Guido’s Review of the Eleuke BCJ100-FMH Baritone-Ukulele.
First, I have to go back to my time as a beginner on the guitar. My first guitar was a sojing silent guitar, which is a little unusual for a beginner. But I loved the concept of having a guitar for silent practicing. I never became a skilled guitarist, but I still liked the idea of having a "silent" instrument for practicing without disturbing the whole neighborhood or my girlfriend. So I bought an Eleuke tenor about 2 years ago. I sold it when I switched to playing the Baritone, although I liked the instrument. I now own 2 Stagg Concert Silent-Ukuleles, both tuned to DGBE but it's not the same since chords that play well on the shorter scale don't necessarily work the same on the larger scale of the baritone and vice versa. Therefore I kept searching for an Eleuke baritone. As you all know, there are fewer baritone ukulele models available. A manufacturer with 5 different sopranos may have one baritone in his product line (or none). Therefore I was really happy when I heard that Eleuke will make a baritone model. Unfortunately, the Eleukes are really hard to find here in Germany where the uke isn't as popular as in the U.S. or in Great Britain.
But finally I found them at Thomann's, a big dealer for musical instruments. I admit that I didn't like the shape and color of the Instrument they offered. I decided not to buy it. But the desire was still there. A few days ago I saw that there was only one instrument remaining and I was not sure when another would come in. So I decided to go for it. The reasonable price of 129 Euros (which is about $175 US) was hard to pass up.
After opening the parcel, the first thing you see is the Gigbag. It's well made and thick padded. It has 2 small pockets on the front which are big enough for some extra strings, a tuner and so on. OK, let's open the bag and have a look at the Uke. It is made of solid mahogany and has the shape of a Jazz-Ukulele with a cutaway and F-Holes. I know that the form doesn't really affect the sound, but it looks nice to me and much better than on the pictures. Let's have a look from top to bottom. The headstock is plain, no curves or artistic ornaments. It simply says "Harley Benton", which is Thomann's own brand. The tuners are closed gear. There's no brand on it, but they work well so far. Next is the saddle which is made of “palisander”, according to Thomann's. The fingerboard and the bridge are made from the same material. The fretboard is made very well, no sharp edges at the frets and the intonation is also perfect.
On the Body we have two controls: volume and tone. At the bottom are three jacks. One for headphones, one to insert your MP-3 player and one to connect the Uke with the Amp. This last one can also be used to fasten a strap. Surprisingly, there is no second Strap-Pin on the back of the Uke. On the back is a cover which hides the electronics. The cover seems to be made of solid wood and looks much better than the one out of plastic that was on my tenor. There's also a battery-compartment on the back.
The Strings supplied by Thomann's appear to be Aquila. But they supplied GCEA! I replaced them with Martin baritone strings. After tuning, I connected the Uke to my Amp and... nothing. Yeah right, always the same problem. (This has happened to me the three or four times... Before plucking on an electric instrument, insert the battery!) I started a short search through the Gigbag and found a 9V and also a cable for connecting your MP3-Player. But there wasn’t a cable for connecting the amp and there were no headphones. OK, I don't really need that, but the last Eleuke had both with it. After inserting the battery everything was fine. And now I could hear the biggest difference between this new Eleuke and my old tenor-sized one.
The sound is much, much better. Even without any gimmicks, this beastie sounds really good and the tone-control even has effects! You can change the tone from very high and harsh to a deep, mellow sound as well. Nothing to do with the simple synthetic sound my former Eleuke had. I guess Eleuke made a massive change in the electronics. I heard a rumor that Kala is now envolved with Eleuke, maybe that's the reason. The sound through the headphones is almost the same as through an Amp. I didn't hear a difference. After that, I plugged the Eleuke in my POD and now the Fun really started!
Going through the Effects, you can play almost everything with this beastie. From a medieval Lute, via dark deep blues to really crunchy heavy metal. Due to the solid body there is no feedback at all. I spent a few hours yesterday and couldn't stop, until my girlfriend pulled the pluck out of the amp. [Did she say, “It’s Me or Uke?”=HU comment] So, my personal conclusion is that this Eleuke is almost a must have. It's great for silent practice and an absolutely great performer through the amp. It is very light weight and almost played itself. Nice flat action, good intonation.
There are only a few things I didn't like. The wrong strings. But I think this is Thomann's fault. The missing second strap pin. Third, the Volume-Control sits really near to the bridge. I'm afraid to hit is sometimes whilst playing. Fourth, the jack for the headphone is pretty close to the amp jack, which is used as a strap Pin. If you have a strap installed, it's difficult to plug in the headphone. But, all in all this is a real great uke for a reasonable price.
Here's Guido's sound sample video...
