blue_knight_usa
Well-known member
NAMM 2014 - UKE NEWS
UKES:
Well, NAMM was absolutely mind blowing. Being my first time, I didn’t know where to start but by the end of my trip, I had seen more ukes than you can shake a …we’ll… uke at!
So, here are the things that I came across that some folks might want to know.
Cordoba launched a new cutaway electric version of their 30 series Tenors. They were designed in conjunction with Pepe Romero Jr. supposedly (met Pepe at the show and played his new classical guitar which was really a great feeling instrument, but not a uke!). These have a Spanish heel, fan bracing, wider and deeper body. They are all handmade and are 12 frets to the body. They have LR Baggs 5.0 pickups. They are all solid wood, ab rosette, grover tuners.
Ohana has a vita-style soprano uke with a solid spruce top and a choice of rosewood or mahogany sides and backs. Ohana also came out with the incredible acoustic bass that’s like a big uke but is really a bass. The sound is amazingly loud acoustically for a bass. I cold hear it very well while all the noise was flooding my ears at the Ohana booth. They have several models and they looked damn good. Not being a bass player, I have nothing to compare it to, but Daniel Ho did an entire set of songs with one and it sounded really cool. You can get a model with a Fishman Pre-sys+ bass pickup with built in tuner, betal round wound bas strings and a backpack style padded gig bag.
Kahuna was a name I had never played but they have a lot of models in all scales (except Baritone) and they showed off their all mahogany concert uke, the KUC-21M and KUC-36NC single cutaway spruce with maple binding as well.
Kala had their solid spruce and Ovangkol uke series and having a Taylor 414CE with Ovankol in the past, I really like that wood. Nothing sexy but it’s a great side/back wood that seems to do very well over time. Kala also added a shark bridge design to the Makala Uke color ukes. It’s going to come in 6 colors. I believe it will only be available in soprano size (shark bridge). These are injected molded bodies, agates wood top, rosewood fingerboard, mahogany neck and “geared tuners”.
Kala also announced they are beginning production of Banjo Ukes (get your bluegrass on!) and the big deal for me was “MADE IN THE USA!” That’s right. Next to my former home town, they are building these in Petaluma California, formerly known as Chickaluma…you ever Pet a Luma?
They will have two concert banjo ukes and one in loa
Kohala added color to their Tiki line and now have pink, purple, red, and yellow ukes, adding black, “ocean blue”, “sea foam” green, and checkerboard. They have an engraved Tiki man bridge. For 70ish bucks it’s really a good starter instrument. I have had Kohala over the years that I picked up from Costco (remember the 99 buck specials for their concerts?) and played it for a while and then donated it to Uke for Kids of N. Cal as it really played well but it really is a starter uke. Build solid but sort of a rough finish when it comes to details. Can’t complain for 70 bucks.
Ukulele Mike whose name is recognized with Oscar Schmidt collaborated on a new tenor uke. It has a solid cedar top, mahogany back and sides, slotted headstock, MOP inlay and ab body binding and white trim. It will be interesting to see how this uke does in this price range.
The strangest and most interesting uke at the show for me was the Blackbird Clara Uke. This is a uke make of a material they call EKOA, a proprietary renewable material that’s looks like distressed wood material that you know its not wood, but it’s the closest I can come to explaining the look. It’s a pineapple type shape with one sound hole on the side along the edge up against your body. These ukes are a whopper 1150.00. For me personally, the sound was unimpressive, tone was not rich and full and I think the design of the sound hole and placement just doesn’t work well. Their carbon fiber ukes are really cool and look much more finished in appearance. For this price, I’m going with Kanilea or Ko’aloha all the way, or even a base level custom Kinnard. I just didn’t get it, but that’s me.
The big three K brands were in force, Kamaka, Kanilea and Ko’aloha. The Kanilea booth was stunning as was the Kamaka booth. The Ko’olau/Pono booth was nothing exciting for me in the way of presentation…great ukes of course (as a former Pono owner I’m a fan of Pono) but the booth just was nothing exciting for me. It really looked like Kamaka and Kanilea were there to really show off kings of the K brands in the way of displays (in my opinion which is worth nothing).
