Kala's newest creation is just around the corner...⁠ What wood is this ?

[Pete Howlett]

These are now selling like hotcakes, mastergrade being the most popular so you need to jump in quickly. I had a huge input into this project getting the workforce up to speed with the building of this so that they could fly away and get product ready for NAMM - and what an incredible achievement. I had the benefit of joining CEO Mike Upton and the Studio Manager on a trip to a timber merchant in SOCAL to select figured Korina so I can tell you, they have plenty of different types of mastergrade Korina but is not an infinite resource. Kala has a private stock, very limited of highly figured mango. They also have other wood options which they will bring on stream when the korina model has established itself as a leader in the ukosphere of the electro acooustic ukulele.

FYI: I am still working with Kala. My agreement with them had many aspects and one of them was designing an 'import' model. I am now working on this. There are also other models that I have designed for Kala and over the coming months as market acceptance of this ukulele takes a real hold, I suspect they will want to extend the line by bringing these iterations on board.

Yes folks, you may have seen the last of the Howlett Revelators (well nearly, I have permission to make my wife's instrument) but as fa as Kala goes, you ain't seem othing yet.

Ah those typos - don't you just miss them?

 

[Pete Howlett]

I think the real benchmark for pricing an American-made ukulele is to look to Martin whilst at the same time asking yourself the question, "Where is the second promised run of Larivee ukulele?" Having a unique insight into what Kala is trying to do with their American-made instruments, which I might add are made in the second most expensive place to live in the USA (personal knowledge - I lived there for 7 weeks) I would say their pricing is more than fair given the huge amount of hand work that goes into making a Revelator - it simply cannot be done entirely using machine tools. The value-for-money option is to offer the instruments direct from the factory with a few selected retail outlets stocking them. Factory sales will sponsor the complete loss of any profit as a direct result of putting a third party into the supply chain.

From personal experience and with the great benefit of having had a career making ukulele, it is a very hard business to make a living from, and as most, if not all builders, particularly in the USA will confess, their bespoke boutique instruments are subsidized by repair work. All but a few elite builders make it doing building alone. It took me 20 years to get it right - my side hustle was offering building courses... Make no mistake about it folks, Rick Turner, bless him, said to me one time, "You have to be married to a doctor or lawyer to be in this game." The financial support for those 20 years of struggle was my wife's full-time employment and my occasional lapses into 'substitute teaching' to row back the debts against the business.
I am effectively an R&D concern now, still offering courses and instruments but using the proceeds from the sale of my design to funding further research to develop a way of building that is used extensively throughout the world that does not involve heat-bending flat wood. I am trying to get that happy medium between 21st-century technology and 19th-century cabinetmaking skills. It's not for nothing that Sam Maloof charged $35k for one of his rocking chairs and Martin $1599 for an American-made soprano ukulele.