NAD, not to be confused with NUD

NAD = New amp day. My Roland AC-33 arrived today. What a cool amp. Not too big, but not too small. Some new features for me to play around with. My uke group is doing our annual "Ukestock" 60s jam this Saturday, and I signed up for one of the open mic spots. I'm doing a chord melody solo of "Bridge Over Troubled Water." I experimented with the Ambience/Reverb and Chorus settings until I got the sound I wanted, and it sounds really nice. Now to see how it translates to our room at the library, and if I can play without a brain fart.

This amp has a looper, which I've never used before. That should be interesting.

New toys are sure fun!

Congrats RGirl. I'm a gadget freak, seems like you made a great purchase. It's always interesting to me the coincidence of a post that relates to a situation I'm in. I was just asked today to join a splinter group of 6 people from my uke group for a gig and bring my live gear, which is mostly brand new and includes 6 mics and stands, 6 wireless mic adapters, a compact 8 XLR channel mixer board, all going to my Carvin MB15 200w combo amp. (Or is this too off subject?)

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This is Michael Kohan in Los Angeles, Beverly West near the Beverly Center
9 tenor cutaway ukes, 5 acoustic bass ukes, 11 solid body bass ukes, 11 mini electric bass guitars (Total: 35)

• Donate to The Ukulele Kids Club, they provide ukuleles to children in hospital music therapy programs. www.theukc.org
• Member The CC Strummers: YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/CCStrummers/video, Facebook: www.facebook.com/TheCCStrummers

I've only got the one 'proper' amp, a Roland Micro Cube, seldom use it though, as I found that I just prefer acoustic - but it was sure fun to play with all the built in effects, especially with my little steel string Clearwater tenor uke.

Congratulations, great choice. I often shake my head when someone has a high quality uke and pick up then gets a cheap terrible sounding amp. You on the other hand have purchased a highly respected piece of gear that you won’t regret spending the money on. Well done and enjoy, tell us how your open mic performance goes and how the amp works out

There are lots of choices out there for medium sized amps. For a long time I had thought about a Fishman Loudbox Mini, but then I got to use a friend's Rolnad AC-33 for a couple hours. The Roland is 30W, weighs about 10-11 pounds, can run on AC or batteries, can support a uke plus a mic, and has cool features. The Fishman would have been 60w, bigger & heavier. Not as "portable," and overkill for what I wanted. I'll report back on how it works at the jam. We'll be at a different library than our usual one, so I don't know anything about the room. I do know that my song sounded awesome when I practiced it last night with the chorus feature , and the reverb/ambience dial adjusted. I'll be playing my Moon Bird.

kohanmike said:

Congrats RGirl. I'm a gadget freak, seems like you made a great purchase. It's always interesting to me the coincidence of a post that relates to a situation I'm in. I was just asked today to join a splinter group of 6 people from my uke group for a gig and bring my live gear, which is mostly brand new and includes 6 mics and stands, 6 wireless mic adapters, a compact 8 XLR channel mixer board, all going to my Carvin MB15 200w combo amp. (Or is this too off subject?)

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This is Michael Kohan in Los Angeles, Beverly West near the Beverly Center
9 tenor cutaway ukes, 5 acoustic bass ukes, 11 solid body bass ukes, 11 mini electric bass guitars (Total: 35)

• Donate to The Ukulele Kids Club, they provide ukuleles to children in hospital music therapy programs. www.theukc.org
• Member The CC Strummers: YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/CCStrummers/video, Facebook: www.facebook.com/TheCCStrummers

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My main uke group is playing more for audiences, so we've been acquiring more gear this past year. Not nearly as much has you have, but more mics & stands, and better amps & speakers. Baby steps.

Amps seem like another whole world. There are so many kinds and so many adjustments. I have a little Fender Frontman 10G that I got mostly to use with my electric Vorson. That's plenty for me.

Have fun with the Roland! Part of fun is learning how the uke and the amp work together to get the sound you want. Might want to write down the settings you like for the song's your going to be playing so you can make quick adjustments as needed quickly. The Roland, the Fishman, and a couple of others were on my short list. I ended up with the Fishman. Now I'm looking at peddles...........another hole to go down,.....

mjh42 said:

Have fun with the Roland! Part of fun is learning how the uke and the amp work together to get the sound you want. Might want to write down the settings you like for the song's your going to be playing so you can make quick adjustments as needed quickly. The Roland, the Fishman, and a couple of others were on my short list. I ended up with the Fishman. Now I'm looking at peddles...........another hole to go down,.....

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I haven’t gotten too crazy on pedals so far. I have a Boss tuner pedal. It functions as my on/off/mute switch when I play at church via the PA system. We are up & down a lot during the service & it mutes my uke when I take it off and put it on my stand. It’s nice to have it muted to tune as well. I think this will be useful with the looper. I also have a Boss AD-2 pre-amp pedal that I was experimenting with at church for some reverb/ambience enhancement. My ukes have MiSi active pickups, so I don’t really need a pre-amp. I can’t tell that the Boss AD-2 does all that much to my sound????? Good idea about writing down the settings for different songs. My aging brain needs all the help it can get.

I have a Boss (Sister company of Roland) Acoustic Singer live. It has many of the same features as the Roland, plus a harmonizer. It's a lot of fun, but I would prefer the controls to be facing the back instead of the front. So the amp could be in front of the player/singer.

In honor of this thread I plugged in my 75 watt Blackstar and my fuzz pedal (the overdrive and flanger goes without saying) and...well, you can guess the kind of trouble I can get into. Even ukuleles can get loud. Even just playing some modes sounds pretty awesome.

Well "Ukestock" was a blast. Who knew that "White Room" could sound so awesome on ukuleles. We were flush with amps today. All brands & sizes. I think my Roland AC-33 was about the smallest of the bunch, followed closely by a Fishman Loudbox Mini that another one of our solo players used for his open mic piece. We had a couple visiting artists today ......a gal on upright base, and a guy playing a resonator guitar. It was a wonderful two hours. My "Bridge Over Troubled Water" went well and sounded fantastic on my new amp. I had it set on one of the chorus modes, with the ambience dial up just a little. One person said it sounded magical.

I'm very happy with this amp. Being able to power by battery was a real life saver today. With so much powered equipment, electric outlets to plug into were at a premium & of course not in handy locations. I just plunked my amp on a table in the good spot, turned it on, and played.