It seems all AMI models share the same materials and workmanship. The box is nicely made of native African kiaat wood. The spring steel tines are easy on the fingers, and there is almost no dead notes, every note is clear sounding.
The Sound :
As of all the AMI kalimbas, the acoustic sound is very nice, simply great. The electric sound is ok, but it does not have the details in the sound, here is a comparation :
I've recorded my free playing, both from K&K Silver Bullet mic and the internal pickup at the same time. No processing. This pic shows how I record :
This is the recording from internal pickup :
AMI TC 2 - Internal Pickup by MengQiMusic
This is the recording from K&K Silver Bullet mic :
AMI TC 1 - Silver Bullet Mic by MengQiMusic
As you can hear, we can not say that the frequency response of the internal pickup is good. It sounds dull and muffled when compared to the mic sound. Most importantly, it does not pick up the "sparkle" from the kalimba sound, is it part of the charm of kalimba. That may be something to do with AMI's use of normal cheap piezo elements and the raw way of installing them. So if you really want it to be recorded with nice result, you should use mics.
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The Note Layout :
This treble chromatic kalimba has 2 bank of 17 notes, the notes on the front is a C major diatonic scale, the notes on the back are 1 semitone lower - so there are some redundant E and B notes. The size is standard treble kalimba. It is very small, and the spaces between tines are small enough to create trouble for me - I guess the Americans have bigger hands than Asian so imagine they would also have some hard times trying to play this.
When practicing, there is one technique that the players must grow. It's to grow the correct feeling about the positions of the back tines. I don't know if others would have this trouble. But when I began playing this kalimba, it was had for me to find the exact tine that are on the back of each front tine. The small spaces between tines make it even harder. I guess once you've grew the feeling of the position it would be easier to play.
