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Ko’olau

The Company For many years John Kitakis and Noa Bonk did mostly warranty repair for Martin, Taylor and other guitar companies. Occasionally they built custom guitars and other instruments. Seeing the need for a professional quality ukulele company, John started Ko'olau Ukulele in 1996. The shop was right at foothills of the Ko'olau mountains in Kaneohe. They later relocated to ...

What Every Ukulele Player Should Know About Humidity

In working with the ukulele community for the last 20 years I’ve witnessed the joy and fulfillment many times when someone finds that “special” ukulele. Those of us who are musically sensitive and find self expression through our music can really develop a strong attachment and bond with our most loved instruments. My friend Jerry Turney had this to say ...
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Episode 5 – Interview with Kimo Hussey

This week I got to talk with one of my favorite players and one of the best advocates for the ukulele. Kimo Hussey does clinics throughout the world and is now president of the Ukulele Guild of Hawaii. The Guild convention this year is going to be the best yet and will be held at The Westin Resort & Spa ...

Episode 4 – Kamaka & Ko’olau Anniversary Models

Click on image to open gallery. This week we take a look and listen to some unique 20 year anniversary model tenors from Ko'olau and also compare four different 100 year anniversary models from Kamaka. The two Ko'olau are all curly koa with unique inlays. Gallery pics are to the left and here's a few sound samples we later recorded ...
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Episode 3 – Comparing Blackbird Models

This is a discussion & sound sampling of the three main models from Blackbird ukulele. Blackbird are totally made in San Fransisco using alternative resources. Alternative to wood that is. Originally they just used carbon fiber, the material heard in the BTU tenor ukulele here. The newer models, concert Clara and tenor Farallon are made from Ekoa, a proprietary material ...
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Episode 2 – Comparing Tonewoods with Kalei Gamiao

Our 2nd podcast features Kalei Gamiao playing 4 different LFDM's with different tonewoods along with 5 of his personal ukes. NOTE: Kalei comes in around 38 minutes or so, if you wanna skip our banter and opinions and get right to it. All of the ukes featured are tenor size but with all with different woods so you can listen ...

Episode 1 – Intros, Ukulele Pickups & More

This was our first "The Ukulele Review" Podcast. All the episodes can be found on iTunes HERE. The podcast is an informal discussion with Joel, Zach, and I about ukulele and more. We regularly study the ukulele market and products available. For the last 5 years the three of us have worked together to run The Ukulele Site where we ...

Shop Tours & NAMM Videos

We are back now from our travels to a few shops in California with some our favorite uke makers and the NAMM 2016 musical instrument trade show. We still have a few more videos to put up but I figured I would start a page with these videos accessible from the home page menu under the Reviews and News tab. …

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New Blackbird Ekoa Tenor + Shop Tour Video

Aloha friends! Zachary, Corey, and I went to Blackbird Guitars in San Francisco yesterday. We visited with Joe and sampled the new Ekoa Tenor prototype. The production model will be lighter and Joe says it will also be more resonant. Regardless, this new tenor sounds awesome and feels great! I'm a big fan of this material (Ekoa), and now we ...
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Uke News for 2016

Aloha friends and Happy New Year! I haven’t posted here lately but I am excited to let you know that we will resume with the review and add some new content we think you'll enjoy. We'll be expanding with the addition of third-party reviews and uke-related articles. More on that in an upcoming post. We will also add more sheet ...