We have been talking to David Iriguchi at iriguchiukuleles.com and he has kindly allowed us to tell you some more about this amazing bass ukulele, the Cthukulele… The words and pictures that follow are his, but we are sure you will agree, this is an amazing looking instrument. The Chtukulele will make her public debut at the 2013 Reno Ukulele Festival in Sparks Nevada, April 11-14, 2013.
When we decided to make a bass ukulele we decided to go all in and make a true freak. We wanted a creature not of this world. This is that creature. The Chtukulele…
Hewn from a single split piece of spalted maple the Chtukulele’s body is an ergonomic masterpiece (how’s that for some nice hyperbole!). The semi-hollow body is extremely rigid and gives the Padauk soundboard a solid foundation to vibrate off of.
The Cthukulele gets her name from H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulu, another creature not of this Earth.
From the top you can see that the body is just two inches deep and it is nothing but smooth curves. The top edge where your right arm rests is part of the body and not part of the soundboard so your arm does not rest on the soundboard.
Whether you are sitting or standing the Chtukulele is very comfortable to hold. It sits very close to your body and all the contact points are smooth and rounded.
This end view shows the Cthukulele’s unusual profile. The angled side (to the right in this image) rests flat on your thigh when sitting and playing. Extraordinary comfort.
The spalted Maple has a wonderful ‘dirty’ patina. The small port in the lower bout is to insert the strings. The strings pass through the soundboard and easily fit through this port.
The Chtukulele uses dual “Jet Intake” soundholes. These ports are carved into the upper bout. With this design we don’t have to cut a hole in the soundboard. Because of this, the soundboard is suported all the way around which allows us to lighten up the bracing. Plus it looks wicked cool, right? It is this view that gives the Chtukulele it’s name.
The ports are quite deep and there is also a channel below the end of the fretboard. We are currently designing an acoustic semi-hollow ukulele with these Jet Ports.
There is a cutout in the body to give access to the highest frets. The Maple neck is inset into the body about 9mm.
The adjustable bridge is our own design. It allows 12mm of compensation adjustment, from -3mm to +9mm. The compensation is very easily adjusted using a 2.5mm allen wrench.
As with our other ukuleles we used a zero fret on the Chtukulele. This allows us to make a much lower profile nut.
The Chtukulele is fretless and has white styrene fret markers. There are also side markers at 3, 5, 7, 9, and 12.
The Maple neck uses our ‘comfort’ profile. It is bladed so that it is slightly thicker at the G-string edge and tapers smoothly to the E-string edge.
The bridge has a very flat appearance and there is a K&K Sound Big Twin pickup installed.
In this view you can see that the arm rest is part of the body and not the soundboard. The bridge adjusters attach to the edge of the bridge and can slide horizontally.
We use standard Hipshot Ultralight tuners instead of the spooled style. A ziptie is used to secure the string in the tuner because those polyurethane strings are slippery little buggers. The zipties work just great though and we like the standard tuners a lot better than the spool style.
So there she is, the evil-looking Cthukulele! A strange creature not of this world.
Specifications:
Type: Semi-hollow, electric bass
Size: Tenor
Body: Hand-carved, Spalted Maple
Soundboard: Padauk
Neck: Maple – medium “comfort” profile
Scale length: 20″
Total # fret markers: 16
Fret markers to the body: 12
Special Features:
Semi-hollow back and sides are hand-carved from a single block of Spalted Maple
Includes K&K Sound Big Twin internal pickup
Dual “Jet Intake” soundholes
Custom adjustable bridge
Hipshot Ultralight tuners
Pahoehoe polyurethane strings
Smile when you play that!™
