Location, Location, Location

No, I'm not into the real estate business. I'm talking about where my ukes are built. Just for fun, I thought perhaps I'd track where all of my current ukes are made.

-Hawaii (6): Kamaka tenor HF-3, Koa Works tenor KW-4, Kanile'a super-soprano, Ko'olau CE-1, KoAloha Pineapple Sunday, Aaron Taylor milo/spruce tenor.

-Texas (3): William King spruce/koa LS-tenor, William King macassar ebony/spruce LS-concert, Collings UC-1.

-China (2): Kala Acacia Pocket uke, Bushman Cedartone baritone.

-Japan (1): Kiwaya KTS-7 soprano.

-Indonesia (1): Lanikai zebrawood concert.

-Indiana (1): Bluegrass cigar box tenor.

-California (1): DaSilva Santos reproduction soprano.

-Maryland (1): Glyph koa Mezzo-soprano.

-Vermont (1): Kepasa Gypsy Rose concert.

It's not very surprising that the greatest percentage of my stash has originated in Hawaii. After all, it is a Hawaiian instrument. But I thought I had more China made ukes. Texas coming in second is a slight surprise, but I guess I'm a William King fanboy, so that explains it. Unlisted is the upcoming Mya-Moe that's going to be made in Washington.

Anyway, I guess this kind of shows that ukes are being made all over the place, not just in Hawaii or China.

Shore Break

Ever since I heard Kalei Gamiao's Kiss by a Rose and Mach 4, I've been interested in his music and bought his self titled CD. The CD contains all ukulele instrumentals and proved to be very enjoyable for me. Most of the songs have accompaniments by other instruments but there are a few ukulele solo arrangements as well. One of them is the 2nd track called Shore Break. It is one of my favorite songs from this CD and I recently decided to try to learn it. I've usually learned ukulele solo arrangements either by finding tabs or watching videos of the song I'm trying to learn to try to figure out how to play them. Since this is very much an unknown song, there is no videos or tabs I could find. So the only way to learn it is by ear. Luckily for me, this is a pretty simple song and I was able to learn it by ear relatively easily. I was pleasantly surprised by this and hopefully I can get better with learning by ear as I continue to play the ukulele.

For making a video of this song, I was thinking about using the William King LS-concert, which I've been reconnecting with recently after a couple of solid months of almost exclusively playing the new Glyph. But when I was ready to do some takes, I decided to try it with the Koa Works tenor as I have not played it in a while and wanted to give it some playing time. I was able to play it on the Koa Works tenor so I figure I'd take a video with this ukulele. This uke is probably the best sounding tenor in my stash o' ukes, so it deserves to be played more often and be featured in more videos.

By the way, I hope you like this song. I probably didn't do it justice, so if you like Kalei Gamiao's music, be sure to check out his CD.

(*It seems Youtube is acting a bit wonky when I uploaded this. If you can't see it on this page, try double clicking it to open it on a separate page)

Pocket Uke craziness

I promised trying crazy stuff on the Kala Pocket Uke, and here is the first attempt. I've become somewhat of a Mach 4 junkie and have been playing it all the time, so I thought I'd try it on the Pocket uke! If you watch the video below, you'll probably agree that it ain't a pretty sight. But hey, I tried. No, the Pocket Uke definitely is not suited to play solo arrangements, but it is fun to try, even if I look and sound bad doing it. :p

Without further ado, here is Mach 4 on the Kala Pocket ukulele. Don't say I didn't warn you...

Mini-Me or Tiny Tim???

Uke-crack arrived yesterday in the form of the Kala Acacia Pocket ukulele. While I have tried to find as many reviews, pictures, and videos of it as I awaited its arrival, I must say that I was still not prepared for just how friggin' small this thing is! No, it doesn't actually fit in your pocket, but it is a really really small ukulele. It is definitely smaller than I expected and I don't think seeing pictures of it next to other ukes would really drive that point home (Although I do present a couple of such pics at the end of this post). You need to see this thing in person to appreciate its smallness.

