Seeds Kalimba 34 Key Chromatic Thumb Piano Pisces C-Tuned,Double Layer Flat Board Black Walnut Musical Instruments Gift Idea for Children Adults Beginners and Professionals

This review is for the Seeds 41 key kalimba. After trying about 7 other kalimbas this is the one that I chose. It is a VERY good quality instrument with a beautiful sound. I originally was going to go with the Lingting 34 until I tried this Seeds. The Seeds 41 has 7 additional lower note keys which can be beneficial. There is less separation between the keys than the Lingting 34, but still more separation than all the other kalimbas I tried making it easier for me to play. It also has a good weight and feel in my hands, where as the Lingting 34 is VERY heavy. I have read reviews that the Lingting is harder to tune. The Seeds 41 has a traditional style of tuning which is very easy. It doesn't come with all the fluff stuff that comes with the other kalimbas, like finger protectors, cleaning cloth, stickers, etc. I believe that Seeds saved the $ on not providing stuff you truly don't need and made a better quality instrument. It comes with TWO very nice cases that will protect the Seeds way better than a cloth bag that comes with the others, tuning hammer and a booklet with info and songs. The Seeds 41 is a good fit for me.

TLDR: I find the tone of each key in isolation to be a little on the flat side, but the resonance while playing is out of this world. This kalimba has secured a niche for itself through a tight footprint and an S-tier sustain.My full thoughts -The Pros:- The reverberation on this kalimba can't be overstated. If I just ping a note/glissando, I will get generally 8-10 seconds of reverberation and sustain, which gives the kalimba overall a very 'full' sound as you play it. It's quite a lovely effect, and it's one of my more relaxing kalimbas to just chill and play slow and soft.- The kalimba feels quite narrow compared to my Hluru 34-key, which is my other regular-play kalimba. The body of it is very narrow and the keys are fairly tightly-spaced, which means it's substantially easier to do some cross-over chords on this kalimba versus my others. I appreciate that.- The wood on this is lovely. Probably my favorite kalimba I've got in terms of the feel and heft of the wood and the visible care with which it was constructed. Especially with the hollow-body, you can get a feel for how well it's built.- I actually quite like the layout. It seems like they've gone through and put some tangible thought into the layout of the kalimba. Duplicate keys are removed, and the placement of sharps has been adjusted a little bit from the "keep a sharp and natural together" concept to accommodate having more keys overall. That could also be a negative, since the positions are slightly different, but I find it's a good tradeoff.The cons:- My first and most-major complaint is that...I don't know how much I love the design of this kalimba. Since I got it, I've had a problem with a recurring metal buzzing on some keys, to the extent I took several out and attempted to clean them/see if I could polish that away. It helped a little, and playing the instrument a bit to settle everything in likewise helped a little, but I can still hear that buzzing a little bit on some songs. It's by far the most unpleasant thing about this kalimba, while it isn't bad enough to be a deal-breaker for me. Just enough to notice.- While I really like the 'full' effect of the kalimba when you're fully in a song, I find the tone of each individual key to be a little on the 'plunky' side. It's a little less of a quality tone when you don't have the sea of resonance to sort of mask the sound. I'm not shocked by this, given that it's a hollow board instead of a flatboard, but it was enough for me to notice it. I'm not mad at it, it's just not as nice in that aspect. I do find that if you play a little more gentle on this kalimba, both this and the buzzing are less of an issue.- Purely on a personal level, I do find I miss having the high-register F in the upper keys. I entirely understand that having a high-register C# is also important, but for me I think I run into songs that want the F more, and I might tune that one special. Which, I'll note, is a benefit of these keys not being engraved with any indicator of note.- I've seen other users have difficulty with the extreme resonance of this kalimba causing the song to become muddy; while I personally enjoy this sound, I could see it being a problem for some and I think it could be a concern for those players. I think this kalimba takes a little bit of playing with confidence/knowing where you're going, as it is definitely less crisp than some once you have a sea of other notes floating around you, but if you plow onward through that it can be a very satisfying sound.Glad to have it in my collection, and I do think this one will get regularly used!

The media could not be loaded. I compared a lot of chromatic kalimbas, including Seeds, Hluru, Loop, Moozica, and Poopoopidoo, and out of all of them I picked this one due to sound quality, reputation, and key layout.For the key layout, I picked it because five re-tune-able bass notes seems like enough. Plus, I like the symmetry of the 34-key over the 36-key.It's pretty much what I want. Only thing is that sometimes the tines need to be nudged a bit to the left or right to not buzz, the lowest bass F tine always has metallic overtones (Maybe because it's close to the limit at which it can be tuned down. I can tune in down to E but that's pretty much it, haven't attempted to go two more semitones down to D due to the remaining length of the tine above the kalimba.)Came with a foam kalimba stand, two finger cots, a tuning hammer that works well if you hit carefully and rapidly and have a steady hand, a tuning "spoon" (in the styrofoam in picture) to get those lower tones between the top tines, a microfiber cloth, two copies of stickers for every tine, a song book, and a hard case with foam sticks inside for additional protection.