There were lots of other ukes I won’t get into as they were from China and Korea. The Korea ukes were some of the worst I have seen anywhere. Extremely rough finish and when the reps really can’t converse in English, I don’t see any traction happening there. I will say Japan had some incredible ukes. Gloss finish, looked like all hand built, extremely clean, however the problem again there was a huge language barrier. I could not get any detailed information as they kept telling me they were really a guitar manufacture trying to sell ukes….but not having someone to show off your product after traveling around the world? I just didn’t get it as I didn’t get the other Korea company selling strings.
I was excited being a string junky that they were handing them out, but the rep spoke ZERO english. Another bummer, but I have the strings and will give them a shot, however I looked online and I’lll never find them as I think they were only at the show….nothing online. I am sure these are just standard fluorocarbon strings. Look like it, feel like it and the package does say Flurocarbon. The packaging was cool with a big G C E A on the package.
ACCESSORIES:
For accessories, Kala comes up again as they have a lot of displays and wall hangers that are now …TA DAH!! MADE IN THE USA…assembled and manufactured in Petaluma, CA. I’m working on getting a video tour soon to show everyone the happenings there. The hangers are made with reclaimed wood from some salvage facility in N. Cal I believe. Nice to not be cutting down trees for hangers..we need em for ukes! ;-)
Hamilton is a big name in music stands and I really liked their KB-90 portable music stand with case. Yes it’s not like those rinky dink silver stands that blow over when you sneeze but it’s a very portable stand that breaks down and is a really nice solid stand. I have a fixed stand and stand with collapsable legs but not one that is like this, so I think I’m going to order one and consolidate to one stand for everything. It’s about time.
Planet Waves has the new NS Ukulele Capo Pro. Yeah! A cool capo that I didn’t get to use but looks pretty good. It’s designed for minimal interference and the Uke capo is designed specifically for uke necks. They are equipment with a cool micrometer adjustment mechanism to assure a buzz free and in-tune experience. I might pick one up. 14 bucks gets you one with free shipping on Ebay…they are all over there now. Not a bad price.
ELECTRONICS:
Electronics and microphones if you have an iPad or iPhone, it was like techie heaven for me. The new IQ5 stereo microphone from Zoom is stunning. I played with all the Zoom, Sony and MicW products. It is clear that Andriod has been left in the dust when it comes to people developing accessories for the musician. It’s Apple Apple and more Apple. The MicW microphones were incredible. I tried them out and if you can imagine being in a stadium with 60,000 fans, and holding a mic about 1 foot away from someone talking and hearing them talk perfectly without the noise drowning them out, the MicW mic series were the cats meow. I am going to skip my Samsung S5 upgrade and get the iPhone 6 once it comes out so I can get some cool toys for recording.
The top honors for recording goes to the Zoom H6. This is a serious kick a** 6 CHANNEL recording studio in your hand. It has removable mic modules, so expect to skip your next custom uke if your going to invest in all the modules and the H6 but this things is so far beyond the H4N, I think I am going to sell mine and save up for this bad boy. Having the H4N for the past three years, it’s clear Zoom really went all out on the H6.
For Video, the Q4 is a really cool video camera with HD L/R mice that pop out of the rear of the camera and the flip around display let’s you see what’s being recorded. It’s small, it’s designed for musicians in a studio (in my opinion) as you won’t get 20x zoom on this, so expect to video fairly close in a large room. If you use this, you don’t need an H4N on top of your DSLR, you can just use this and save the space and time of pulling audio and video together. Sony came out blazing with the HDR-MV1 Music Video Recorder. It also has L/R stereo mice up front (instead of popping up from the rear) and is also a small form factor. They both definitely work very well and HD is HD, I really could not tell the difference on either watching the playback.
Well, those are my highlights and I really didn’t get to speak to everyone. Next year I hope to be there getting some more hands on in depth info on all the products that are there. It’s a good think I am not a drummer or guitar player as there is no way you can see 100 booths of just those instruments while you are there.
I have so many photos but decided it was just way to much to put it all together with text so you can Google away and check out these items if any interest you.
While I was there I met tons of great people but after ever night, my only focus was hitting the hotel room and getting my feet off the 10 hr days of walking on concrete with no where to sit.
So, that’s a wrap on my NAMM 2014 summary. NAMM 2015 coming in just 10/11 months ;-)
Cheers,
UKES:
Well, NAMM was absolutely mind blowing. Being my first time, I didn’t know where to start but by the end of my trip, I had seen more ukes than you can shake a …we’ll… uke at!
