Kala U-Bass Questions

Does the Kala U-Bass only sound good plugged in, or does it sound good unamplified too?

If yes, that is amazing, with such a short scale!

Since it has a baritone uke body and scale, I am wondering--


Can I get a crummy Rogue baritone uke I have, put the U-Bass strings on it, tune it, and thereby turn it into a bass? Of course not as good as the U-Bass, but will it work?

The U-Bass strings look very thick. Will they even fit through normal bari uke tuners? Do they fit the nut and saddle, and bridge?

What do you think?

Anyone tried this?

Thanks for your input.

Happy New Year!

The Ubass sounds good unplugged, but it's not very loud at all. Loud enough to practice alone but not loud enough to hang with other instruments. If you think about it, bass notes are BIG notes. You either have to have a BIG instrument to make them loud. Think stand up bass or tuba, or an amplifier to make the small instrument louder.

As far as putting the strings on a baritone goes, they wouldn't fit the holes in the bridge. I would just save up the bux and get the real deal. Maybe look for a used one.

I also own a Kala U-Bass and I agree completely with cb56. Plugged into my little 20w Hartke practice amp it sounds awesome, I am really impressed with the 4 pz p.ups in the bridge, great response on each of the strings.


You would also need to get some of the hipshot tuners for your baritone as the strings are pretty darn big and may not fit on the headstock.

cb56 said:

As far as putting the strings on a baritone goes, they wouldn't fit the holes in the bridge.

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Yes, I have seen a U-Bass since, and those strings would not fit in a regular bari bridge or tuners.

What about though, if one wanted to experiment a little with regular strings (not the u-bass strings) to turn a bari into a bass? (Granted, not as good as the U-bass, and not something one would gig with, but just to play around with?

Are there any conceivable strings one could use (super hard tension?) that could possibly be tuned to the notes of a bass? (Again, not necessarily good-sounding, and certainly not much volume, but any that one might think could possibly work?

Would it be best for all four to be wound?

If that would be impossible with any strings (other than u-bass, which would not attach to a regular bari), how about bass an octave higher, in other words tuned as the bottom four strings of a guitar (instead of the regular bari tuning, the top 4 strings of a guitar)? I know that will work, as I tried it with the regular Aquila EBGD (1st to 4th) set I put on. (Which feels way too tense at EBGD--the action is pretty bad on the Rogue bari.) So this (octave-higher bass) works with a regular Aquia bari set, but I wonder if it might work better with any other strings? Any suggestion for what might be the best strings for that usage, if the correct-octave bass would be impossible?

Thanks in advance.

UKESOCRAZY....It looks like you have to many wraps on the A and D tuners. I read that if it gets down to the headstock it can bind and break the tuner. The is some dicussion about this on the UBASS forum and talk bass forum.

maikii said:

If that would be impossible with any strings (other than u-bass, which would not attach to a regular bari), how about bass an octave higher, in other words tuned as the bottom four strings of a guitar (instead of the regular bari tuning, the top 4 strings of a guitar)?

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Professor Peter and Doctor Dick from the Netherlands do just this. They use a "bassolele" which is a baritone uke strung like the bottom four string of a guitar, one octave higher than a standard bass. Since the uke is pitched so high, it actually works pretty well. I know they use the bottom four string of a classical guitar set to achieve this. You can see Doctor Dick playing the bassolele in a couple of these videos. The instrument used in the videos is actually a cuatro, but they also use a baritone uke for the same purpose.

- Steve

Yes, it is possible to convert a Rogue baritone into a u-bass. I just did. It can actually be done with very few modifications to bridge, nut and tuners. Once I find out how, I'll post pictures and a small 'tutorial'.

Jens

Here's my attempt at posting pictures and 'tutorial':

The nut is about 42 mm wide. The strings are so fat that it is important that you measure the distance of free space between strings rather than center-to-center-measurements. I have 7 mm between strings which leaves about 2mm outside of the e- and g-strings.

At the bridge I discovered that the groove behind the saddle (where the strings leave the holes they’re tied through) seemed to be in the right position for the bass saddle, so I made a piece of hardwood that fit in there, angled bottom and all. It might be a better idea to rout the groove ‘square bottomed’. This new saddle is wide enough to allow for different compensation for the different strings.
Behind this new saddle I drilled four holes for the strings (down through the bridge and soundboard) –as far back as I dared. Each hole the same size as the string (as close as I could get with metric drills in ½ mm increments).
As I’d rather not make holes in the back of the ‘uke, I had to come up with a way to feed the strings up through these holes. The G-string is easy: I just fed it down through the hole, fished it out through the sound hole, tied a double knot and so on. With the other strings I threaded a thin sewing needle, fed it down the hole, fished it out through the sound hole, stuck it into the end face of the string (I used pliers to make it sit solidly). Then I carefully (with some guidance through the sound hole) pulled the string up through the bridge. It was a bit tricky and took a few attempts for a couple of the strings, but all in all I was amazed how easy it was.
I fitted standard electric bass tuners. The grooves in these were only wide enough for the g-string (and perhaps the d-string), so I drilled the tuner posts to accommodate the wider strings. These strings stretch so much that it would probably be better, easier and cheaper to use really fat old fashioned friction tuners.

I added a simple piezo-buzzer pick-up. It works, but only so-so. I'll have to experiment a bit with where to put it, but I'll probably end up with a commercial under-saddle pick-up. Unplugged it is quiet but fine for practicing.

rlan said:

UKESOCRAZY....It looks like you have to many wraps on the A and D tuners. I read that if it gets down to the headstock it can bind and break the tuner. The is some dicussion about this on the UBASS forum and talk bass forum.

Click to expand...

