Do different ukes with the same kind of pickup sound the same?

kissing

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I'm just a little curious about something.

There are a lot of ukes out there lately that come with the Shadow active pickup. The ukes themselves are highly variable, ranging from archtops to all solids, etc etc.

But would these different ukes sound pretty much the same through an amp or a mixer/PA system?

For instance, the Kala Archtop is marketed as a "Jazz Uke".
Is the sound actually particularly jazzy when played amplified? Or would it sound the same as any other Tenor uke with the same Shadow pickup?

Furthermore, would a Soprano uke with the same pickup as a Tenor uke sound much different when amplified? I take it that undersaddle pickups don't really depend on the size of the body, but mostly on the strings... :confused:

I have a Risa uke-solid Soprano, which is basically an electric uke (non-acoustic) with a passive Shadow pickup.
Would an acoustic uke with the same passive Shadow pickup sound the same as far as electronic sound goes?
 
This you probably know: The construction of an instrument has a big influence on how it vibrates, which in turn influences how it sounds.

You probably know this, too: The job of a contact pickup is to capture whatever vibrations pass by wherever it's mounted and turn them into an electrical signal which can be amplified.

If you put those two factoids together, the construction of an instrument has a big influence on what comes out of the pickup. So no, the same pickup won't sound the same on two different instruments. If you put a pickup on a great-sounding uke, you're going to get the best sound the pickup can muster. Take that same pickup and put it on a strung cinder block ("the other CBU" :D) and you won't get a good sound at all because it isn't going to vibrate much.

--MArk
 
Yeah but I think I understand the question as being, apart from such a radical variable as the difference between a great sounding - say custom - uke and a cinder block, is: would mildly similar ukes - say kala jazz archtop and Risa soprano (or maybe even tenor) sound similar into a say, soundboard? My own interests aren't quite there as I mic everything I record or play live, but I think that the question is legitimate.
 
Ahh thanks for the responses.

I guess there's only one way to find out for real.




but every uke with electric pickups and test them all :D
 
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