Videos with William King Long Scale Tenor

I finally got around to recording a couple of videos using the William King long scale tenor 'ukulele I got a couple of months ago. It's far and away my favorite and I think the videos captures some of the nice tone this uke offers up. Hopefully you'll enjoy these.

While My Guitar Gently Weeps:


Going to California:

Lineup Update

It's been a while since I've done one of these lineup updates. (or updates of any kind) I finally found some time to take some pictures of all of my ukes. It's grown to 13 ukes now with still a few in the works. I definitely need to be getting rid of some of these ukes to keep things sane. The hard part is, almost all of these have some redeeming quality that makes it hard to part with. But I'm going to have to make some decisions soon.

New this time around are: William King LS-tenor, Pono Ebony Dlx, Compass Rose Walnut, National Mahogany, and Kiwaya KTS-7. Except for the King LS-tenor, these are "curiosity buys". I would say that the Kiwaya is the only one of the "curiosity buys" that was completely satisfying. The Pono Ebony Dlx is pretty nice, but it pales in comparison to the King. (then again, the 12 other ukes I have pales in comparison to the King) It stands out because I got it just a few weeks before taking delivery of the King and they both have spruce tops. It's not fair for the Pono but that's how it worked out. The National has a very unique sound that's loud and piercing. I'm not sure it's for me, but I do think it's a high quality uke. The Compass Rose came to me with very high action, which was very disappointing since I've read that Compass Rose ukes have almost exceedingly low action. I'm attempting to adjust it lower, but haven't had much time to do it, so it has been sitting in its case.

Anyway, below are some closer shots of each group of ukes I currently have. Enjoy.

Tenors & Baritone: Compass Rose Walnut, Pono Ebony Dlx, Pineapple Sunday, William King LS-tenor, Koa Works, Tom Guy Cigarbox, Bushman Cedartone Baritone.

Concerts: Pete Howlett Uklectic, Kanile'a "Custom SS", National Mahogany, Honu Super Dlx.


Sopranos: Kiwaya KTS-7, '30s Martin Style 1.

Kiss from a Gypsy Rose?

Well, over a year after placing the order for the Kepasa Little Mac/Gypsy Rose, I finally got to see a few pictures! Kevin Crossett sent me a link with a few pictures of the top, back, & bent sides of the Gypsy Rose. He had 2 redwood tops ready and I got to choose one. I went with the striped one on the left side.
The uke is obviously not completed yet and I have not idea when it will, but at least there are some parts completed. Hopefully it won't be that long before it's done. It's certainly a cool looking uke.

Long time no post

Hmm...I'm not sure how many are still checking out this blog, since I haven't posted in over a month. I'm going to try to post some stuff soon. I've actually got a lot of 'ukulele material I could be posting, but I really haven't had much time. What I'll do here is share some of what I could be posting and hopefully get around to some of these in the near future.

As my last post indicated, I have acquired a Kiwaya KTS-7, Compass Rose walnut tenor, and a mahogany National concert (all used). So I could possibly be reviewing these some day. The Compass Rose was a huge disappointment though, as it arrived to me with very high action and the supposed D-TAR pickup is actually just some unknown passive pickup. I kept it anyway figuring I'd fix up the action, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. The other two "new" ukes are both really nice.

So now I have 13 ukes in my possession. Truth be told, I pretty much only play a few of them these days. By far the most playing time goes to the William King LS-tenor. I also play the Bushman Baritone a little bit for the different sound. The Bluegrass cigar box also gets some occasional play as it sits in my office right now. The Kanile'a supersoprano is now tuned to ADF#B and once in a while I bust it out for some Schizophrenic Snowflakes (by Aldrine Guerrero). Other than that, I haven't played the other ones much other than a few courtesy playing time. So I think I'll need to thin the herd sometime before the winter.

I really would like to post some videos with the King tenor and perhaps do some commentary on it, so that's probably the first new thing I'll post on this blog. Not sure when I'll get around to it, but hopefully not too long from now.