Aside from the small size, my other first impression upon picking this ukulele up is that it is pretty heavy for its size. It's built like a tank, which isn't necessarily a good thing when talking about ukes. I don't know if it's because the body is so tiny and therefore the wood seems thicker, but it sure feels that way. I held my Collings UC-1 on one hand and this uke on the other, and I can't really tell much difference in weight. Granted, the Collings is really built very light, but it's like 5 times the size (OK, I'm exaggerating) of the Kala. So perhaps this pocket uke is a bit overbuilt, but maybe it needed to be built this way, I'm not sure. It does look well built. Perhaps not the most perfect workmanship (some glue and a little bit of wood shaving is visible on the inside of my copy), but I would rate it as very good. The acacia wood body looks nice, with some very faint curls in the wood. The headstock has an inlaid Kala logo in maple and an overlay of what appears to be clear plastic, which gives it an interesting effect.

The sound is predictably thin and not especially loud. I tried CFAD, DGBE, and GCEA tunings and decided to stick to GCEA for the time being. In CFAD and DGBE, it didn't seem to sound much better than GCEA and most songs I tried didn't sound that great in those tunings despite the strings are all "spaced apart" the same. It does seem to have pretty good intonation, but the Aquila strings are still stretching so much it's hard to tell since the strings seem to go out of tune as I play. Speaking of tuning, I used my brand spanking new Peterson StroboClip to tune this baby and it was surprisingly easy. I thought given the sensitivity of the tuner and the short scale of the ukulele, combined with friction tuners, I was going to be in for a workout to tune it. Turns out I was able to get the strings dialed in fairly quickly using the StroboClip, so I'm definitely happy with the new tuner.

While the sound of the pocket uke is not really all that great (yes, it's super tiny, but even if you consider it good for its size, it's still not that great in absolute terms), it IS fun to play. It is somewhat difficult given how small the scale length is, but there's something inherently fun about playing a tiny ukulele that actually produces all the right notes (unlike cheapo toy ukes you can get at ToysRUs or Hawaiian tourist shops). I've read a few reviews of the pocket uke where the reviewer says it's fun to play, but I didn't really understand what they meant until I played it myself. This ukulele is all about its tiny size. If all else is equal and this is a standard sized soprano, I'd probably return it. But its size makes it a keeper, which is probably difficult for people to understand unless they've handled one of these. Once you've handled it, you would probably either love it or hate it.

So the biggest problem most people will have with the Kala pocket uke is the price. The street price for the mahogany version is $210 while the acacia version is $280. To put the $280 price for the acacia in perspective, you can buy the Kala acacia TENOR for $21 more from most dealers. That uke is like 10 times bigger than the pocket uke!! (ok, exaggerating again. It's only 6 times bigger) It doesn't take a math major to realize that the value quotient for the pocket uke is extremely low. The only reason I went for the acacia version is because I found one for $240 shipped and decided "what the hell" on the $30 premium over the mahogany version because I really wanted the acacia. Now, I don't really have a problem with the pricing on these ukes because I believe that it may actually be more difficult for Kala to make these. Dave Means of Glyph once said that it's most challenging to get good sound out of a small soprano box, and it doesn't get much smaller than these. Also, I think it's more difficult to ensure good intonation on a shorter scaled instrument. I imagine Kala needed tighter quality control to get these to intonate correctly. So personally speaking, I can understand why these ukes carry such relatively high price.

So who will buy these things? I kind of doubt too many are sold over the internet. Maybe I'm wrong, but I can't see many people shelling out $210~280 for these pocket ukes just by looking at pictures or even videos of them. Like I said, you can almost get the acacia tenor for this money, and there are a slew of nice imported solid wood ukes of all sizes at this price point. So I think it's a tough sell over the internet. However, I'm willing to bet quite a few gets taken home when people actually handle them. It's just so damn cute you almost can't help it. It's like seeing a puppy in a pet store or something. And if you think the price is too high, there are basically no alternatives. There are several sopraninos out there made by the likes of Ohana and KoAloha, but I assure you the Kala pocket uke is much smaller. So you must pay to play, basically.

I've only had mine for under 24 hours as I type this post, but so far I am happy with this purchase. That's not to say I recommend you jumping online and order away. I think you really needs to handle it to determine if you love it or hate it. Either that or you need some money burning a hole in your pocket to give it a try. I have to admit I basically had some hot cash to blow on it, but right now I fall in the camp of those who love it, so I guess the gamble has paid off.