So, here are the things that I came across that some folks might want to know.
Cordoba launched a new cutaway electric version of their 30 series Tenors. They were designed in conjunction with Pepe Romero Jr. supposedly (met Pepe at the show and played his new classical guitar which was really a great feeling instrument, but not a uke!). These have a Spanish heel, fan bracing, wider and deeper body. They are all handmade and are 12 frets to the body. They have LR Baggs 5.0 pickups. They are all solid wood, ab rosette, grover tuners.
Ohana has a vita-style soprano uke with a solid spruce top and a choice of rosewood or mahogany sides and backs. Ohana also came out with the incredible acoustic bass that’s like a big uke but is really a bass. The sound is amazingly loud acoustically for a bass. I cold hear it very well while all the noise was flooding my ears at the Ohana booth. They have several models and they looked damn good. Not being a bass player, I have nothing to compare it to, but Daniel Ho did an entire set of songs with one and it sounded really cool. You can get a model with a Fishman Pre-sys+ bass pickup with built in tuner, betal round wound bas strings and a backpack style padded gig bag.
Kahuna was a name I had never played but they have a lot of models in all scales (except Baritone) and they showed off their all mahogany concert uke, the KUC-21M and KUC-36NC single cutaway spruce with maple binding as well.
Kala had their solid spruce and Ovangkol uke series and having a Taylor 414CE with Ovankol in the past, I really like that wood. Nothing sexy but it’s a great side/back wood that seems to do very well over time. Kala also added a shark bridge design to the Makala Uke color ukes. It’s going to come in 6 colors. I believe it will only be available in soprano size (shark bridge). These are injected molded bodies, agates wood top, rosewood fingerboard, mahogany neck and “geared tuners”.
Kala also announced they are beginning production of Banjo Ukes (get your bluegrass on!) and the big deal for me was “MADE IN THE USA!” That’s right. Next to my former home town, they are building these in Petaluma California, formerly known as Chickaluma…you ever Pet a Luma?
They will have two concert banjo ukes and one in loa
Kohala added color to their Tiki line and now have pink, purple, red, and yellow ukes, adding black, “ocean blue”, “sea foam” green, and checkerboard. They have an engraved Tiki man bridge. For 70ish bucks it’s really a good starter instrument. I have had Kohala over the years that I picked up from Costco (remember the 99 buck specials for their concerts?) and played it for a while and then donated it to Uke for Kids of N. Cal as it really played well but it really is a starter uke. Build solid but sort of a rough finish when it comes to details. Can’t complain for 70 bucks.
Ukulele Mike whose name is recognized with Oscar Schmidt collaborated on a new tenor uke. It has a solid cedar top, mahogany back and sides, slotted headstock, MOP inlay and ab body binding and white trim. It will be interesting to see how this uke does in this price range.
The strangest and most interesting uke at the show for me was the Blackbird Clara Uke. This is a uke make of a material they call EKOA, a proprietary renewable material that’s looks like distressed wood material that you know its not wood, but it’s the closest I can come to explaining the look. It’s a pineapple type shape with one sound hole on the side along the edge up against your body. These ukes are a whopper 1150.00. For me personally, the sound was unimpressive, tone was not rich and full and I think the design of the sound hole and placement just doesn’t work well. Their carbon fiber ukes are really cool and look much more finished in appearance. For this price, I’m going with Kanilea or Ko’aloha all the way, or even a base level custom Kinnard. I just didn’t get it, but that’s me.
The big three K brands were in force, Kamaka, Kanilea and Ko’aloha. The Kanilea booth was stunning as was the Kamaka booth. The Ko’olau/Pono booth was nothing exciting for me in the way of presentation…great ukes of course (as a former Pono owner I’m a fan of Pono) but the booth just was nothing exciting for me. It really looked like Kamaka and Kanilea were there to really show off kings of the K brands in the way of displays (in my opinion which is worth nothing).
