Kanile'a SUS-T EIL Solid Lutz Spruce/Indian Rosewood Electro Acoustic Tenor Ukulele #26226

Here is the first spruce and Indian rosewood tenor ukulele prototype for an exciting new chapter in the Kanile'a and Southern Ukulele Store relationship. This ukulele features a solid spruce top with Indian rosewood back and sides. 

With Kanile'a, we have designed and built Manu Hu's, Manakos and a range of very competitively priced SUS ukuleles that used Alaskan rainbow cedar and mahogany. With the Alaskan rainbow cedar now being impossible to source, we asked each other - what's next? What does every ukulele player want in 2022?

We wanted to retain the thing that made the original SUS and Kaniel'a series so special and with this European Lutz spruce top, Kanile'a have more than achieved that. Both this model and the 'KL' prototype offer a professional level Hawaiian made ukulele, that sounds the part and looks the part.

The quality of this spruce top and the bouncy, projecting almost transient sound you get from the rosewood back and sides make for a very modern but still Hawaiian sounding ukulele. The big notes sound full, the brighter notes have a bit more of an edge and on the whole, the instrument has a very piano like sustain allowing each note to linger a bit longer than you expect from a gloss instrument.

We have thus far unofficially named this our 'SUS FOLK' model because it reminds us of the famous spruce/rosewood guitars that have dominated folk and country music for nearly 100 years. Kanile'a using modern methods with these premium tonewoods is a natural progression for the SUS series and the spruce top allows the rosewood to reach its full potential. What a uke, what a company... Thank you Kanile'a for blessing us with this prototype. We also fitted a Double pickup to this ukulele to make it gig ready!

Specification:
Solid Lutz spruce top
Solid East Indian rosewood back and sides
Ebony fingerboard and bridge
Ebony bridge pins on pin bridge
Nubone synthetic nut and saddle
White MOP dots and headstock inlay
Ebony faceplate
Kanile'a branded open gear tuners
38mm nut width with 30mm string spacing at nut
Double pickup fitted with soundhole control
Comes with a Kanile'a deluxe gigbag (better than a hard case)

This is the first prototype, future incarnations will likely bare a SUS FOLK label or something similar depending on the final name.