Jim Hanks
Well-known member
Here's my new electric ukulele from Bruce Herron at Blue Star Guitar:
It is billed as a tenor but at 19-1/8" scale, I'm calling it a short scale baritone. Blue Star sells a stock baritone at 22" scale, which iamesper has wrote about in these pages, but that seems closer to tenor guitar territory to me, so I wrote Bruce to see if could build me something a little smaller. Here are the specs:
19" scale
DGBE tuning with " light" gauge steel strings - .011 .014 .022W .030W
Red "psycho" top with black carpet back
"Standard" shape body (custom - stock is the teardrop/"canned ham" shape)
Humbucker pickup
Tone knob (custom)
Volume knob with coil split pull pot (custom)
String-through-body bridge with adjustable intonation
Dual strap buttons (2nd is custom)
Geared tuners
I ordered a few extras like the tone knob and coil splitter which cuts out half the humbucker to make it a single coil sound. I told Bruce I had to have a few knobs to twiddle - been missing that on my acoustic ukes.
We talked about even more options like dual pickups, upgrade pickups, wood finishes, etc. but I'm glad we kept it simpler. I actually love how it looks, the pickup sounds great and the knobs give enough tonal options without having to turn to the amp or app for everything. I'll work up some sound samples later but I think this is going to prove quite versatile.
The feel is really good - action is quite low, neck is not too thick or thin, and the fretboard is nice and smooth. (I forgot to ask if it is radiused but I don't think so.) The strings chosen by Bruce seem right on too. He gave me a choice of extra light, light, or medium. I picked light so we'd have some wiggle room later to go a little harder or softer but these seem good already. We can also go GCEA with different strings if desired, or reentrant even, but I'm thinking I'll stick with DGBE.
Bruce was great to work with. Very accommodating with the changes I wanted to make and a quite reasonable charge for the upgrades. I won't say exactly how much, but Elderly Music sells the stock bari for $335 shipped and I still got out for under 4 bills shipped for a hand-built-in-the-USA-one-of-a-kind instrument. And this was a fast project. I caught him just after finishing a big order for Elderly so he was open. It was under three weeks from "go" to UPS at my door. You can't beat that.
I would encourage anyone looking for a steel string uke to check out Blue Star Guitar.
Jim
It is billed as a tenor but at 19-1/8" scale, I'm calling it a short scale baritone. Blue Star sells a stock baritone at 22" scale, which iamesper has wrote about in these pages, but that seems closer to tenor guitar territory to me, so I wrote Bruce to see if could build me something a little smaller. Here are the specs:
19" scale
DGBE tuning with " light" gauge steel strings - .011 .014 .022W .030W
Red "psycho" top with black carpet back
"Standard" shape body (custom - stock is the teardrop/"canned ham" shape)
Humbucker pickup
Tone knob (custom)
Volume knob with coil split pull pot (custom)
String-through-body bridge with adjustable intonation
Dual strap buttons (2nd is custom)
Geared tuners
I ordered a few extras like the tone knob and coil splitter which cuts out half the humbucker to make it a single coil sound. I told Bruce I had to have a few knobs to twiddle - been missing that on my acoustic ukes.
We talked about even more options like dual pickups, upgrade pickups, wood finishes, etc. but I'm glad we kept it simpler. I actually love how it looks, the pickup sounds great and the knobs give enough tonal options without having to turn to the amp or app for everything. I'll work up some sound samples later but I think this is going to prove quite versatile.The feel is really good - action is quite low, neck is not too thick or thin, and the fretboard is nice and smooth. (I forgot to ask if it is radiused but I don't think so.) The strings chosen by Bruce seem right on too. He gave me a choice of extra light, light, or medium. I picked light so we'd have some wiggle room later to go a little harder or softer but these seem good already. We can also go GCEA with different strings if desired, or reentrant even, but I'm thinking I'll stick with DGBE.
Bruce was great to work with. Very accommodating with the changes I wanted to make and a quite reasonable charge for the upgrades. I won't say exactly how much, but Elderly Music sells the stock bari for $335 shipped and I still got out for under 4 bills shipped for a hand-built-in-the-USA-one-of-a-kind instrument. And this was a fast project. I caught him just after finishing a big order for Elderly so he was open. It was under three weeks from "go" to UPS at my door. You can't beat that.
I would encourage anyone looking for a steel string uke to check out Blue Star Guitar.
Jim
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