So that's the first impressions/semi-review from this crack, I mean uke addict. I will be attempting some songs that probably should not be played on this ukulele, so stay tuned for some vids!

Peace, love, and ukulele baby!


Headstock with Kala logo inlaid in maple:


Front of the pocket uke:


Back of the pocket uke:


Next to the Collings UC-1. I swear the pocket uke feels smaller in person:


Side view next to the UC-1:


Next to the DaSilva Santos Repro. The Santos is almost sized like a sopranino:


Side view next to the DaSilva:


The Kala is actually a little thicker than the DaSilva:

New (to me) gadget: Peterson StroboClip

Sometimes reading online forums can be a costly thing. A couple of weeks ago I saw a post on FleamarketMusic Forums about a clip-on tuner made by Peterson. I had never heard of this company before and it was the first time I've heard of the term "strobe tuner". I've bought a few clip-on tuners over the years, sometimes buying one for no reason other than to try out something different from what I already have. I think I've bought 2-3 different kinds, but I've always like the Intelli IMT-500 (and later the Oahu branded version where they tightened up the buttons so they don't rattle) the best. It had the best form factor and was pretty quick and easy to use. So after reading about the Peterson StroboClip, I guess I got a case of the TAS (Tuner acquisition syndrome) and did some research online about this tuner. It turns out the StroboClip is a relatively new product and boasts several features that typical chromatic tuners lack. The biggest selling point is that it has superior accuracy, capable of being accurate within 0.1 cent. That's pretty good considering on most clip-on tuners, the resolution of the display is usually much lower than that (the Intelli IMT-500 has ticks spaced 5 cents apart on it's scale). Another selling point is that Peterson has this thing called "Sweeteners" where it gets you to tune your instrument to instrument specific "offsets" so that it sounds better. I tried reading the reasoning behind the Sweeteners and could not really understand it. If you're interested, check the Peterson website. Anyway, there are over 30 Sweeteners on the StroboClip, including one for the ukulele. That pretty much sold me on the tuner. Now, the StroboClip has a street price of $70, so it is way more expensive than any clip-on tuners I've every purchased. But I figured it probably would be worth it for the superior accuracy, so I pulled the trigger on it.

The StroboClip arrived today. It came in the above pictured square tin can with the tuner situated inside on a form fitted piece of foam. It came with a sheet with instructions in several languages. Since I had already read a lot about this tuner before its arrival, I skipped the instructions and immediately put it to work. The way the strobe tuner works is that when you play a note, a checkered field will scroll around above the note display on the tuner screen. The field will scroll to the left or right to denote whether your note is flat or sharp. For example, if you're playing the C note, and the checkered field scrolls to the left, it means you're flat, the degree of which is denoted by how fast it is scrolling in that direction. Likewise, if you're sharp, it will scroll to the right. When you get it to be perfectly in tune, the scrolling should stop. In practice, getting it to stop completely might be pretty difficult, since it is accurate to within 0.1 cent. It took only a few tries to get the scrolling field to more or less "freeze", so while it is different, I didn't think it was too difficult to use. There is a "sustain" mode that's designed for use with instruments that has fast decay, such as a ukulele, and it worked well for me. I set the tuner to the "ukulele Sweetener" and tuned the uke in this mode. It didn't seem to be much different than the standard tuning mode. The G-string might have been tuned a tick down, but I'm not sure. My ears aren't sharp enough to pickup the difference it made, but maybe in the long run I will. Who knows. The ukes I tuned using this tuner all sound very much in tune, and checked out with my other Intelli/Oahu tuners, as expected.

Before I conclude this post, let me go over the construction of this unit a little bit. The casing of the tuner is made of aluminum with a rather coarse brushed texture. The sides of the main casing is silver colored plastic as well as everything else, which includes the stem and the clip. Being made out of mostly aluminum and plastic, it feels light enough and the casing should prove to be durable. I do wish the stem connecting the casing to the clip is also made of aluminum though. It may end up being durable enough, but it certainly looks like it could be beefier. I would have preferred the casing to be plastic and the stem to be metal. Come to think of it, it would have been fine with me if the tuner came in a cardboard box and the tin used to make the tin can is used to make that stem. The casing is well articulated and you should be able to find a good viewing angle while its clipped onto any headstock. Overall I don't think the construction is cheap or anything, even for its high price, but I guess I get a little nervous when the bigger part between two interconnected parts is the one that's metal while the smaller one is plastic. To me it's safer if it's the other way around. But it does feel relatively sturdy now, so hopefully it will last. Before receiving it I read many comments saying that they wished it was black instead of silver. I would tend to agree that a black tuner clipped onto a headstock looks better, but having it clipped to my ukes in person, I think the silver looks pretty good. This is just a personal opinion though.