I'll try to get a lineup update picture in sometime and also rank them all.

Despite already having too many ukes, I still have a few custom ones on order. The Glyph mezzo-soprano is scheduled to be built in a year and a half, so that's a long ways off. The Kepasa Gypsy Rose was supposed to be completed this past March. It is now July and I have not heard from Kevin Crossett about it for 3 months, so I'm not expecting to ever see it. That's fine with me as I already have too many ukes. It's a good thing there was never any deposit involved for this uke. I had also ordered a Santo reproduction soprano from Mike DaSilva a couple of months ago. I'm not sure when that's going to be done, but perhaps September or October. So that's what's coming (or not coming, in the case of the Kepasa) in the future.

Anyway, that's the plan for now. I hope to at least get around to some of these. If you're still reading this blog, thank you very much.

Been Busy

It seems that I have not posted anything here for a while. I've been really busy with life and it'll probably be that way for quite some time. I still love the 'ukulele and will keep this site going. Maybe posts will be fewer and further between, but it's not a sign of dwindling interest. Quite the opposite. But I think I will try to concentrate for myself on the music made with the instruments instead of acquiring instruments themselves. It's hard to believe, but I think I'm done with UAS. Maybe not forever, but in the foreseeable future.

I still want to share my thoughts on the custom King tenor and a few other ukes I've acquired since the last lineup update. In that update, I wrote that there are three ukes I still was very interested in checking out, and I ended up getting all three! So there are still quite a few things I could post in the near future, and I will try to share those sometime.

For those who check out this little site, I'm sincerely humbled and glad that you might find the things here entertaining to read. I hope that even though I may be decreasing my involvement in the 'ukulele community, we all continue to spread the wonderfun little instrument that is the 'ukulele.

Thanks!

Arrival!

The postman brought me a nice big package today. It's the William King long scale tenor! Man it's so exciting to receive a masterpiece custom ukulele, even my dog wants a piece of it.

Anyway, this is a little documentation of the arrival of the custom 'ukulele. I will following up in the upcoming weeks with my impression of it.

The Ameritage case coming out of the package:




Custom size Ameritage case for the non-traditional size of the King tenor:




The King tenor inside the case. Notice how it takes up every inch of the case:




Showing the extremely curly koa back. Note the Mi-Si charger. It's small enough to fit inside the case accessory compartment:

Preview

Woohoo! My custom William King long scale tenor is at last complete! William has put up a few pictures on his website. I must say that I'm more than thrilled with it! The headstock looks better than I had imagined, and although I had no idea what the rosette was going to look like, it turned out better than I had imagined too. Here are the pictures William posted today:

Dancing with 3 tenor ukes

I saw some videos from UKISCOCIETY from Ukulele Underground comparing some tenor & soprano ukes. He basically played one song and switch ukes throughout the song. That got me interested in trying something similar. I ended up playing Let's Dance with the 3 regular tenor 'ukuleles I currently have, Koa Works, Pono Ebony Deluxe, and Pono Cedar top.

It's actually a bit difficult to distinguish the sound of the 3 ukes from the video. If you've been reading this blog, you would know that the Koa Works is miles ahead of the other ukes. But the Ponos are definitely nice ukes too.

Electicfying (sic)

I have always been intrigued by solid body electric 'ukuleles. They are something different and have the side benefit of being pretty silent when not plugged in, making them good late night practice ukes. The first such 'ukulele I learned about was the Risa Uke Solid. I bought one about a year ago. It was different and kind of cool, but I wasn't compelled to play it very often so I sold it. The next solid body uke I bought was a BugsGear Eleuke that had an active pickup and on-board volume & tone controls. It had some frets sticking out and wasn't very comfortable to play because of that. I eventually got a file to file those frets down and it was a lot better. Still, I didn't play it too much. When I saw a Pete Howlett Uklectic on the FMM Marketplace at an attractive price, I jumped at it and sold the BugsGear. I had known about the Uklectic for a while and have always been interested in it. It looked cool and is made by Pete Howlett, who is a well respected luthier based in the U.K. Now that I've owned it for a couple of months, it's time to review it.

