If you like your ukulele with a bit of retro chic, the green Kala Electric Owl is certainly worth a look. This is a solid-body steel-string tenor ukulele from Kala’s Revelator series, finished in a striking retro green with chrome hardware and a contrasting white scratch guard. It has a distinctly vintage-inspired look, but underneath that styling is a very versatile electric instrument.

I had the chance to try the Electric Owl at the Ukulele Festival of Great Britain when I visited the Kala UK stand. I have played steel-string electro tenors for many years, and had actually been playing my own steel-string uke on stage with my band shortly before trying this one, so I was already very familiar with how they behave.

Steel strings do require a slightly different approach to playing. With a nylon-string ukulele, you generally need a reasonable amount of pressure when fretting, but with steel strings it is easy to press too hard and push the notes sharp. That can be one of the things that catches players out when they first make the switch.

What impressed me about the Electric Owl was how forgiving it felt. I started by playing it as I normally would play a steel-string uke, and it immediately produced some lovely clean tones. The combination of the single-coil neck pickup and humbucker bridge pickup gives you plenty of tonal variation, while the three-way selector lets you choose either pickup individually or both together.

Then I deliberately changed my approach and played it as though I had never picked up a steel-string instrument before. I gripped the neck far harder than I normally would, trying to make it misbehave. And, despite my best efforts, I couldn't get it to sound particularly bad! Clearly, you still get the best results with a lighter touch, but the way the neck and string tension have been designed seems to make the Electric Owl considerably more tolerant of the heavy-handed fretting that can cause problems on some steel-string ukuleles.

So, whether you already know your way around steel strings or are thinking about trying them for the first time, this is an interesting instrument. Add in the retro looks and the range of tones available from the two pickups, and you have a very capable electric tenor with plenty of character.

The KA-EO-RGN-T has a 38mm nut width and comes fitted with D’Addario EXL110 strings. It is set up as a low-G ukulele and comes with two strap buttons already fitted, so you can easily use it with a strap. A padded gig bag is included. Note that the Electric Owl has its own shape and will not fit a standard ukulele hard case, so the supplied bag is the most practical option.