Article about Taylor Ukuleles

[jalbert]

This is from the local (San Diego) newspaper:

Ukuleles stand tall at NAMM trade show

Interesting tidbit: the cost of the new Taylor ukulele is pricey. Fortunately you get a free koa GS with it. 15 for the U.S., the others for abroad. I could imagine that they'll be very popular in Japan!


edited for no pricing discussion

[michaelw]

the ukuleles are hand-built & the GS has solid lining & side braces,
which i would imagine have been 'inherited' from the RT Style 1 -
i would venture to guess that the build quality on these will be on-par
with the R Taylor models, but with the standard Taylor headstock

[Terry]

Cool! Wonder how long till we see production uke's?

[jalbert]

Sorry about mentioning the price. I've been a member here from the early days before we had such a rule. (I agree with the rule, by the way.) Let's just say that "pricey" (not my original words) is an apt description!

As for how long it will take, these ukes were all built by hand. To ramp up for full production, there's quite a bit of tooling that needs to be created: a side bender, the CNC programming for carving the neck and braces, the brace vacuum fixture, etc. I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that we may see something official introduced later on this year, like for Summer NAMM. This is purely conjecture on my part. While I know folks at Taylor, I have no insider information about this.

(Maybe someone at NAMM should just ask...)

[BigSkyTaylorPlayer]

I sure hope the production ukes are a little no, ALOT less expensive......

I see Martin just came out with an all solid Koa for a VERY good price.  Kamaka also has a very nice tenor all solid koa uke at a higher price point than the Martin but more than 1/2 of Taylor's price.

I just love playing the uke and I have a very, very cheap Lanikai pineapple that sounds good.

[michaelw]

Sorry about mentioning the price. I've been a member here from the early days before we had such a rule. (I agree with the rule, by the way.) Let's just say that "pricey" (not my original words) is an apt description!

As for how long it will take, these ukes were all built by hand. To ramp up for full production, there's quite a bit of tooling that needs to be created: a side bender, the CNC programming for carving the neck and braces, the brace vacuum fixture, etc. I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that we may see something official introduced later on this year, like for Summer NAMM. This is purely conjecture on my part. While I know folks at Taylor, I have no insider information about this.

(Maybe someone at NAMM should just ask...)

imho, the guitar & uke are well worth the $, because of the features of both instruments &, knowing what the
2 previous Builder's Reserve models went for (bastogne walnut SBs & liberty tree T5s), with 15 sets being
available in the US & the other 15 internationally, i'd expect them to be sold at 'adjusted market value'

there will be 4 series of the guitar & amp combo (30 in the first run) & i'm wondering if they might
possibly get into electric amps in the future as well - figured maple full stack to match the SB   hmm