Playing ukes without pickups live

So my ukulele band is playing a show in Portland on August 30th (@ Mississippi Studios opening for Neutral Uke Hotel for you fellow Portlanders!). None of us have pickups installed in our ukes and I'm wondering if anyone has advice on how to get a good live sound. We have 4 ukes and a melodica. The soundman is probably not used to having to deal with ukulele bands.

Any particular mic choices? I have a Shure SM57 and SM58 that I think would work, but not sure if each instrument should be mic'd. Just wondering if anyone has experience with this.

I've used a clip-on pickup with success, and they are cheap so small investment to experiment with. Allot of times on stage you want to move around a bit and a mic does not work well in this situation but if you'll be sitting the whole time then a mic is fine though you'll need two if you have vocals too.
I got mine locally for $11 but here's one online for $4.99: http://www.uxcell.com/professional-guitar-clip-pickup-pick-wcp60g-black-p-2112.html

I have one of those clip ons that Ahnko described. It works fine. They are passive piezoelectric transducers, so the sound engineer needs to know how to EQ them to minimize the "piezo bark" .As for microphones, a large diaphram condensor mic works well for multiple musicians. Here's a video of us using an MXL-990:

http://www.youtube.com/v/FPCT7_kqA60?fs

http://www.guitarcenter.com/MXL-MXL-990-Condenser-Microphone-with-Shockmount-770693-i1126975.gc

You will need a phantom power supply for it to work:

http://www.guitarcenter.com/Sterling-Audio-PHP1-48V-Phantom-Power-Supply-104402664-i1323358.gc

Another option is to install a pickup for under $10 bucks:

http://www.ukuleleunderground.com/forum/showthread.php?8560-Electrify-your-uke-for-under-10-bucks

Uhh can we have more details about how a band that hasn't performed in any form since the late 90s is performing in Portland?!

Thanks for the input guys. I have the MXL990 also as well as an Audio Technica AT3035 large diaphram condenser. I was just weary of using them live since I've just used them in a studio format. After watching that video I might want to give it a shot. I'd like to try to find a way to get good sound without pickups since I know everyone else isn't going to have pickups either.

rasputinsghost said:

Uhh can we have more details about how a band that hasn't performed in any form since the late 90s is performing in Portland?!

Click to expand...

The band is Neutral UKE Hotel. It's a someone playing Neutral Milk Hotel's "In an Aeroplane over the sea" in it's entirety on uke. www.neutralukehotel.com/