Kanile'a MDS-T "Ala Kaulike" Solid Sitka Spruce/Premium Hawaiian Koa Tenor Ukulele #29862

"Ala Kaulike" is a Hawaiian phrase that translates to "balanced path," "even road," or "parallel pathway." A fitting name for this, usually build to order, tenor ukulele. The MDS-T is a celebration of old and new, developed in collaboration with professional Matt Dahlberg.

The Spruce / High G edition reflects his vision for optimizing clarity, projection, and tonal precision within this configuration. The powerful spruce soundboard pairs seamlessly with premium Hawaiian Koa back and sides, producing articulate attack, focused note separation, and exceptional dynamic headroom.

When we dive deeper into the features of this special collaboration model from Kanile'a, the MDS-T should really have a "PRO" tucked neatly into its SKU, as we find almost all of the premium features from the existing Pro series Kanile'a on this model, including their TRU-Reduction soundboard system, TRU-R bracing, ebony comfort edge, fretboard, bridge and faceplate and the Black TUSQ nut and saddle.

Kanile'a also chose to upgrade the tuners for Gotoh Planetary's, a fitting addition to a ukulele with its identity routed in an "old and new" philosophy, with modern geared tuning hidden beneath that classic friction tuner look. We have also seen the revival of the sand inlays on the fretboard, headstock logo and fret markers on the MDS-T which may be one of the most uniquely enthralling features of any ukulele, with a small portion of Hawaii's golden beaches included on this ukulele. The fretboard inlays in particular are very special, with sleek roman numerals on the third, fifth, seventh, tenth, twelfth, and fifteenth frets.

The D-shaped sound hole and personal sound port send all of the lovely tones from this oldschool/newschool Kanile'a both outwards but also up towards your ears for a truly special playing experience, delivering the sweet island sounds of koa, paired with the immediacy and definition of spruce exactly where they need to go.

The listing shows the actual instrument you will receive. These are a very limited run of ukuleles, my understanding is that this will be potentially one of the only (if not the only) one of these we will receive here in the UK.

Spec:
Tenor scale/Pro Spec
Solid sitka spruce top
Solid premium Hawaiian koa back & sides
D-Shaped sound hole
Side sound port
Mahogany neck
Ebony headplate
Ebony fretboard
Ebony bridge
Ebony comfort edge
38mm nut (30mm string spacing at nut)
Graphite Infused Black TUSQ nut & saddle
UV Gloss Body / UV Silk Neck
Gold Gotoh UPT tuners
Uke Logic Low-G strings
Sand headstock inlay, fret markers and side dots
Premium padded gigbag