Loving my Blackbird BTU

The different sound, loudness, resonance, lightness, playability, crisp notes, spot-on intonation past the 12th fret…so many reasons why I love the BTU.

However, the main reason I bought the BTU is because my really nice wood ukes were getting beat up at our uke meetings! I almost had a uke-on-uke crash with a fellow member which would have done considerable damage to both our ukes. We have a small performing space with microphone, instrument and amp cables everywhere. Even though we tape down the cables, it is still like walking into a snake pit. I have the BTU model with the RMC pickups which uses an 8-pin jack and cable, rather than the usual jack and plug-in cable. A member tripped on the cable and one side of the jack was pulled out. If that happened to a wood uke, the wood would have split.

Fortunately, I live a little over an hour's drive to the Blackbird factory in San Francisco. The technicians examined it, said it was nothing serious and fixed it in 10 minutes while I waited. Fantastic service!

My hubby bought gold Gotoh tuners for my birthday. Noticing the screws that came with the tuners were different than the ones in the BTU, I decided to let the carbon fibre professionals at Blackbird change the tuners for me and I’m glad I did. Wood screws are not used with carbon fibre.

I was prepared to leave the uke there but, again, they installed the new tuners while I waited, even though they were really busy. (Thank you Paul and Paul!) The gold tuners look ever so nice with the gold RMC pick-ups and Fremont Soloist gold low-G. I played "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" (Brittni Paiva's version) and Paul (the supervisor) was grateful I didn’t play “Blackbird”!

Here are some pix of my Blackbird’s bling. (I don't know why the images are rotated.)

Great looking ukułele. I would love to play a BBT some day. There are no dealers with BBT where I live. Im always am on the lookout to play one when I do find a new dealer. Some of the sound samples on line have a harsh sound. The RMC pick ups sound great on HMS video. Kimo also makes the BBT sound good just played acoustically! Can you comment on the acoustic sound just playing at home? I really like the shape and indestructible nature these. Was kinda hoping to see an EKoa version.

As much as I love my Kinnard and Boat Paddle, my two Blackbirds are the last ukes I will part with, for all the reasons you mentioned and their incredible toughness.

The gold looks great!!! I love my Clara and don't have to fuss with it when I'm out and about. I still treat it with care, but you never know what might happen, and with the body being so strong, you don't have to constantly worry about the "what if's".