Del Rey's Uke

Last weekend, Del Rey gave a workshop using a thin uke. A friend is looking for one like it. She said Del used the term "backpacker," and said she wished she had gotten one with a compass. The picture below seems to look like what she played.

Any ideas?



I may have posted this question already. If, so, sorry for the duplication.

It's a thinline/slimline uke, some people call them back packers or travel ukes - Kala make some, & I have a Baton Rouge concert in solid spruce with a MiSi pickup in it.

I think we've settled on the Kala travel uke, which used to have a compass in the headstock option.

Yes, a Thinline or Travel uke. Surprising how much projection they have. I recently bought a Lanikai FB-CETT Tenor Thinline Figured Bocote cutaway with preamp/pickup for $360. I really like it a lot, take it to a Sunday in the park acoustic play-along.

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8 tenor cutaway ukes, 5 acoustic bass ukes, 10 solid body bass ukes, 7 mini electric bass guitars

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Jerryc41 said:

Last weekend, Del Rey gave a workshop using a thin uke. A friend is looking for one like it. She said Del used the term "backpacker," and said she wished she had gotten one with a compass.

I may have posted this question already. If, so, sorry for the duplication.

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I’ve found both this and the parallel thread interesting. As far as I know we settled on a Kala Soprano Travel Uke with solid spruce top and arched back, and yes they did used to come with inbuilt compasses in the headstock. The current version is about $200 on Amazon, so not cheap but far from expensive (as Uke prices go).
(Edit. This old Amazon listing shows what the original looked like: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kala-Thinline-Compass-Soprano-Ukulele/dp/B00F35RQW2)

If Del would like a compass in her headstock then, I suspect, a word from her to Kala will see the job done. Short of that similar compasses cost next to nothing really (ordered some from China today) and no doubt there’s quite a few capable people who would be happy to fit one for her for free.

It's a Kala travel soprano. I happen to know who gave it to her. They used to put a compass on some of them. I have one. They are fun. Not something I would want to play for too long but they are loud and sound great. I take it with me when I want to sneak a ukulele into a gathering without making a huge statement that a Kumbaya moment might be loomng.

Bill1 said:

If you look at the video I mentioned in the workshop part of Del's site, its obviously a Kala travel uke without the compass.
If you type "Kala travel "compass"" into the google search engine and look at images, you will find a picture of a travel compass. The first one I looked at was on the Sweetwater site marked as "No Longer Available" .

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Yes, "No Longer Available" is the standard response now, but inserting a compass would be very easy.