Acoustic vs Amplified

There was a thread titled "Electric Uke Advise Please" by "plucky". He had asked about electric ukes and or having a pick up installed in an acoustic uke so he could change the tone. He mentioned he wanted to make it more mellow. There was some great answers and a lot of very useful information.

It got me thinking that a number of members might not have been exposed to an acoustic uke plugged into an amp and how you can change or colour the sound.

Here is a very simple example of that. The uke is a LfdM low G tenor, pick up is a LR Baggs 5.0 the amp is a Fishman loudbox mini. I recorded this straight into my phone with a Zoom Hn2 recorder plugged in as an external mic, it's raw and unedited.

As a side note this combo amped reproduces the natural acoustic sound very accurately. The Fishman amp has a really clean true sound and the LR Baggs pick up is as good as an undersaddle pickup gets.

https://app.box.com/s/hkja08cmncjnt4xt1qtnt5uuimfi2khy

Thanks, DUD, that was a useful demonstration. I have a LR Baggs pickup in one of my ukes. I have a crap amp though, that I picked up used. I need to get a decent acoustic amp next.

My Mainland has a MiSi pickup. I plug it in quite often, but I don't always play it clean. I'm not looking for the pure ukulele sound. I like to add effects. I like to play sixties and seventies rock and I have a lot of fun with a modeling amp. None of my amps are high dollar acoustic outfits, so I don't think I am actually getting a clean sound from any of them. But that is okay with me because that isn't what I am doing.

Nice comparison! Really good sounding pickup.

Osprey said:

Thanks, DUD, that was a useful demonstration. I have a LR Baggs pickup in one of my ukes. I have a crap amp though, that I picked up used. I need to get a decent acoustic amp next.

Click to expand...

In my ignorance I had just assumed amps all sounded good until I plugged into something else. I've a Pono baritone with Misi pick up that sounds great and very natural through the Fishman loudbox mini. But through another persons cheap amp it sounded on the crappy side.