m thinking about getting the microphone. Would the guitar amp work with it or would I need to find a different kind of amp?
Very much a newbie in this area.
The uke for dummies pack looks a lot like this:
http://kohalaukes.com/ukuleles/kk-c/
Which they say is sold exclusively at Costco.
I bought one, hopefully it is playable since I want to figure out how to play it.
So sad… Last Christmas, I hunted high and low for affordable harmonicas, with no luck (28.00 was the best I could find for a Hohner). I would have purchased 6 of Woot’s harmonicas, but didn’t get to them in time. I hope Woot has them again in this price range.