Need help solid body electric uke.

I have a Kona Blaster soprano. Never heard of them being built from spare parts but there are variations such as bridge choice and different pickups used. Perhaps the 30.06 cartridge being used as a bridge or various pickups being used over the years has given this impression.

My KB is a soprano model shaped like a canned ham white psychedelic 3D sticker front with the carpet back. A 30.06 cartridge bridge with a single coil stratocaster guitar pickup instead of the 4 pole bass pickup and adjustable bridge shown in the one pictured above.

The lighter a set of steel guitar strings the thinner they are. A rule from body piercing is the thinner the wire the more of a cutting action it has on the strings. Having played some electric and acoustic guitar in the past you will build up calluses on your left or fretting hand. Some get along fine playing with fingers on steel strings others suggest and use aLaska picks.

Honestly I dont play it much, either the tension using light guitar strings is higher than my old Warlock using 10's and every other ukulele I own or its been so long since I had any calluses that it just feels this way. After playing a nylon stringed uke with a piezo the steel stringed magnetic pickup uke sounds dead and choked to my ear. The only benefit I could see is the presets on my RP360 made for guitar did not need any tweaking to sound passable.

The KonaBlaster needed a good shielding with foil tape as well to stop interference. I have to look around here I remember buying a hotter dual rail humbucker pickup to swap in but lost interest between the steel strings and the compressed sound. The pickup might just wake up the sound a bit.

Maybe I dont play enough nylon to build up my fingertips maybe its just a soprano thing.

~peace~
 
As far as I know Konablasters do not have truss rods either, whereas the Risa's and Vorsons do.

This is one of the factors that bothers me.

Sure, one could argue that a truss rod is not necessary at the low tension an electric uke strings are set.
However, from a setup point of view, it really does contribute to getting things fine-tuned.
 
Whatever you want it to be.
I think there is some fear about steel strings being hard on the fingers. That may be the case for acoustic steel string guitars, which typically do have a higher string gauge.


Tension of steel string ELECTRICS are highly variable depending on your preferences and what gauge strings are used.
Typically, you can get it to have relatively low-tension that is comfortable to play and easy to press.


In fact, it is nylon/nylgut/fluorocarbon stringed instruments like ukuleles which REQUIRE a higher tension for their acoustic properties and the nature the strings vibrate.

So to answer that question - it can be as high tension or low tension as you desire.
If you get a good, low-ish setup on it, I think it is not a dramatic change from regular ukuleles.

Thanks for your input - I only had experience of steel strings on an acoustic guitar - painful!
 
You are interested in steel string electrics?
Yeah not sure if I want to go that route or not. Honestly I really liked the Teton I tried, but wondering if it would be worth it to have intonation issues fixed AND replace the pickup? I'd have to take it in to a luthier for all that. After everything I'd probably end up spending more $ than the Fluke with hard case. The downside (for my purposes) with the Pono is that the chambered body does produce a sound even when unplugged- that would sorta defeat the purpose of having something quiet to play at night.
 
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Arrrrg. Decisions, decisions. Seems at this point the top two contenders would be either the SB Fluke (still growing on me) or the Konablaster Deluxe. Similar in price, both made in USA, and both have a dedicated following of enthusiasts. I like the Fluke b/c it uses nylon strings and therefore may resemble my acoustics more in terms of feel and sound, however, the body shape of this particular Konablaster Deluxe is more the style I'm looking for, and maybe I might actually enjoy the steel strings, adjustable bridge, and magnetic pickup after all. There is something very intriguing about it. If only the Teton was more reliable in terms of quality control it would be a slam dunk. *sigh* This all started with a simple desire to be able to play something at night with headphones on....
Fluke vs. Konablaster.jpg
 
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Yeah not sure if I want to go that route or not. Honestly I really liked the Teton I tried, but wondering if it would be worth it to have intonation issues fixed AND replace the pickup? I'd have to take it in to a luthier for all that. After everything I'd probably end up spending more $ than the Fluke with hard case. The downside (for my purposes) with the Pono is that the chambered body does produce a sound even when unplugged- that would sorta defeat the purpose of having something quiet to play at night.

The "chambered" body of the Pono isnt for acoustic purposes - it is chambered to make the tone sound more natural thru an amp. The Pono should be as quiet as the other solid body electric.

The only suggestion so far that is too loud would be the Godin, which is semi-acoustic
 
Ah OK cool. See when I read this on HMS's The Ukulele Site I interpreted it to mean that it might wake up the sleeping person down the hall (small quarters here) "The body is chambered for extra resonance while plugged in, and enough acoustic sound to enjoy and practice with it unplugged."
 
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Every solid body uke has "enough volume" to practice with.

The Pono electric will be approximately as loud as the Teton unplugged.

The extra resonance refers to the plugged in sound
 
Now this looks promising... Don't know much about them yet though.

Arrrrg. Decisions, decisions. Seems at this point the top two contenders would be either the SB Fluke (still growing on me) or the Konablaster Deluxe.

I think either would be a great choice but obviously quite different. I have a custom KonaBlaster baritone that I like a lot. Great fun. Never tried a soprano but I would definitely recommend the adjustable bridge though. I suppose the standard model has a certain kitsch appeal but I'd rather have the control (even though I don't know that I've ever touched mine yet)
 
The "chambered" body of the Pono isnt for acoustic purposes - it is chambered to make the tone sound more natural thru an amp. The Pono should be as quiet as the other solid body electric.

The only suggestion so far that is too loud would be the Godin, which is semi-acoustic

I've owned both the Pono SB and the Godin MultiUke, and I found the Pono to be louder than the Godin, and both too loud for near silent nighttime practice (hence, both have been sold off.). They were both extraordinary instruments aside from that, though I favored the Godin.

