jasonisin1
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- Joined
- Apr 19, 2012
- Messages
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Hello all,
I travel a lot for business and if I can I try to hit the local Uke shop of the town I’m in. While my playing is crap, I have severe UAS. I am slowly fixing my playing as I practice, practice, practice but the UAS will never go away.
So recently I was in Sacramento California and visited the Strum Shop in Roseville. http://thestrumshop.com/ If you’re in the area they were great, I liked the shop a lot and they gave me a great discount.
When I called to see what they carried before I came over they told me they carried Kamoa so I immediately asked if they had an Evolve. He told me they did and I said I would make sure to visit them to check it out. (Unbelievable!)
I went in and there it was a Cherry Burst E3 Evolve! This is one of the new models that are supposed to be available. It doesn’t have the flashy wood of the Evolve but the paint job is awesome. The changes as I understand it are in the construction and support of the bridge and newer pickups. It now has internal bracing that supports it and is glued to the back. It looks very solid to me.
It has Seymour Duncan pickups, I am not sure but from the Seymour Duncan website they look like the Hot Rails SHR-1 pickups. (I have no idea what this means but one of you might.)
Now on to sound:
Playing unplugged it sounds like you would expect it to, much quieter but it still had pretty great tone. I think I can get away with playing it around my wife without driving her crazy. Fingerpicking was cool and the steel strings weren’t as bad as I thought they would be.
I don’t currently even own an amp so I borrowed one from my buddy while I research what to buy. My friend lent me an awesome Vox amp and base cabinet. (I instantly thought that looks like massive over kill to me but just looking at it I was super excited about plugging the tiny Uke into the huge setup. It was hysterical really.)
So there I was no idea how to use an amp other than the brief instructions my friend gave me. I plugged in the amp turned it on and waited 20 seconds like he told me for the tubes to warm up then turned everything else on and plugged in the Uke. I turned the gain and volume to the middle on the amp and spun the volume knobs on the Evolve and strummed a C chord. CRAZY LOUD, my 5 year old daughter told me I was “freaking her out” because it was so loud. My mistake, I turned down the gain and volume so it wasn’t at 125 decibels anymore and started fooling around.
It was Awesome, it’s a lot different from my other Ukes. If I have the settings right it sounds like a very loud concert Ukulele, which is what it is. Then if I fiddle the dials a little I sound like Ozzy. Let me restate what I said it’s not Awesome it’s Freaking AWESOME! I don’t want to sound like Ozzy all the time I just like fooling around.
I love it and it opens a huge new world of stuff for me to learn. That’s one of the most exciting parts for me.
Here is a great review done by someone who plays way better than I do so you can hear it. I am attaching photos of mine. I hope lots of you out there in UU land go down this road as well as traditional Uke because this steel string electric is just cool.
My hat is off to Kamoa for producing an awesome instrument.
http://liveukulele.com/reviews/kamoa-e3-evolve-electric-steel-string-ukulele/
I travel a lot for business and if I can I try to hit the local Uke shop of the town I’m in. While my playing is crap, I have severe UAS. I am slowly fixing my playing as I practice, practice, practice but the UAS will never go away.
So recently I was in Sacramento California and visited the Strum Shop in Roseville. http://thestrumshop.com/ If you’re in the area they were great, I liked the shop a lot and they gave me a great discount.
When I called to see what they carried before I came over they told me they carried Kamoa so I immediately asked if they had an Evolve. He told me they did and I said I would make sure to visit them to check it out. (Unbelievable!)
I went in and there it was a Cherry Burst E3 Evolve! This is one of the new models that are supposed to be available. It doesn’t have the flashy wood of the Evolve but the paint job is awesome. The changes as I understand it are in the construction and support of the bridge and newer pickups. It now has internal bracing that supports it and is glued to the back. It looks very solid to me.
It has Seymour Duncan pickups, I am not sure but from the Seymour Duncan website they look like the Hot Rails SHR-1 pickups. (I have no idea what this means but one of you might.)
Now on to sound:
Playing unplugged it sounds like you would expect it to, much quieter but it still had pretty great tone. I think I can get away with playing it around my wife without driving her crazy. Fingerpicking was cool and the steel strings weren’t as bad as I thought they would be.
I don’t currently even own an amp so I borrowed one from my buddy while I research what to buy. My friend lent me an awesome Vox amp and base cabinet. (I instantly thought that looks like massive over kill to me but just looking at it I was super excited about plugging the tiny Uke into the huge setup. It was hysterical really.)
So there I was no idea how to use an amp other than the brief instructions my friend gave me. I plugged in the amp turned it on and waited 20 seconds like he told me for the tubes to warm up then turned everything else on and plugged in the Uke. I turned the gain and volume to the middle on the amp and spun the volume knobs on the Evolve and strummed a C chord. CRAZY LOUD, my 5 year old daughter told me I was “freaking her out” because it was so loud. My mistake, I turned down the gain and volume so it wasn’t at 125 decibels anymore and started fooling around.
It was Awesome, it’s a lot different from my other Ukes. If I have the settings right it sounds like a very loud concert Ukulele, which is what it is. Then if I fiddle the dials a little I sound like Ozzy. Let me restate what I said it’s not Awesome it’s Freaking AWESOME! I don’t want to sound like Ozzy all the time I just like fooling around.
I love it and it opens a huge new world of stuff for me to learn. That’s one of the most exciting parts for me.
Here is a great review done by someone who plays way better than I do so you can hear it. I am attaching photos of mine. I hope lots of you out there in UU land go down this road as well as traditional Uke because this steel string electric is just cool.
My hat is off to Kamoa for producing an awesome instrument.
http://liveukulele.com/reviews/kamoa-e3-evolve-electric-steel-string-ukulele/
one of the store owners in San Diego where they also carry them mentioned the Evolve was being knocked off by another company out of China.
