FarmerBill
Well-known member
Has anyone built a Base uku? Do you know of plans for one?
Bill
Bill
Base Ukulele
- Thread starter FarmerBill
- Start date
Maybe an autocorrect thing, but did you mean "Bass Ukulele"?
Pukulele Pete
Well-known member
A uke shaped like a fish ?:biglaugh:
Last edited:
Many folks have converted a baritone uke to a uke bass. However, the cost of the parts for the special tuners for the fat poly strings (~$50 from largesound.com). the cost of the pickup needed, and the cost of the donor uke seem to add up pretty close to what you can buy from Rondo Music, like many of us here, starting at $150.
The build quality may not be as refined as a true Kala U-Bass, but for many of us who are not full-time bass players, find it difficult to justify the ~$400 for a Kala, GoldTone or other make.
I got both a solid-body, as well as an acoustic-electric from Rondo, for less than $350 combined when they had a sale. I use mine at home for songwriting, so I do not know how well they would survive the rigors of gigging, but I know that fellow UU brother mruffino has gigged with his regularly in a wedding band scenario and was pretty happy with it.
If you want to build one from scratch, then you already know how labor intensive it is going to be, and it will not be a good strategy if you are simply trying to save money, given that the Rondo bass ukes are so inexpensive, and even with upgrades still cheaper than a Kala Rumbler.
Fellow UU brother kohanmike has like a dozen or so Rondo bass ukes that he has had customized, and each one is different, and cheap enough to be a good foundation for modifications.
If you search for RONDO or HADEAN on the forum here, or look in the BASS section of the forum, you can find the previous conversations...
Hope this helps.
FarmerBill
Well-known member
Yes it should be Bass ukulele.
Booli, Thanks for the help, I like to make ukuleles and thought this would be a new way to go in the shop and playing. I will look up those links.
Booli, Thanks for the help, I like to make ukuleles and thought this would be a new way to go in the shop and playing. I will look up those links.
I should also mention that fellow UU brother Daniel Hulbert has done some amazing one-off builds of various uke and guitar instruments, and a few of them are bass ukes. If you search his post history, he almost always has a demo video and does have some free plans on his web site (which is in his forum signature).
If I have more time later I will give some links to the other things mentioned, but they should not be hard to find in the meantime.
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