Specs:

• Blister figure sapele top.
• Rosewood fingerboard, bridge, & faceplate.
• Pin type bridge.
• Bone nut & saddle.
• No-name gold friction tuners with pearloid buttons.
• Spanish cedar semi-hollow body & neck.
• 2 gold plated strap pins.
• Plastic pickup jack w/unknown undersaddle pickup.
• Finish is Minwax wipe on polyurethane from Home Depot applied by the previous owner.

Looks:

The Uklectic is a very good looking uke. My particular one has a blister figure sapele top that stands out when light is reflected off the wood. The body is similar to the shape of a Les Paul guitar, which is probably my favorite guitar shape. The fingerboard comes to a point similar to Martin ukuleles at the body end, and that point is repeated at the headstock, making for an attractive and cohesive design. The uke just looks very classy and high quality with one notable exception, the plastic pickup jack. The black pickup jack doesn't really look cheap, but it doesn't really look very high end either. A gold plated jack would look a lot better. I believe all the Uklectic made now have the combo endpin & jack at the tail block, unlike mine, where the jack is off to the right lower bout.

Feel:

This is a concert sized ukulele with a nut width of 1-3/8". I normally prefer 1-1/2" nut width, but this one doesn't really feel too narrow for me. Perhaps it has wider string spacing than typical ukes with 1-3/8" nut widths. The neck feels very comfortable to me. It's about medium thickness and has a flattened D profile. The uke is a little heavier than a normal concert acoustic 'ukulele, but not overly so. It's pretty easy to play it without a strap standing up. The action is setup about medium and fairly effortless to play with the Ko'olau concert strings I installed on it. This is better than both of the previous electric ukes I owned. For some reason, both the Risa and BugsGear felt a bit hard to play despite having relatively low tensioned Worth BM strings on them. Overall it is an easy and comfortable uke to play.

Workmanship:

This uke has great workmanship. Every piece of wood is seamlessly joined and the fret work is very good, with no frets sticking out. The tuners are not Gotoh or Grover, but they work well enough. Again, the only thing that I have an issue with is the plastic pickup jack. I guess it will probably be durable enough, but I would feel a lot better if it was metal. I would feel better about that if the pickup itself performed a little better (see next section). The pickup jack is offset to the right of the lower bout. When standing, it works just fine with a cable hanging off it. But if you are sitting and plugging the uke to an amp, you will need an "L" shaped connector or it will interfere with putting the uke on your leg. I guess if you are getting a newer Uklectic, the combo endpin/pickup jack should alleviate this issue.

My particular Uklectic was ordered without finish by the original owner. As mentioned in the specs section, the finish is applied by the original owner using Minwax wipe on polyurethane. He only put on 2 coats so the uke almost feels unfinished. It's not bad though. Spanish cedar has a strong scent and you definitely smell it every time you open the case. If someday I feel like adding new coats of finish, it shouldn't be too difficult. Overall it feels like a quality instrument worthy of Pete Howlett's reputation.

Sound:

The sound of this uke should probably be evaluated in 2 ways. Unplugged and plugged in. This uke has a surprisingly good sound when unplugged. Where the Risa Uke Solid and BugsGear Eleuke are pretty much true "silent" ukes when not plugged in, the Uklectic actually has a decent volume output. I guess that could be a negative if you're looking for a silent uke that outputs almost no volume for late night practice, but for me, I actually prefer being able to hear good sound when the uke is unplugged. It doesn't compete with the volume of a acoustic 'ukulele, but it's a lot louder than the aforementioned silent ukes. The acoustic sound of the Uklectic, with the Ko'loau Golds I installed, is trebly and complex sounding. I think the sound quality is pretty high in this regard.

