Ha, Now this title allows me to post here in the main forum. I used the word Sonar :) 
In a search for information about an instrument I just bought, I find very little about folks instruments. A Google search for "Folk Instrument Forums" comes up with sites with possibly 2 posts in the last year? Most have not seen action in 3 years.  I got optimistic about Harmony Central but that site is also lacking viewers on most of the sub forums.. The Folk sub form is dated last post 2015.  We are spoiled here with a very active forum. 
 
Any how,  how many of you play folk instruments and make recordings with good old Sonar?? 
 
I put this in Hardware but think I need more eyes on it so therefore I'm going to try here. 
 
ANybody have any clue to what this might be called or where it might originate?? 
Bought it at Goodwill for $15.99. Re strung with top 4 strings from an Acoustic and it plays just fine,, intonation is a little off but sounds cool in open tuning. I'm using C_G_C_E   right now. I show it with my Ukulele because people keep telling me that's what it is,, but that's way off.. It's steel string and a 495mm / 19.5" scale length  ukes are 14.5. Head stock looks very Russian/ Ukrainian/ Turkish to me. Closest I can find is called a Domra which are normally 3 string but 4 strings do exist. 
 

 
 
 

I am a collector of sorts and have used a number of different things in my recordings to date, using SONAR. Usual for me is classical guitar, picked,  or with glass and steel slides etc. I have a Russian balalaika with 3 strings, and an old Australian made piano stringed instrument like a Zither.  A number of different ukes, and I plan on getting a nylon string bass uke, well I did, until you forced me to google for yours, which I agree by the way, is probably Russian/Ukranian. But I found this while looking...a Ukranian Kobza Bass, and now I want one of those instead.
 
so thanks..  for nothing ....   lol!!
 
 
 

Another folk/bluegrass player here as well. Have a guitar and mandolin, as well as a mountain dulcimer and autoharp. Also started messing around with some Irish tin whistles and low whistle. Got a bodhran drum but haven't had much time to mess with it. 

how could I forget my mando. It's on at least half my songs.....my favourite instrument for recording. And my banjo. Also just strung up one of my acoustic's with 'Nashville' strings. Sure is different. I can see a lot double tracking coming up!!
 

Hey thanks folks ( ha ha) So far I'm stumping even some experts. One with a PHD in Ethnomusicology!! 
Still waiting for an answer from the Musical Instrument Museum in Scottsdale AZ. 
 
Ya MacFurse  I want a Bass Uke too,, they are amazing. I didn't think it would work.. 
 

Me too - Apart from electric guitars, electric bass and acoustics, I also use 5-string banjo, Irish tenor banjo, Irish bouzouki, mandolin, lap steel. Also some ukes including electric bass (strings like quarter inch rubber bands). I also use synth fiddle and melodeon.
 
I also have electric fiddle, but I can't claim to make any noises anyone would want to hear from it.
 
jdf
 

Johnny, I have seen some weird ones over my 53 years of (guitardom) "what's that?!? and what does it sound like!?!?"
   Don't have any clue to yours, however I look forward to "hearing" the answer! And in the meantime am having fun making up names for it, like bala-ukolin, etc.
   I don't really play bluegrass, but enjoy hearing it, have gigged it some, and enjoy learning fiddle tunes. But that hasn't stopped me from dabbling in banjo, fiddle, mandolin and dobro (my Baby Taylor Mah is set up as a dobro at the moment with a Perfect Nut, but it is "moving" to my high strung, soon). I see them all as "castable characters" in my productions and marvelous amusements in general. They fit right in with my acoustic and electric baritones, electric mando strat, bass, and various acoustics(Martin, Taylor and Epi) and electric guitars (Strats, Tele, Italia Rimini 12 (which is the best one I owned so far!), semi and full hollow bodies, and an Epi LP Std Plus, that's modded and marvelous!
   If I had more room (when ! LOL), I'd be shopping for a bodhran, a real dobro, any string family goodies, and a pedal steel to go with my 2 lap steels (E with Duesenberg MultiBender and C6th). I might also get to play my harmonicas more without getting the dog and cats "chiming in" ! LOL Then there's mallets and perc and a Wurly to go with my K2500 and Virus Ti2....... oh yeah and a C3 with Leslie.... and modular synths!
 
   I guess my long winded point is, we love sounds and therefore instruments! All of them! And I am thrilled I got introduced to Cakewalk years ago, and saw the immediate value in "heading that way".
So, my name is Michael and I, too, play/collect/use folk music instruments! LOL
Michael
 

Does it have any writing at all? It could be some hobby project created in someone's basement "uke gone bad"... Then again, it could be the instrument Lenin played during the victory celebrations of the Bolshevik revolution. Who knows?

There you go...... a bala bolshe uke vik!
 

I've been scratching my head over this since you posted it in hardware.

It looks very much like it's an inexpensive Eastern European built whatever it is, at least the materials, construction standard and finish looks like the kind of cheap/school instruments Czechoslovakia in particular churned out in the 1970s and 1980s. My experience of them is limited, but I've a Czech Applachian dulcimer that looks cheap and was cheap but sounds pretty good and plays fine. The bowl-back mandolins from the same source on the other hand, not always so good.

I'm pretty sure I saw similar instruments, or at least the up-market version with properly cut scrolls etc. being played by Hungarian and Bulgarian musicians in the 80s and 90s, used as a rhythm instrument in a similar way to how those traditions sometimes use a driving rhythm violin/viola that chunks out solid chords.

Though I could be completely wrong of course....

No idea what it's called or how it's supposed to be tuned though I'm afraid.

Present me with a melodeon/diatonic accordion/concertina/chemnitzer and I'm on firmer ground.