Takumi

Hello

I'm fairly new to ukulele, but not to music! And have been around the forum before as a visitor but never posted. I've been playing my uke for over a year now and am lucky to have some beautiful ukuleles. I've got a takumi TS-3M solid hondouran mahogany soprano and Kanile'a KCS-C koa slothead concert, with a possible koaloha port orford cedar/purple heart or solid koa tenor in the pipeline... The kanile'a and koaloha have a great reputation and my takumi sounds great and gives the kanile'a a run for its money playing wise but I can't find much info about them. Are the takumi in a similar league to the big 5? Does anyone else have any experience? They don't seem to be that many around.

Of all the instruments I've ever played my ukuleles are the most fun by a mile, and the only ones I think about playing when I should be thinking about other stuff!!

Thanks to all who reply
Pix

Hey there and welcome! Lucky you, with a Takumi. I don't own one but have had the pleasure of playing a couple, and it's on my "someday" wish list for sure. They're fairly hard to come by, at least here in the United States. I'm curious to know how you came by yours?

My go-to ukes have for years now been Kamakas, but I recently came into a couple of Kiwayas and a Famous from Japan, all of which are distributed by Takumi but a bit more basic - the Takumis I've seen have more tonewood options and I think are considered customs, while Kiwaya is a factory line that I consider on par with the K-brands in terms of quality, but an entirely different sound and playability.

Thanks for your reply clears things up

I live in the UK and the southern ukulele store had 2, one of which I bought as I loved the look and sound, especially as a soprano. I'm by no means a virtuoso (but wish I was!), but I love how these instruments look and feel which makes me want to play them daily! I've found Kamaka difficult to find here, I think because the sell so fast!

I have the concert version of your uke and love it. It was at NAMM last year and I kept going back to the booth to play it, I was so smitten by it. Tone and playability were both excellent for me. So I asked Andrew (The Ukulele Site) to get it for me. Takumi is a distributor for Kiwaya, LoPronzi and DaSilva. They worked with a well-respected Japanese luthier on their "house" line of Takumi Ukuleles.

The Ukulele Site, where I got mine, has Takumi's in stock from time-to-time. I've played this koa concert and liked it a lot:
http://www.theukulelesite.com/takumi-concert-tk-3c-2.html

To answer your question about whether they are on par with the larger K brands. In a word, absolutely. I would put any Takumi I've played against ANY similarly priced uke and bet they would at least hold their own.

That's exactly how I felt, I played it and was in love! Glad my ear and heart didn't fail me! Thanks for the info people are so helpful and full of knowledge here!