So the big question is, is this thing worth $70? For the vast majority of recreational ukulele players, I'd say it is not worth it because you can get a ukulele tuned accurately enough using a $15 clip-on chromatic tuner. However, if you have great ears and want the most accurate clip-on tuner available, this is probably the best choice. It has a lot of features for a clip-on, and it is very accurate. Compared to a normal strobe tuner, $70 is actually pretty cheap. As for me, while I certainly don't need this type of accuracy, I think it's nice to know that my uke is close to being perfectly tuned and while I can't really tell how the "Sweetener" function impacts the sound, perhaps someday down the road I can. For these reasons, I'm pretty happy with this purchase. Again, I can't say I would recommend this tuner to most people, but if you know what you're getting into and have the money to burn, it's not a bad addition to your collection of ukulele related gadgets.

Back of the tuner:


StroboClip in action, tuning the C-string:


Showing the amber colored backlight:

Uke-crack!

No, I'm not talking about cracks found on ukes that have been left dehydrated in a dry environment. The uke-crack I'm talking about here is like when one is addicted to drugs (or suffering from UAS). That is, a small dose of ukulele to help calm the urge to acquire more ukes. I guess I've had my some recent UAS flare ups in the form of the Lanikai zebrawood concert and the Mya-Moe order. Apparently I'm in need of more uke-crack because I've just pulled the trigger on a Kala Acacia Pocket Uke! (it's for my son! Honest!)

As with any UAS induced uke-crack purchase, I must come up with a few excuses for it. First off, I've always wanted one of those Kala Acacia ukes because the Acacia comes from Taiwan, my home country. I've always thought I'd get one of those slotted headstock Acacia tenors to fulfill this desire, but by the time it came out, I have already had too many tenors and I've become more of a concert-scale guy. So I've been able to resist that one. However, I don't have any sopranino (or smaller) sized ukes! So the Pocket Uke fits the bill. The main problem I have with the Pocket uke is that it seems to cost too much for what you get. The street price for the mahogany version is $210 and the Acacia version is $280. You can get a Acacia tenor for not much more than that! Now, I understand that these little guys are probably harder to build than tenors, but as with most human beings, I tend to want bigger when I spend more money. Still, since I believe the Pocket uke isn't necessarily easier to build than bigger ukes, I consider the price tag to be somewhat justifiable. Some research into it on Youtube and various forums seemed to suggest that it is a worthwhile addition despite the relatively high price. So I thought I'd probably get a mahogany one because the Acacia one just seemed to be over the top expensive. But I found one on Amazon for $240 so I went for it.

So I guess this is probably the purest form of uke-crack. Small dose of uke to hold down UAS for awhile. Hopefully there won't be any more uke-crack before the Mya-Moe is completed. My expectations for the Pocket uke is actually pretty low, despite some good reviews I've read about it. It will most definitely be a novelty item for me, but hopefully it'll sound decent enough to me that I would play it once in a while. I guess I can always have my younger daughter (3 years old) play it if she wants to learn ukulele. Either way, it should be interesting, and I'll have pics and stuff here once it arrives.

Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving!

Ouch!

Accidents happen, and that's no different when it comes to ukuleles. Having owned quite a number of ukuleles so far, I have actually been able to avoid serious damage to my ukes so far (knock on wood). However, it seems that lately I've been causing some damage to my ukes at a much higher rate than before. I'm not sure what's causing the sudden bout of clumsiness, but it is a little annoying. My personal feeling toward scratches and dents to my ukuleles is that these instruments are meant to be played and normal wear and tear comes with the territory and usually doesn't bother me much. However, when I cause damage to a uke, it still hurts for a day or two. I actually am more bothered when something happens to a production uke than a custom built uke because I know the customs will always stay with me but damages, even minor ones, to a production uke shaves off a lot of dollars when it comes time to move them.