Thanks rlan, I had taken that picture when I first received the ubass and have since rectified that slightly sloppy setup.

Good to hear. I figured you knew, but just wanted to make sure. Have a great day.
P.S. I love the little bass. What a fun little instrument.

Southcoast Bass Ukulele

We actually have pretty much what Steve is talking about. Tuning is an octave above a standard Bass - still much lower than anything you would find on a ukulele. The only reason we haven't announced it yet is that I wanted to run it through the hands of a couple of our top bass players here in New Orleans for any last minute refinements.

It is also a modification of our Cuatro. The body is a touch bigger than a Baritone. We also have flat wound strings on it which are very nice - smooth as silk! In order to make them work, we had to build in between a Baritone scale and our normal 23" Cuatro Grande scale. Photos here:

http://www.southcoastukes.com/index_files/caraocuatro.htm

Sound is wonderful - we would say more of a Bass "Ukulele" rather than a mini-electric bass.

Dammit.... Now I want one...

That Cuatro looks really nice. I should think that an acoustic bass guitar would suffice, pretty loud unamplified. An Ashbory bass, much cheaper than a U-bass, is a good option too, if you're going to amplify anyway. We're getting one soon. Of course, it doesn't LOOK like a guitar or ukulele.

southcoastukes said:

We actually have pretty much what Steve is talking about. Tuning is an octave above a standard Bass - still much lower than anything you would find on a ukulele. The only reason we haven't announced it yet is that I wanted to run it through the hands of a couple of our top bass players here in New Orleans for any last minute refinements.

It is also a modification of our Cuatro. The body is a touch bigger than a Baritone. We also have flat wound strings on it which are very nice - smooth as silk! In order to make them work, we had to build in between a Baritone scale and our normal 23" Cuatro Grande scale. Photos here:

http://www.southcoastukes.com/index_files/caraocuatro.htm

Sound is wonderful - we would say more of a Bass "Ukulele" rather than a mini-electric bass.

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Are those for sale?

and how much are those.... so cool.

iDavid said:

Are those for sale?

and how much are those.... so cool.

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Should be up on the site in about 3 weeks. Around the same as our Cuatro - $990.00 (binding is extra) though we're looking at a small (hopefully small) price increase.

Are there any sound clips for the Cuatro ? Looks very nice.

why couldnt i just tune my uke to bass tuning?

At the moment we only have sound clips for the full scale Cuatro (bottom of the page).

http://www.southcoastukes.com/index_files/cuatro.htm

When we add this short scale version and name it "Bass Ukulele", we'll have a sound clip for that as well. Can't vouch for how good the playing will be, but you'll be able to hear the sound well.

why couldnt i just tune my uke to bass tuning?

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As Steve mentioned, it is possible to tune a baritone uke an octave higher than bass tuning with guitar strings. The problem is that on a baritone you would need heavy gauge strings to get decent tension. You're also talking about the four largest round wound guitar strings - the 6th especially is a huge, squeaky monster.

This is why, on ocassion, you build an instrument to fit strings, and not the other way around. These flat wounds are thinner and basically have no squeak. Until or unless we build enough Bass Ukuleles to have the strings made especially for us, we just build an instrument with a scale that gives these strings the proper tension (as well as a big, deep body cavity to match the sound).

I wonder though--yes, the bottom four strings are good for their specified notes--on a full-size guitar. one would think that with the much shorter scale of the bari uke, they wouldn't sound so good. wouldn't some super high tension bari strings perhaps work better, to tune to the lower notes?

bassfiddlesteve said:

Professor Peter and Doctor Dick from the Netherlands do just this. They use a "bassolele" which is a baritone uke strung like the bottom four string of a guitar, one octave higher than a standard bass. Since the uke is pitched so high, it actually works pretty well. I know they use the bottom four string of a classical guitar set to achieve this. You can see Doctor Dick playing the bassolele in a couple of these videos. The instrument used in the videos is actually a cuatro, but they also use a baritone uke for the same purpose.

- Steve

Click to expand...

If I were doing it with guitar strings (octave higher) I'd try Elixir strings. The coating really nulls the squeak (one of my pet peeves anyway).

BTW JOP, that bridge is a fantastic idea! I had thought of using the larger slot but did not want to keep the bridge attached and did not really consider doing the strings that way. I was concerned about intonation. I just can't stand fretted instruments that will not play in tune up the neck. How has that worked on your creation? How far up the neck is it in tune?

I'm also converting a Rogue Bari. I removed the bridge (not an easy task) and sanded the whole thing (except the fingerboard). I will make a wood tail piece that sits on the top half way between the end of the body and the new bridge. This will screw into a backing strip through the top and the have recessed holes for the strings to go into. The bridge will float and have a peizo strip under the saddle but once I get it to the correct spot and angle I'll mark it and drill a hole for the peizo strip wire to go into the body and to the preamp module (UK-2000). I figure that if the hole in the top is a little over sized I can have a little flexibility to move the bridge if need be and the peizo wire will still go through the base of the bridge and the hole in the top (which will still be under the bridge out of sight).

I am using Ashbory tuners and did need to sand down the peg head as it is too thick. The Ashbory tuners are two piece and the part the string wraps around screws onto the post. This means you have to have some room to prevent binding, and modify two tuners for the E & A strings (flip the button part over) because the Ashbory tuners are 4 on a side not 2 X 2. The E & A tuners will also be turning backwards but for the price and low weight I can live with that.

I think I'll finish it by putting on mahogany stain but very dark. Hopefully I can get an even finish with the wood but it is not high quality and I may have to put more layers of stain in some places than others. If it's dark it should hide some of that.

I'm taking pictures as I go but don't have time to keep up a running build thread so I'll post it all when done.