OulCraft Custom - Double Top Solid Englemann Spruce and Indian Rosewood Tenor Ukulele #60

One day when searching Instagram for Ukuleles (as I do most days at some point), I stopped dead in my tracks... I saw a Soprano that looked like nothing I had ever seen before. It was so dark, rich and highly textured that for a split second I wondered if it was a drawing or some stunning exotic wood I had never seen before that didn't exist anymore. The darker tones and the naturally aged and weather look of this Ukulele made me think it had come out of a treasure chest on a pirate ship and to my utter astonishment I recognised the headstock logo and it was the one and only OulCraft.

I spoke to Jungtae and Seoyoon and they explained that the Ukulele had originally been made of a highly figured piece of rosewood and had just aged wonderfully - Rosewood is rarely (almost never) used as a top wood because its medium density lacks a bit of the elasticity traditional top woods have and the sound can end up being a little bit restrained due to the lack of vibrations. Jungtae got very excited and suggested the secret to making such an unusual tonewood for a top sound good was a double top. Before I knew it, I was agreeing to a custom shop Tenor model with a Rosewood top, back and sides and a hidden Spruce top layered directly under a wafer thin Rosewood top. I must explain this is completely different to a laminate where a nice piece of thin wood is glued to several thin layers of non descript wood to create something stiff and strong - this Ukulele is more like Les Paul guitar where the tonewood sits beneath a gorgeous figured top and the two thin layers of Spruce/Rosewood are behaving much more like Spruce creating a Ukulele that is loud and perhaps the cleanest sounding Ukulele I have ever played.

The response is like nothing I have felt before. Each note rings with little to no effort and the indian rosewood back and sides create an almost piano cabinet like sustain and clarity. When you factor in the sound hole on the side; the whole instrument just does something pure to my ears that I have not heard before in nearly 25 years of playing musical instruments. If you want something special and/or you want something unique in your collection I simply couldn't point you in the direction of anything we have had before that has quite such a distinctive response to your fingers or sound as this. There are more traditional tonewoods being used out there that create a familiar or more coloured, Hawaiian Ukulele sound for sure but from a sheer individualistic stand point and offering something you can't find elsewhere; this is our there on its own in my opinion.

Spec:

Solid Engelmann Spruce top layered under a solid Indian Rosewood top
Solid Indian Rosewood back and sides
Spanish Cedar/Ebony 3 ply neck
36mm nut width
17" scale length
Bone nut and saddle
Urethane Gloss finish
Gotoh Stealth tuners
Side Soundport
Ebony fretboard and bridge
MOP fretboard dots
Worth CT High G strings
Koa Rosette, front wrap and binding