Anyway, here's a quick account of my recent mis-adventures with my ukes:

Several months ago, I knocked the back of my Collings UC-1's back against the corner of an open drawer. The result is the dent you see below. It was a really dumb move on my part as I was carelessly holding the uke while opening that drawer. This ukulele is a bit of a collector's item since it's one of the prototypes built by Collings when they started making ukuleles. It has a "haircut" headstock that's only on UC-2 or above after these initial prototypes. I guess this dent will take a chunk out of its value, but I don't really foresee selling this uke anytime soon, so I wasn't too bummed about it.


A couple of weeks ago I had the Kanile'a super-soprano in its case without the latch closed while it was on the passenger seat of my car. When I arrived home and went to grab the case, I had completely forgotten that the case was not latched and as I picked up the case, out tumbled the ukulele. I managed to catch it before it fell out of the car and hit the ground, but it had hit parts of the car and the damage had been done. A nice big dent on the lower bout edge was the result of this genius move by me. Because Kanile'a uses a UV cured polyester finish, it essentially has a plastic coat around the ukulele. Having this dent means the plastic is dented too, and you can see some plastic that turned white around the wound (the upper bout edge also has a little bit if whitening of the plastic). I knew there is no repairing this type of finish before, and looking at this dent confirms it. While there is no crack or other structural damage to this ukulele, I was quite bummed when this happened because I had been planning to sell this ukulele. Now, I pretty much had been planning to sell this uke for the past year or so, but I was really getting ready to put it up for sale because the recent arrival of my Glyph had made this ukulele pretty redundant. Even so, I dragged my feet on selling it because it's got some pretty nice and unique looking curly koa and it is a very nice sounding ukulele. So when this accident happened I knew the dent probably cost me close to half of the value this ukulele had. Oh well, it still makes a great "beater" and I guess I probably secretly wanted to keep it anyway.


Yes, I actually caused some damage to my Glyph! Just last week while grabbing it from the side of my couch, I somehow whiffed and scraped the back of the neck with my thumbnail on my left hand. The result was a visible wide scratch on the back of the neck. Because this ukulele is French Polished, this type of damage is possible from one's fingernail. No, my thumbnail was not especially long or sharp, so I guess it means I need to be a bit more careful with this ukulele. While it sucked looking at this scratch at first, I got over it pretty quickly because as I mentioned earlier, this is a uke I'll always keep (it's not like I can sell it with my initials on the fretboard) so scratch and dents will just be treated as "character marks".


Well, I sure hope I stop causing damage to my ukes in the future. Scratch and dents to ukes isn't the end of the world, but they are sure annoying.

Mighty Uke: More random commentary

Before I wrote some comments on the movie Mighty Uke! in the last post, I had watched it a couple of times. I watched it again after that and I figure perhaps I can post some more personal comments from watching the movie. I think what I'll do is just post random comments about various things I thought while watching the movie. Some of these thoughts might make more sense if you had seen the movie, but here we go:

-Befitting a proper ukulele film, there are plenty of nice ukuleles in it. I don't remember all of the makes in there, but let's see, I remember seeing: Kamaka, Kala, Pohaku, DaSilva, Glyph, Martin, Fluke/Flea, G-String, National, Compass Rose, and many more I don't recall. Strangely, I don't think there were any KoAlohas, Ko'olaus, or Kanile'as in the movie. So it appears that the "Hawaiian K's" is only represented by Kamaka and "G"-String. But I could have just forgot about seeing the other K's too.

-James Hill has a lot of ukes for being a virtuoso. In my mind, most virtuosos tend to stick with one instrument. But apparently not him. I think he played two or three different G-String James Hill signature models in the movie. For sure he played a slotted headstock version and a Telecaster headstock version. He also has a DaSilva James Hill Signature model and I know he has a few lap steel ukes, including a Mya-Moe. Come to think of it, he probably leads the ukulele world in signature model ukuleles.

-That British lady who worked for some rock magazine talks in a rather "interesting" way: "...(some rock stars) played ukes, loved ukes, had ukes." & "...people you took seriously, took it seriously, but in a not-serious way..." I don't know, maybe I'm just strange, but the way she spoke weirded me out a little bit.

