Itsy Bitsy meets the iUke

Being a part of the Ruby Ukes Orchestra here in Vancouver as many benefits not the least of which is being among such a large group of ukulele enthusiasts. One of the orchestra members, Marlene, is a big fan of small ukes.  She kindly brought a few of her mini ukes to last night's practice and even lent me one to play at home. So now I have a perfect opportunity to compare the iUke with the original short scale IB.

The iUke fretboard is a tad over 5 1/2 inches long and at this length I found it a fairly manageable uke to play.

The original IB's slightly under 4 inch scale, in contrast and has already been noted, is just a bit too short for comfortable micro uk'ing.

So, with the next generation of IB already off the drawing board and the first build ready to be lauched, going for the longer 9 inch scale is going to make this model a fine player and most likely even more comfy to fret than the iUke.

The build of the IB's is so much more robust than the China made iUke which will encourage ukers to consider the IB as an excellent choice to take travelling, for example.

The iUke does come with a nice custom gig bag: 

That said, I am going down to Bellingham tomorrow to the Jake Shimabukuro concert and I haven't had any problems tucking the IB safely into my medium sized messanger bag. Have IB will travel!