When plugged in, the Uklectic does very little to distinguish it from the other electric ukes. I don't think the plugged in sound is any better than the BugsGear or Risa. In fact, the C & E strings seem to dominate the sound, making it a bit unbalanced. I think that was also the case with the BugsGear & Risa, but it seems a little worse with the Uklectic. I don't think the pickup is of very high quality based on the plugged in sound and the cheap plastic pickup jack. It's kind of a pity that a high quality instrument does not have a great pickup. But I understand that Pete Howlett was trying to keep the price of the Uklectics down, so that probably sacrificed the pickup a little bit. If I ever feel like doing the work, I might try to replace the stock pickup with a Mi-Si pickup or something like that. I do have a L.R. Baggs Para-acoustic D.I. (pre-amp) that allows me to adjust the sound coming from the pickup for treble, midrange, bass, and a couple of other things, and it does improve the sound a little bit.

So when it comes to sound quality, surprisingly I like the acoustic sound performance on the uke a lot more than the plugged in sound. In fact, for me, it's the nice acoustic sound that makes this uke superior to the electric ukes I've owned previously.

Value:

If you order a new Uklectic from Pete Howlett, the advertised price on his website is $495 + shipping for a basic concert sized instrument. Assuming this has not increased (the dollar is pretty weak so I'm not sure) I think that's a pretty good value. While it costs quite a bit more than a Risa or BugsGear, you do get a luthier made instrument that looks great and works well enough plugged in (maybe the current pickup used is better mine, which might be a prototype insturment) and has surprisingly good tone unplugged. If you have a higher budget, it's possible to order one up with a lot more options and bling. I paid $348 for mine used, which I think is a great value.

Overall:

The Uklectic isn't perfect. I'm not completely satisfied with its plugged in sound. However, compared to the Risa Uke Solid and BugsGear Eleuke I owned previously, I think the Uklectic is the superior overall instrument. And since I pretty rarely plug in the uke at home, most of the time when I do play it, it is played acoustically. The superior acoustic sound makes playing this uke a pleasant experience unplugged. When I played the Risa or BugsGear unplugged, I usually don't play very long because it sounded uninteresting.

If you're looking for a solid or semi-solid body electric uke, the Uklectic is probably the top choice out there right now.

Here's a sound file of me playing "Me & Shirley T" (badly) with the uke plugged into the computer directly and recorded using Audacity.

Here are some more pictures:

The back of the Uklectic. The black plastic covers up the pickup jack and wires.




















The sapele top of the Uklectic. Notice the blister figure.


The pickup jack is offset to the right. Newer models have the combo pin/jack at the tail block.

Traveling 'Ukulele

I was on a trip to Taiwan last week and decided to bring along a 'ukulele. Since it had to be a small uke, I decided to take the Kanile'a custom SS. I decided to take this one because the only other choice I have is the Martin style 1 and I like playing the Kanile'a a lot more, not to mention that it's also the more durable uke.

The case I used was the soprano Guardian case I got with one of my previous soprano purchases. It's actually quite a bit bigger than the soprano size, so I stuffed a t-shirt in the body compartment to keep the uke for sliding around inside. Taiwan is very humid but I packed a Herco humidifier for the plane ride. When I got the Guardian case, it didn't come with any straps so I took a strap from a Lanikai case so I can carry the case on my back. The uke plus the case is very light so it was very easy to travel with. I just threw the strap across my shoulders and it feels almost weightless on my back.

I took two flights to Taiwan this time and it was with Northwest and EVA Air. Neither airlines gave me any trouble with carrying on the uke in addition to a wheeled carry-on case I took with me. The uke made it to and from Taiwan with no problems. While I was in Taiwan, I got quite a bit of playing time in while we watched my kids at my in-laws home (it was not an exciting trip). I practiced Jake Shimabukuro's "Touch" for a possible performance at a friend's wedding in June and I think I have it learned now.

This is the first time I took a 'ukulele this far and it worked out great. Ukes are perfect travel companions and I'm definitely taking mine on many future trips away from home.