-I could hardly believe it when I heard the words "Hip-Hop Ukulele". Remember "Jazz Yodoling" from the McGriddle radio commercial???

-I guess that hip-hop ukulele dude is kind of interesting. His name is Jon Braman, and it turns out he is the father of hip-hop ukulele! I guess I've always thought pretty much anything can be played on the uke, and this proves it. While I don't think this kind of music is my cup of tea, I have to admit it takes a lot of talent (and a good memory) to perform this stuff. Just check out some of the lyrics of his music on his website. It almost reads like a novel.

-In my last post I said that the movie kind of pinned the downfall of the ukulele on Tiny Tim. Well, I suppose after seeing his performance in the film, most would probably agree too. :p

-The Langley Ukulele Ensemble is friggin' talented! I didn't realized just how insane their skills are until maybe the second time I watched the movie. I think the first scene of them is when they are rehearsing "Flight of the Bumblebee". That is really difficult stuff! At least for me. I'm guessing I would not come close to making the LUE if I tried.

-The first time I've seen Uni was on Pohaku's website, where her custom ukulele is shown. I had never heard her music until this movie and I have to say I like her music. I haven't ordered her CD or downloaded any of her music yet (it seems like I haven't bought any music outside of ukulele instrumentals for quite a while now), but what was in the movie sounded really nice.

-I don't know, there were a few scenes that had probably close to a hundred ukes all strumming the same thing, and I was not enjoying that sound. When multiple ukes all play the same thing with the same strum, it always sounds like a lot of droning to me, and that's not too enjoyable. Maybe I'm the only one who feels that way, but I much rather hear multiple ukes all playing different parts of a song. Of course, that becomes really hard when you have a hundred ukes playing together...

Anyway, that's all I can remember for now. I guess if I think of anything else I'll add to it. Having watched the movie several times now I will say that I think it's pretty entertaining. Try to watch it if you haven't!

Mighty Uke!

I might be late to the party on this, but I've only recently seen the ukulele documentary, Mighty Uke. I don't know exactly when this movie premiered, but I think it was close to a year ago. Anyway, since it's a ukulele documentary, I figured I must watch it so I ordered a DVD. I got it a few weeks ago and have watched it a couple of times. The main point of the movie is to discuss how the ukulele made it's "comeback". I would say that I've enjoyed the movie quite a bit, I mean, it IS about the ukulele. It gave some history of how the ukulele came into being and discussed the ukulele through many interviews with various people having to do with the ukulele as well as sort of a case study of the Langley Ukulele Ensemble. I did wish there were a few more things they covered with this documentary. Specifically, I would have liked to see more about the fall of the ukulele. I think the film basically pinned the fall of the ukulele on Tiny Tim and rock 'n roll music. I felt there should have been more devoted to the fall of the ukulele since the film is about the "comeback". From the movie I didn't feel like there was all that much to "comeback" from for the ukulele, to be honest. I think it would have been more fascinating if more time was devoted to why the ukulele fell out of favor in parts of the world outside Hawaii. I would have also liked to have seen some interviews with the Ukulele Underground crew to represent some of the younger generation of ukulele players. But in fairness they can't cover everything ukulele so it's understandable that not everyone could be included. Aside from the main feature, there are also 10 short films about various ukulele related people and things. Those short films are pretty interesting and are a pretty nice bonus.

All in all, I found it an enjoyable viewing experience, especially since I am a ukulele nut. I'm not exactly sure if it's a movie that would convert the non-uke fans though. But for anyone with any interest in music or musical instruments, it should be an interesting watch. Check it out if you haven't yet.

Thoughts about the Jake Shimabukuro signature model...

How about a little controversial post from the Ghetto???

A few days ago someone posted about the receiving the Jake Shimabukuro signature model (video here) tenor ukulele on the Ukulele Underground forums. It is the 25th example in a limited edition of 100 ukes build by Kamaka and sold via a lottery system several years ago for the price of $5500. Assuming this is either the latest one, or close to the latest one completed by Casey Kamaka, they have over 70 of these still to be built and delivered to owners who won the right to purchase this model.

