Barry Maz's Blog: Baz Maz's Ukulele blog

At the end of a difficult 2025, it was very pleasing to see that Got A Ukulele had won the 'Best Ukulele YouTube Channel' award in the Anarchy In The Ukulele Ukies awards.

That's the third year running my channel has taken the prize and it's all down to the voters!
These awards are not decided by a panel, but rather two rounds of public voting to both draw up the shortlists, and then decide on the winner. As such, if you did either of those things i'm extremely grateful.
THANK YOU

© Barry Maz...

This is something of a difficult ukulele post to write. Some news for you.


Regular readers will know that during 2025 I explained my need to slow the reviews down a little for my own sanity due to time pressures at home. In some previous years I was ending up doing more reviews than there were weeks in the year and it was, honestly, exhausting. I started missing diary dates, getting things out of order, and on a couple of occasions I let a couple of brands down on dates. I decided I needed to eas...

OK, yes, 2025 was a ukulele year I wanted more focus on the value end of the scale. But it is now December and we all need a treat ahead of Christmas don't we? This is the Kiwaya KPT-F Tenor.

Kiwaya are a Japanese brand that I have reviewed many times before, but mainly in their more common soprano varieties. They've always done extremely well on here and exude that trademark Japanese precision and quality to their builds. I love them myself, and freely admit that sounds a bit biased from the off...

Regular readers will be aware of the huge ukulele buzz caused by the Kala Pan Pacific Soprano recently, introduced for their 20th Anniversary. Well it wasn't just that soprano that they created for the birthday. This is the new 20th Anniversary Koa Baritone.

As I say, alongside the Pan Pacifics, Kala also did a limited run of a bunch of other 20th Anniversary ukuleles in concert through to baritone scale. There are a couple of spruce tops and a concert, tenor and baritone with solid Hawaiian Koa ...

Not so long ago I took a look at my first ukulele from the new brand TOM. Well they got back in touch and asked me to look at one of their more affordable models. This is the TOM AM3-C Concert.

That first one I looked at was the TUT-680M - a classy looking tenor that did rather well on the review bench. This one is much more affordable and simple and comes in this concert flavour and also, I believe, a tenor, a soprano and a sopranino.

SUMMARY VIDEO REVIEW
This model line are made from s...

Sensing something of a ukulele theme for rope inlays lately, say hello to the Cordoba 25T Tenor Ukulele.
I've had a few Cordoba ukuleles on this review site over the years, and they have all been largely competent, but just haven't quite lit that flame with me to really fall in love with one. They are a US based company (since bought by Yamaha) originally most well known for Spanish guitars but have been making ukuleles for many years now too. Their largely numerical model numbering system see th...

A ukulele I am utterly delighted to be able to bring you this week. This is the limited edition Kala 20th Anniversary Pan Pacific Deluxe Soprano Ukulele. Hubba Hubba.
I first learned about these from a video Alex Beds made at the Southern Ukulele Store when he visited the Kala stand at NAMM this year and I was immediately spellbound at an instrument that ticks all my boxes. This is the 20th year for Kala and this is one of a few ukes that they decided to put out to celebrate that milestone. Now.....

Back into soprano ukulele territory this week and an interesting uke material I have reviewed a few times before. This is the Laka VUS100B Bamboo Soprano.
Laka are a brand that i've always had a bit of time for yet have confused me. I've reviewed a couple before that have done quite well and played some others I liked. At one time they also made the Joe Brown signature model which was really rather good. On the other hand for a brand part of the large JHS stable, they just don't seem to have that...

In my bid to feature more value ukuleles this year, let's take another trip down the Amazon. This is the Lekato Concert Ukulele.
Lekato are one of those Chinese brands on the 'Zon' that make a dizzying array of music stuff, from cables to effects pedals, from drums to amplifiers. Oh, and they make ukuleles like this one.  As per the introduction this is a value ukulele, so yes it's cheap. And no, I don't recommend buying ukes on Amazon, especially not the cheaper end ones due to the roulette game...

A new ukulele brand for me this week. This is the TODO MUSIC Mount Fuji concert ukulele.
TODO MUSIC are a Chinese brand who recently got in touch with me about looking at one of their instruments. I don't know a great deal about the brand, but know they are shipping into European stores now as well as having an Amazon presence and their own shopfront. They've also been doing the rounds at some European festivals at which they seem to have gone down well. As a new brand who very politely got in to...