Kala Product Updates and New Accessories for 2018

With the new year here, we prepare for the biggest music industry trade show of the year: Winter NAMM. We spend much of our year designing new products and updating our current instruments and accessories to be ready in time to debut at Winter NAMM. Over the last year we’ve made updates to many instruments, both Ukulele and U•Bass, and as we get closer to Winter NAMM we will be previewing the new instruments that will be making their debut this year. We thought we’d start it all off by letting you know about the changes and improvements to some old favorites and what new accessories we will be offering in 2018.

We’ve been updating our instruments throughout 2017 in response to new CITES regulations. We slowly phased out Rosewood fretboards and bridges and you’ll see Walnut fretboards and bridges on our import ukes and U•Basses.

On top of changing to Walnut fretboards and bridges, some of our import ukulele were further updated for 2018. The Solid Acacia line now has Maple binding and heel caps instead of Rosewood and the Solid Spruce Triback and Solid Spruce Scallop Tenors now have Pau Ferro back and sides instead of Rosewood. We’ve also updated the preamp in our Archtop line, Solid Mahogany Concert and Tenor Cutaways, and Solid Spruce Top Mahogany Tenor Cutaway to a Kala UK-300TR.

Some of our U•Basses were also updated for 2018. The Exotic Mahogany, All Solid Mahogany, and Solid Spruce Top Mahogany lines now have a beveled headstock and an updated output jack endpin. The Exotic Mahogany line now has more purfling details, the All Solid Mahogany line now has more purfling and rosette details, the Solid Spruce Top Mahogany line now has a herringbone purfling and rosette, and the Rumbler now has an attractive lighter stain, updated output jack endpin, and comes with a higher quality gig bag.

We have some new accessories for 2018 to help take your playing to the next level that we are excited to preview for you.

We’re offering our first rechargeable clip-on tuner, the Kala Klipz Recharge Tuner (coming to the web store soon), available in black, white, or gray. You can choose from Chromatic, Guitar, Bass, Ukulele, and Violin tuning settings on the Recharge to get most any stringed instrument in tune. The arm swivels a full 360° and tilts to find the angle that displays the screen best for you when tuning your instrument.

We also have a new instrument stand available, the Kala Fold Out Instrument Stand, that will hold your uke or U•Bass. The new stand is lightweight and folds down to fit in all Kala hard cases or gig bag pockets. You can take the stand with you or leave it at home, the choice is yours.

Finally, we are offering a new set of Aquila Super Nylgut® strings for Baritone ukes (coming to the web store soon). The set has Super Nylgut B and E strings and Wound D and G strings. Aquila’s Super Nylgut strings are stronger and more pliable, they settle into tune quick and easy, and offer a rich tone great for performance or practice.

We will be previewing more of our new additions in the next couple of weeks leading up to NAMM, so check back to learn more.

What new products are you hoping to see this year? Let us know in the comments.