There were lots of other ukes I won’t get into as they were from China and Korea. The Korea ukes were some of the worst I have seen anywhere. Extremely rough finish and when the reps really can’t converse in English, I don’t see any traction happening there. I will say Japan had some incredible ukes. Gloss finish, looked like all hand built, extremely clean, however the problem again there was a huge language barrier. I could not get any detailed information as they kept telling me they were really a guitar manufacture trying to sell ukes….but not having someone to show off your product after traveling around the world? I just didn’t get it as I didn’t get the other Korea company selling strings.
I was excited being a string junky that they were handing them out, but the rep spoke ZERO english. Another bummer, but I have the strings and will give them a shot, however I looked online and I’lll never find them as I think they were only at the show….nothing online. I am sure these are just standard fluorocarbon strings. Look like it, feel like it and the package does say Flurocarbon. The packaging was cool with a big G C E A on the package.
ACCESSORIES:
For accessories, Kala comes up again as they have a lot of displays and wall hangers that are now …TA DAH!! MADE IN THE USA…assembled and manufactured in Petaluma, CA. I’m working on getting a video tour soon to show everyone the happenings there. The hangers are made with reclaimed wood from some salvage facility in N. Cal I believe. Nice to not be cutting down trees for hangers..we need em for ukes! ;-)
Hamilton is a big name in music stands and I really liked their KB-90 portable music stand with case. Yes it’s not like those rinky dink silver stands that blow over when you sneeze but it’s a very portable stand that breaks down and is a really nice solid stand. I have a fixed stand and stand with collapsable legs but not one that is like this, so I think I’m going to order one and consolidate to one stand for everything. It’s about time.
Planet Waves has the new NS Ukulele Capo Pro. Yeah! A cool capo that I didn’t get to use but looks pretty good. It’s designed for minimal interference and the Uke capo is designed specifically for uke necks. They are equipment with a cool micrometer adjustment mechanism to assure a buzz free and in-tune experience. I might pick one up. 14 bucks gets you one with free shipping on Ebay…they are all over there now. Not a bad price.
ELECTRONICS:
Electronics and microphones if you have an iPad or iPhone, it was like techie heaven for me. The new IQ5 stereo microphone from Zoom is stunning. I played with all the Zoom, Sony and MicW products. It is clear that Andriod has been left in the dust when it comes to people developing accessories for the musician. It’s Apple Apple and more Apple. The MicW microphones were incredible. I tried them out and if you can imagine being in a stadium with 60,000 fans, and holding a mic about 1 foot away from someone talking and hearing them talk perfectly without the noise drowning them out, the MicW mic series were the cats meow. I am going to skip my Samsung S5 upgrade and get the iPhone 6 once it comes out so I can get some cool toys for recording.
The top honors for recording goes to the Zoom H6. This is a serious kick a** 6 CHANNEL recording studio in your hand. It has removable mic modules, so expect to skip your next custom uke if your going to invest in all the modules and the H6 but this things is so far beyond the H4N, I think I am going to sell mine and save up for this bad boy. Having the H4N for the past three years, it’s clear Zoom really went all out on the H6.
For Video, the Q4 is a really cool video camera with HD L/R mice that pop out of the rear of the camera and the flip around display let’s you see what’s being recorded. It’s small, it’s designed for musicians in a studio (in my opinion) as you won’t get 20x zoom on this, so expect to video fairly close in a large room. If you use this, you don’t need an H4N on top of your DSLR, you can just use this and save the space and time of pulling audio and video together. Sony came out blazing with the HDR-MV1 Music Video Recorder. It also has L/R stereo mice up front (instead of popping up from the rear) and is also a small form factor. They both definitely work very well and HD is HD, I really could not tell the difference on either watching the playback.
Well, those are my highlights and I really didn’t get to speak to everyone. Next year I hope to be there getting some more hands on in depth info on all the products that are there. It’s a good think I am not a drummer or guitar player as there is no way you can see 100 booths of just those instruments while you are there.
I have so many photos but decided it was just way to much to put it all together with text so you can Google away and check out these items if any interest you.
While I was there I met tons of great people but after ever night, my only focus was hitting the hotel room and getting my feet off the 10 hr days of walking on concrete with no where to sit.
So, that’s a wrap on my NAMM 2014 summary. NAMM 2015 coming in just 10/11 months ;-)
Cheers,
And Hitomi actually speaks English; I thought I'd have to muddle through in my long-out-of-practice Japanese when I spoke with her, but no - at this point, her English is probably better than my Japanese.
