Eleuke
BCP-T

This unexpectedly turned up in the post!! Bugsgear had suggested to me they might like me to review one of their new Bluetooth Eleukes. I, of course , said "yes I would love too" but heard nothing more until this arrived. Its the new Eleuke BCP-T steel strung, 490mm, (19 inch), scale, solid body Baritone. Now I have needed(?) a solid body electric Baritone scale Ukulele for my collection for some time now as I didn't have anything like that; I was even contemplating commissioning one. As it's steel strung, that is also new thing for the Corner, (I have steel strung Sopranos, Concerts and Tenors but no Baritone - until now).

Now its here I shall certainly review it thoroughly and my first impressions are it looks like a nice piece of kit but the factory setup it well off so I will have to set it up properly, (they have included hex allen keys for this purpose), and the case is SERIOUSLY padded (at least twice as thick as they normally are).

And the review? Well I'm sadly very disappointed. It's solid enough but not particularly well made. The nut needed a lot of work to get the intonation and setup right; far more than most buyers would put up with. The back plate is poorly fitting and the faux wood pattern on it doesn't really match the actual wood of the body very well and the electrics underneath it are shockingly bad.

I can't say I'm enamoured with the looks ether, I have already said the backplate looks bad. to be honest it would look a lot better with a plain black, or white one, to match the scratchplate its crying out for. It doesn't have to be identical to the Fender Telecaster scratchplate but with that headstock design and body shape that would be a place to start. My biggest dislike of the looks is the pickup though. To my mind it looks too big and the angle too acute, (possibly to try and hide the fact that its too big?) It looks like rather than sourcing the right pickup they just took the first rail guitar pickup they came across and said "that will do". I think a cover might help too but it still wouldn't hide the fact that the pickup is too big.

My biggest disappointment though is the electrics and the tone. I like the ambition of the bluetooth, I like the rechargeable battery and the USB method for recharging it but every time I have switched it on and plugged it into an amp it performs dreadfully! I've tried different leads, I've tried different amps, I've tried the same setup using different instruments to make sure its not the amp or the leads. But whatever I have tried whenever I have plugged it in there has been a huge amount of noise! So much that the extraneous noise is louder than what is suppose to come from the pickup. I say I'm unhappy with the tone but to be honest I haven't been able to judge the tone because of all of the other noise.

Nice knobs though.