Does laminate vs. solid body make a lot of difference in SOUND if plugged in?

billten

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I have a been playing around with amplification and am looking to try installing my own UST and pre-amp. I am considering a UST like this:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/181657643036?ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&fromMakeTrack=true

and have a question.

I am thinking of buying an inexpensive laminate uke and using that for my 'plugged in' uke. Will the sound of a solid vs, laminate make any difference to the sound coming out of the plug? I figured as it is taking the signal right off the saddle it would be a minimal difference and i can make all my mistakes on a relatively cheap, but ok/well made laminate instrument.

Any experiences / suggestions are welcome...

Bill
 
Yes it will - but of course there are many other links in the chain to factor in.

A good under saddle pickup / pre amp / amp combination can really work wonders in faithfully reproducing the natural uke sound. Some would beg to differ, but with a good EQ and pickup strip - you can get very close.

In such cases - yes, absolutely the quality of the uke matters as the pickup is trying to faithfully reproduce what the uke is doing.

All of that said - with a cheap pickup solution you are always going to be creating a muddier / electric sound and as such doing that on a high end solid uke would seem crazy to me anyway.

Remember - there are good laminates out there too -some of which beat cheap solid wood ukes hands down.
 
That's actually a somewhat complicated question. It will probably sound pretty good if the pickup is decent. For the same price you can get the K&K Big Island Spot which is designed for uke

http://www.ebay.com/itm/K-K-Sound-B...216aff2&pid=100199&rk=2&rkt=2&sd=300925447459

As for the preamp - why?

If you've been on different stages in different rooms, a preamp will allow you to control your sound (more specifically tone) if your sound engineer can't, or won't. The notch filter on the Baggs Para Acoustic DI does wonders for controlling feedback.

Once my `ukulele player played through a Five.0, he was hooked and wants it in all his stage instruments. Once he played it through a Para Acoustic DI, well, that one is sitting in a brand new box waiting for him.

Honestly, I didn't get the preamp thing with an active pickup, at first. I get it now.

For the OP, all a good pickup will do is make your instrument louder. Crappy instrument unplugged, crappy instrument plugged in, only louder. If you get a bad pickup, well then, educated guesses here we come. . .
 
For the OP, all a good pickup will do is make your instrument louder. Crappy instrument unplugged, crappy instrument plugged in, only louder. If you get a bad pickup, well then, educated guesses here we come. . .

Perfect, that's exactly what i was wondering... Thanks
 
That's actually a somewhat complicated question. It will probably sound pretty good if the pickup is decent. For the same price you can get the K&K Big Island Spot which is designed for uke

http://www.ebay.com/itm/K-K-Sound-B...216aff2&pid=100199&rk=2&rkt=2&sd=300925447459

I use the preamp section of my LR Baggs Para Acoustic DI or one of my Behringer ADI21's to tune out the piezo quack and get a more natural sound, along with suppressing feedback. Some acoustic amplifiers have a switch to compensate for piezoelectric pickups. An active DI, using the preamp section, also corrects the impedance mismatch.

http://www.premierguitar.com/articles/Acoustic_EQ_for_Stage_Part_5_EQing_at_Last

"Issue 2: Piezo quack bouncing off the porta-johns. Ah, the dreaded piezo quack. Cut between .8 and 1.6kHz, to get rid of the nasal tone, and at 5kHz to cut some harsh and brassy tones. Another option is to have a good magnetic soundhole pickup that you can temporarily install in a crunch. Otherwise, surgical cuts in the mids and delicate shavings from the treble range can reduce the quack, and hopefully leave enough brilliance and sparkle in your tone to keep you mostly satisfied"
 
I have a Pono Pro Classic ATSHC-PC with a LR Baggs 5.0 that I had installed. I don't use a preamp, BUT I do go through a Boss 7-band EQ pedal before I send it to our mixer (which I keep flat since I have the EQ). On the Pono, I add a few highs; when I had my Cordoba 20TM-CE going through the EQ I was taking out some of the highs and adding some lows
 
Not sure you had heading in this direction in mind, but I Just had to throw this in........Re: cheap uke plugged in sounds like a loud cheap uke. Some players use their amp's adjustments and effects and/or effects pedals to such a degree that if the audience were blindfolded, they wouldn't know what the hell you were playing.....expensive, cheap, whatever. As long as it has halfway decent intonation and it tuned properly, it can be made to sound "striking" even if not very "uke" sounding.

Here's a good demo of what I'm talking about. Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5NAm-hF36Q

Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUbJVMxr8Gg
 
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