The magic of active DI-Boxes and electric ukes

kissing

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I figured I should get this information out there, since there are many people with electronics installed in their ukes.

Ever felt frustrated that the uke's electronics do not sound all that great through an amplifier or PA system? Especially passive electrics, that seem to sound a bit too weak when plugged in... so you crank up the gain and volume, which results in it sounding harsh and with loud hum?

Well, an active DI-box is an inexpensive device (although some can be costly, depending on quality/features/brand) that pretty much fixes that problem, and makes any passive electric instrument as effective as an active.

In fact, active pickups can benefit from a DI box too, since the output of the active pickups don't always suit the amplifier you're plugging into.

Basically what a DI box does is take in the unbalanced input of the instrument (or anything that you plug into it), and outputs it as a balanced, low-impedence microphone-level signal, which is basically the ideal level to plug into amplifiers and PA systems.

If you haven't tried this already, and you want your passive (and active) electrics to have a more usable output sound - definitely invest in one and notice the difference.

It also minimises that annoying background hum that exists with a lot of passive piezo pickups, as long as you're using high quality cables.

The particular one I use is Behringer's V-TONE active DI.
If you just plug it on without the footswitch activated, it acts as just the DI-box, and doesn't colour the tone or affect the EQ (which you can do on the amp). If you do activate the footswitch, it basically acts as an electric guitar amp simulator generating electric guitar tones.

For acoustic ukes, I find that it's best to just use the neutral DI setting, and I reserve the guitar amp simulator for my steel-string electric instruments.

Behringer_V_TONE_4e8583a8e5598.jpg



Such a device is especially important when trying to plug passive instruments into actual PA systems, as it gives the passive signal the boost it needs to produce a usable tone.
 
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I use the L.R. Baggs Para Acoustic DI, connected to my Pioneer home stereo receiver.
It works Great!...

LRBaggs.jpg
 
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