For a quite nighttime practice uke the Sojing silent uke was good, though I agree with kissing, not the best quality. I never plug it in. The Risa tenor stick uke I recently bought is my favorite for nighttime practice, though with the body size and squareish neck profile, it takes some getting used to.
 
At times like this I'm reminded of that old quote "the bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten". If I'm going to get an electric, why skimp on the parts that matter most, eh?
I think I'm gonna pass on the Teton, refigure my budget, & probably go for the Fluke. While the Konablaster is a brilliant design, the Fluke ticks the most boxes for me personally.
 
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The Fluke is excellent quality and value! Good decision
 
I've owned both the Pono SB and the Godin MultiUke, and I found the Pono to be louder than the Godin, and both too loud for near silent nighttime practice (hence, both have been sold off.). They were both extraordinary instruments aside from that, though I favored the Godin.

For a quite nighttime practice uke the Sojing silent uke was good, though I agree with kissing, not the best quality. I never plug it in. The Risa tenor stick uke I recently bought is my favorite for nighttime practice, though with the body size and squareish neck profile, it takes some getting used to.

Wow thanks for that! I would not have suspected the Pono SB to be so loud!
 
thanks for posting this - especially as someone who has personal experience with both.

I've owned both the Pono SB and the Godin MultiUke, and I found the Pono to be louder than the Godin, and both too loud for near silent nighttime practice (hence, both have been sold off.). They were both extraordinary instruments aside from that, though I favored the Godin.

For a quite nighttime practice uke the Sojing silent uke was good, though I agree with kissing, not the best quality. I never plug it in. The Risa tenor stick uke I recently bought is my favorite for nighttime practice, though with the body size and squareish neck profile, it takes some getting used to.
 
Indeed. I had personally owned the Godin - and that thing is not silent! It's almost an acoustic-uke.

It is surprising that the Pono SB is even louder than that. Looks are deceiving indeed.
 
The Ukulele Site (Hawaii Music Supply) has lots of good solid body ukes and they do setup. I really like their sound sample of the Godin Tenor...
 
Indeed. I had personally owned the Godin - and that thing is not silent! It's almost an acoustic-uke.

It is surprising that the Pono SB is even louder than that. Looks are deceiving indeed.

Exactly! I bought the Pono without having played it, expecting it to be closer to the Sojing volume wise, with that Pono playability and quality. I was dismayed at how loud it was, and tried to damp it by stuffing the electronics cavity with a rag, but to no avail. I had the spruce godin MultiUke and found it had a "rounder" tone than the pono, while the acacia pono was livelier. I'm not sure how much of the tone to chalk up to the strings.
 
What Kissing and others have said is all very good advice that I agree with - i.e., dont get a cheap instrument here for this purpose.

With a solid-body electric uke, there is no 'body' to resonate the sound, so all you really have is the pickup, and a cheap pickup is going to sound very bad given the price of the cheaper models.

I know that I'm late to this thread but wanted to add my own experience...

I bought the Sojing Tenor on Amazon for $155 shipped. I knew it would need work, and that is exactly WHY I got it as opposed to some of the other, more expensive models.

I wanted something I could customize and spending $300+ and that and more in parts for the customization was going to be ridiculous.

None of the other nylon/piezo solid-body electric ukes where exactly what I wanted, but The Fluke SB and Godin MultiUke were close, but price was too high for me.

I am a bit different in my instrument selection than most folks, for if I cannot easily customize it, or 'hack' it, I find that it is of little use to me as a musical tool. My needs typically do NOT match average folks.

The short version of the Sojing is that I replaced the crappy preamp and pickup and replaced it with a Mi-Si ($115), which required a bit of woodworking, and then had to do a FULL setup while replacing both the nut and saddle with Nubone blanks that had to be fine tuned to perfect the action and intonation. THEN, for headphones and effects, completely UNTETHERED from any other device, I have a Korg Pandora PXMINI ($99) actually MOUNTED on the lower bout, which is powered by a USB battery pack. The PXMINI (sadly discontinued) is the 'pocket' version of this effect pedal: http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/PandoraSTBlk

and YES I have all kinds of the attachments/interfaces to hook this to an iPad/iPhone, but I wanted to be completely independent of such devices for practice in headphones, while STILL having access to a tuner, drum loops and other effects.

Also to get the Sojing to fit in ANY standard Uke Crazy canvas covered poly-foam style case, using a simple hacksaw, I had to cut down, sand, and refinish both of the 'horns' by about 2" after conducting an EXTENSIVE and months-long search to find a case without success.

From the factory, the Sojing will NOT fit in a standard figure-eight shaped tenor or baritone case, NOR any 'cutaway' or Les Paul shaped, NOR any mando, viola or other similar sized case without completely stripping out the padding and rebuilding it. I simply dont have the tools or the space for that.

I did these hacks to the Sojing over 2 yrs ago, and have been very happy with it and play it almost every other day when I have to be quiet.

I have no regrets and enjoyed working on this to make it exactly as I wanted.

One day I plan to get the Graph-Tech piezo saddles and their preamp and MIDI converter, and will then be able to use this uke for MIDI input into the computer or iPad, but that's another ~$350 or so that I cannot spend for just yet.

Here is a photo of this instrument:

sdrsDLy.png


Out of the box the Sojing will disappoint, unless you are willing to commit the time to 'fix it up'. If you want to just open the box and play music, you are MUCH better off to buy something else, such as the Pono TE/CE, Fluke SB or Godin MultiUke.

If you want the QUIETEST uke for late night practice without requiring extensive setup, as per all that has been said in this thread and elsewhere on UU, you are likely to find that the RISA solid stick uke with a VOX Amplug is going to be the best way to accomplish that as well.
 
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