oregonuke
Active member
I just pulled the trigger and ordered a BanjoUke Sidekick, a new Tenor Banjo Uke offered by a company in New Zealand. A preview of the instrument can be seen here...
http://www.banjouke.kiwi/
Specific info about the Sidekick is lacking on the website (a new site is under construction) so before ordering I sent an email to the company and quickly received the following reply from Ed Ackman...
"The woods are, birch drum, mahogany neck, rosewood fretboard. The strings are Aquila ukulele nylgut. We tried dozens, but these had far and away the best sound. The tuners are high spec peg design - they grip really tight with minimum slippage.
The tattoo on the drum is a stylised Polynesian design that we just thought looked terrific on the drum head. Although we are making a few plain, everyone wants the tattoo.
The instruments are delivered from Shanghai via EMS (UPS for USA)
They are made by one of China’s most respected fine instrument manufacturers with myself physically sitting at the end of the production line!"
This seems like a competitively priced alternative to the Fluke Firefly AND...it is a tenor sized instrument. Keeping my fingers crossed as ordering something new like this without having put hands on it is a bit outside my comfort zone.
http://www.banjouke.kiwi/
Specific info about the Sidekick is lacking on the website (a new site is under construction) so before ordering I sent an email to the company and quickly received the following reply from Ed Ackman...
"The woods are, birch drum, mahogany neck, rosewood fretboard. The strings are Aquila ukulele nylgut. We tried dozens, but these had far and away the best sound. The tuners are high spec peg design - they grip really tight with minimum slippage.
The tattoo on the drum is a stylised Polynesian design that we just thought looked terrific on the drum head. Although we are making a few plain, everyone wants the tattoo.
The instruments are delivered from Shanghai via EMS (UPS for USA)
They are made by one of China’s most respected fine instrument manufacturers with myself physically sitting at the end of the production line!"
This seems like a competitively priced alternative to the Fluke Firefly AND...it is a tenor sized instrument. Keeping my fingers crossed as ordering something new like this without having put hands on it is a bit outside my comfort zone.