Ukulele

When it comes to portable pickers, a ukulele can make a great travel companion. Wanderers looking for a tough traveler with more bottom end might be interested in the carbon-fiber baritone and bass ukes from Utah's Klos Guitars.

Learning to play an instrument is hard, but technology can help. We've seen a number of inventive solutions over the years, and the latest is the Roadie Coach, an audio recorder, music learning system and MIDI controller rolled into one.

PopuMusic has followed its learning ukulele from 2017 and last year's acoustic guitar – each featuring follow-me LED lighting in the neck – with a new version of the uke that rocks a different shape and features a built-in pre-amp with effects.

After completing its third successful Kickstarter, Band Industries started shipping the Roadie 3 – a kind of electronic multi-tool for string pickers – out to backers in November 2020. As with the previous generations, we got sent one to try.

Let's face it, the ukulele is a pretty travel-friendly instrument. Even the biggest of the bunch is only 30 inches long. Clearly Candace Chen thinks that a 20/21-inch soprano is too lengthy for travel, and has created the 16 inch long headless Ava.

Even though a ukulele is much more travel-friendly than a collapsible dreadnought or, well, a travel guitar, team Astro clearly thinks that even a 21-inch long soprano uke is too big. The Astro ukulele folds down to just over 11 inches long – and can fit in the water bottle pocket of a backpack.​

​PopuBand Music's smart ukulele combines app-based smarts with follow-me LED lighting, promising students of the uke that they'll be strumming their first song within 15 minutes. New Atlas has spent the last few weeks getting our four-string groove on.​

​Light-led learning is a great way to nail full songs in double quick fashion. With the Populele, LEDs embedded in the ukulele's neck show students where to place fretting fingers, with its makers promising to have learners playing their first song within 15 minutes.

String-pickers, digital tunesmiths and bin bashers are not the easiest of folks to buy gifts for. With the holidays almost upon us and a state of muso-related panic likely setting in, here are a few ideas that should hit the right note.

Monty Ross from the state of Washington has given a four-string beach party regular similar "be heard anywhere" amplified superpowers to the Vox Apache Series travel guitars with a range of electric ukuleles named Ukelation.

Blackbird Guitars has luanched the Clara ukulele, which is made from a a newly-developed sustainable material called Ekoa that's said to give the instrument the strength and durability of carbon fiber and the tone of vintage wood.