It doesn't take long from reading this blog that I'm pretty much a Jake Shimabukuro junkie. I try to learn every Jake song within my playing capability (still can't play 3rd Stream, I'm afraid). I order custom ukes that pay homage to Jake's uke. I attend Jake's concert almost every time he comes to town. So it's a little weird that I really have not felt much desire or jealousy for this Jake Shimabukuro signature model. Yes, I think it looks great and despite never having played it (not many people on the face of this earth have), I have no doubt that it should be a superb sounding instrument. Why do I not feel much lust toward it? I guess it might make a semi-interesting post to examine it.

Ok, so the first thing that throws me off would be the $5500 price tag. Although judging from my stash o' ukes it might look like I'm a pretty extravagant person, in reality I rarely lust after something I can't afford. Yes, I've spent much more than the asking price of this ukulele on ukes, but I've never spent that in one shot. I actually don't think $5500 is too outrageous for one ukulele, but up to this point I haven't been truly interested in a uke in that price range because I don't consider it something I can comfortably afford.

Now let's take a look at what that $5500 buy (without having actually examined one in person, of course, so we're dealing with some hypotheticals here). You get a tenor sized ukulele with some seriously nice master grade koa that's trimmed with the same abalone and red piping around the purfling and rosette. You get an ebony fretboard with the "JS" monogram logo inlaid on it. You get a solid headstock in the same shape as the one found on Jake's previous ukulele with what looks to be some Schaller tuners on it. Also part of the package is a nice Ameritage case and some documentation telling you it is a Jake Shimabukuro model. The first problem I would have with this is the fact that this uke does not have a slotted headstock. Slotted headstocks have become wildly popular with uke fans because of Jake Shimabukuro. I find it a bit disappointing that his signature model does not come with one. Sure, the Kamaka slotted headstock takes a lot more work than the regular solid headstocks. And the Gilbert tuners found on Jake's actual ukulele costs $160 per set. But you'd figure $5500 would be able to cover that. My guess is that they want to keep Jake's ukulele unique, and I can understand that. But how about doing a modified slotted headstock without the binding around it? People buying this uke want to pretend to be Jake (I certainly would), why not provide them with the full slotted headstock fueled experience?

Another fundamental problem with this program, in my opinion, is that Kamaka is essentially building 100 identical custom built ukuleles and discontinuing their custom program for the general public (I think they build a few for some artists). I believe the lottery occurred in 2006, so assuming they've built 30 of the 100 ukes so far, it will be another 8 to 10 years before they are able to accept custom orders again. So instead of some cool and special one-off custom Kamakas out there, we get 100 cool and special but identical custom Kamaka ukes for the next decade. Sure 100 ukes is but a drop in the bucket in the ukulele universe, but it seems to me the world would be more interesting if people got to order specially designed customs from Kamaka. As much a Jake fan as I am, I really would rather have my own initials on a ukulele I paid $5500 for instead of Jake's (you didn't see me putting "JS" on my Glyph did you?) regardless of how much of a hack I am at playing the ukulele.

I know some people would argue that having a proper Jake Shimabukuro signature model would make it hold its value a lot more instead of true customs, and I completely agree. These JS signature models could be turned around for a minimum $3000 profit today by the lucky winners who got to purchase these ukes from Kamaka. But speaking personally, the more I spend on a uke, the more I'd want to play it (i.e. put dents and scratches on it) and the more I would feel like having it as a family heirloom. So at least for me resale value would be a non-issue. I know many people treat expensive instruments with kid gloves and want to keep them pristine, but I feel that if an instrument is truly worth the high price, it must be a great player and therefore needs to be played. One of these JS ukes in my hands probably would lose value from all the strum marks I'd put on it.

It may sound like I'm bad mouthing this ukulele. I hope you can read carefully and understand my point, which is not at all bashing this model. I think it is a great ukulele and I would certainly take one if I could. But I'd really rather have a proper Kamaka custom with a slotted headstock, my initials on the fretboard, and other custom appointments I'd want. And I guess that would the point of this post. Thanks to the existence of this model, that's not going to be an option until perhaps a decade later.

So, if you own one of these babies and you're reading this, please don't feel offended. I truly think you're very lucky to own such a great ukulele and you should be ecstatic to pretty much own a piece of Jake Shimabukuro. But I will gladly strum away on my custom Kings and Glyph in my little corner of the ukulele world.

Peace, Love, and Ukulele baby!