Flight Carabao All Solid Spruce/Mango Baritone Ukulele w/Gigbag (SUS Exclusive) #2

For something truly special, place your order for the stunning Flight carabao baritone ukulele, designed exclusively for the Southern Ukulele Store. 

The carabao mango (also known as the Philippines mango) is considered by many to be the sweetest mango in the world. There really couldn't be a more appropriate name for this ukulele.

It all started when we were blown away by the sound and build quality of Flight's solid mango wood fireball ukulele in 2020. We had spent lots of time in recent years searching the Earth for an affordable mango ukulele that we could bring to the uke playing public. We love the people at Flight and decided to work together to produce a Southern Ukulele Store exclusive model.

The plan was to take that sweet, unforgettable and refined mango tone and pair it up with a more direct sounding spruce top for added volume and texture. These ukuleles achieve that and more - if you are a performer or play in a ukulele group you will no doubt love being able to hear all of those sweet and rich harmonics at a louder acoustic volume with more projection and fizz to the notes. If you play for yourself at home then you will appreciate how the mango creates a suitable 'island' mood to your playing.

I personally love how the slotted headstock and spruce top gives the whole thing a bit more of a bounce to the single notes, creating a wider natural dynamic range than you might be used to from mango based instruments. The pin bridge which has featured on other high end Flight ukuleles and Kanile'a models in the past is a feature we love both visually and practically as it makes for quick string changes and increased sustain.

For four years now we have been championing a #mangomovement in ukulele manufacturing. Mango trees have a fruit bearing life cycle of around 80-100 years and are often protected by farmers who will be able to make more money selling fruit from the tree than they would from the timber. Beyond that lifespan, this wood sounds fantastic and can be given a new lease of life but still have a sustainable element to them. Instrument grade mango itself is a rare entity in the world of ukulele manufacturing because it shares many tonal properties with popular high end woods like koa... I hope all of this makes you want to try one for yourself while we have them?

We certainly thought a lot of them on first inspection. They were so good we put our name on the back of the headstock as well as an embroidered Southern Ukulele Store logo on the Flight gigbag. Cosmetically, this soprano ukulele features side slanted fretboard markers that curl around from the side of the fingerboard across the front, this is a subtle nod to one of the Unique features on our Kanile'a Manako model.

Do not be put off by the apparent difference in colour on each side of the top. This is a very common effect caused by the grain structure being reversed in quarter sawn bookmatched wood. The grain pattern is reversed on each side owing to the bookmatch, so each side will alternate in appearing lighter or darker depending on your viewing angle.

The listing shows the actual instrument you will receive.

Specification:
Solid spruce top
Solid mango back and sides
20.25 (514mm) scale length
38mm nut width, with 29mm G to A string spacing
Indian rosewood fretboard and bridge
Bone nut and saddle
Pinned bridge
Black nylon DGBE strings, two wound bass
Binding to top
Prowel open geared tuners
Slotted headstock
Gloss finish
Padded Flight gigbag