This is the retro red version of the Kala Electric Owl, a solid body steel string tenor ukulele from their Revelator series. This one has retro styling and a lovely bright candy apple red finish, with chrome hardwear and shiny white scratch guard. It certainly looks the business!

I first tried this model at the Ukulele Festival of Great Britain at the Kala UK stand. I am no stranger to a steel string electro tenor and in fact, I’d not long before played my own on stage with the band I’m in. I have always enjoyed steel string, since getting my first electric guitar aged 15, in the hope it would help me get a girlfriend. Anyway… it is fair to say I am familiar with the genre! One thing with them is that a lighter touch is needed generally. If you grip a uke with steel strings tightly when fretting, you can push the notes sharp. If you you have nylon strung ukes you need more pressure. So it’s a case of adapting your technique a little, and some people have struggled a bit with that.

Where am I going with this? Ah yes, I sat at the Kala booth and played it. It sounded great. Nice clean tones and lots of variation with the single coil neck pickup and the humbucker bridge pickup, and the three way switch allowing you to select one, the other or both. I played it like I play my own uke and - being versed in steel strings, I made it sound very nice indeed. Then, I switched to being a ukulele player, pretending I had never played steel strings. And I gripped and gripped, and try as I might, I couldn’t get it to sound really bad on purpose! The tension in the neck and the strings, has been really thought about and that ‘pushed sharp’ experience from gripping too hard was much lessened. Obviously, it sounds better if you don’t grip on for dear life, but I did think people new to steel strings would find that advantageous.

The retro red Electric Owl has a 38mm nut width, D’addario EXL 110 strings and comes with a padded gig bag. It is low G as standard and comes with two buttons fitted if you want to use it with a strap. It won’t fit a standard hard case, so the bag it comes with is your best bet.