Category Archives: Concert
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Eleuke Concert Full Review
37March 23, 2010 by Tim
Imagine if back in the day when Led Zeppelin was forming and Jimmy Page decided that his main instrument would be a ukulele!!! If that did happen, and Eleuke was making these ukuleles, he would have played it. I think Led Zeppelin would have been even bigger than they were!…….. Maybe not, But it would have been cool to see.
When someone says ukulele most think of the standard design of a 3 inch deep hollow box with a wood neck, with the wood grain showing, and friction tuners. They don’t think of a 1/2″ thick solid sparkle blue ukulele with a cut away body, geared tuners, no sound hole, and 3 jacks in the end. But why NOT! Uke players can rock out with the best of them gosh darn it!!! (Gotta keep it family friendly) And with the personal MP3 player input you can rock out along with the best of them without disturbing the whole house when you use the built in amp with your headphones plugged in
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Papas Boxes Concert Build: The Build
1December 31, 2009 by Tim
Well here I am ending the year with a built, and by no means finished, cigar box ukulele. In all this project took me a few more weeks than I thought it would. Part of it was life and part of it were things that I did not expect while building this crazy thing. Below I will talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly. (Most of it good with the ugly things stemming from my issues)
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Papas Boxes Concert Build: The Box
1December 22, 2009 by Tim
Being that the cigar box is the main part of a cigar box ukulele I felt I had to make it really interesting and fun. Since I used a box that never held a cigar in its life I also had to make it look like a cigar box, but how to do that is a challenge. On the other hand since it was not a real cigar box it gave me a great opportunity to do whatever I wanted, so I did!
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Papas Boxes Concert Build
2December 4, 2009 by Tim
A month or so ago the kind folks at Papas Boxes sent me an e-mail saying that they were back to taking orders again. On a whim I e-mailed them and told them about my blog and they responded really quickly and asked what size, I went with concert. Not very many people have seen the soprano cigar box ukulele that I made 2 years ago, but I found the kit on EBay and it was basically a fret board, rough neck, floating bridge, and zither pins for tuning, Very basic and well-made kit. It played ok and the tuning was a little hard to do, so I bought the tuner kit and also replaced the bridge that came with it with a Grover 4 string banjo bridge. Now it plays really well and is a ton of fun. That is one of the best things about the kit. You can either put it together and play, or keep changing it and adjusting it until it is what you want.
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Mango Fluke Full Review
10July 18, 2009 by Tim
I want to start this out with saying that this is a fun instrument……..but it could be better. I received a Fluke and Flea from The Magic Fluke Co. a few weeks ago, thank you Dale Webb for being the first to send me instruments to review. I have played them a few times and have seen many of them at different fests and shops. Many people play them for their looks and the fact that the basic ones with the plastic (Yes I know polycarbonate, but plastic is shorter to type) back and fret board, along with a laminate top, they are almost indestructible. I read a story about a person that actually had to use their fluke as a paddle because they lost the oars on their boat and it was still playable!! I digress; read the full revie
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Oscar Schmidt OU7T No Strings Attached Review
8July 1, 2009 by Tim
Today we are looking at an Oscar Schmidt Spalted Mango Tenor (OU7T). This being a No Strings Attached Review I will not be rating this instrument. This Tenor is one of the 10 ukuleles I had the pleasure to play while I was at the U.S. Music Corp. factory recently
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Oscar Schmidt OU250Bell No Strings Attached Review
9June 26, 2009 by Tim
Today we are looking at an Oscar Schmidt Bell ukulele (OU250Bell). This being a No Strings Attached Review I will not be rating this instrument. The bell is one of the 10 ukuleles I had the pleasure to play while In was at the U.S. Music Corp. factory recently. I was only able to play it for a short time, but I am hoping that I will have an opportunity to do a full review some day. (Wink Wink, Nudge, Nudge Tom)
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My visit to Oscar Schmidt
12June 21, 2009 by Tim
I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to tour the U.S. Music Corp. factory in Mundelein, IL Friday. U.S. Music Corp is the parent company for many brands such as Washburn, Parker Guitars, Randall Amps, Oscar Schmidt, and many more brands that we see all the time. I contacted them last week just on a whim, I knew they were in a suburb of Chicago and I am only a few hours away, so I figured that they might let me review a ukulele, a tall order since I do not have a readership at this point. But as luck would have it Tom Ferrone contacted me right away and he asked me to come and see the factory. He Said he would have a few ukes for me to review when I got there.
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