-=] built-in usb [=-
Namm 2014 on YouTube.... what do you wish the vendors/makers would have put out this year that they didn't?
I'd like to see all the ukulele makers that offer the B-Band preamps for their electronics for their ukes with pickups, allow for the upgrade to the preamp plug/power end that has a USB plug like Luna does with their '
Uke Song' or '
Uke Pearl' models, or like Lanikai does with their
UkeSB line (
and more info here from their 'Lanikai Labs' blog page).
Luna offers an 'upgrade' that you can buy direct from their web site, but they do not specify if it is compatible with any of their 'other' uke preamps, only the ones used in
some of their guitars.
I may send them an email asking if it will work with the current model, or if they plan to offer that 'Heart Song' preamp to their other uke lines.
If I could get a Luna Tenor mahogany Tattoo model with USB, all factory installed, for like $239, I'd buy it in a heartbeat.
Similarly if
The Magic Fluke Company would offer this as an option with the Fluke and Flea models, since they too offer the B-Band preamps and pickups, it would be a no-brainer for me, especially since they seem to be a forward thinking company with their instrument's construction and design.
Kala also seems to be a forward thinking company and it would be nice if they had this option.
The reason for this interest for built-in USB is that if it sounds good, then it could, once and for all answer the question for those that are technically challenged to get a good recording of their ukulele, with a minimum of fuss and be the simplest solution.
If you do a search on recording interfaces or similar there are dozens of discussions, with an infinite number of options, and this would make things real simple for both folks new to recording, and also to folks like myself that have been doing recording for what seems like forever.
Right now it seems the simplest and highest sound quality option seems to be the
Apogee JAM ($99) or their
new 2014 model JAM 96K ($129) with whatever pickup you have installed. They also have the
Apogee Mic ($199) and
new 2014 model Mic 96k ($229). If you dont have a pickup installed, or want to record the acoustic sound of more than one uke, and/or not spend to have a pickup in each instrument, getting one of the above MIC devices might save some money.
A few years ago Behringer made a strat-like guitar with USB, but it never took off because the guitar was poorly made and not a quality instrument according to reviews. Behringer is not a maker of instruments (but rather electronic audio gear), but these other folks listed above are in fact luthiers, and then they just need to offer a slightly different preamp option, so you could probably expect that these instruments would be
more than barely playable out of the box, even with no 'setup'.
Having USB built-in to the uke will also remove the need for a separate audio interface, a separate microphone or noisy guitar cables running an analog signal from your pickup's output jack (USB cable is ALL digital), and any wall-warts and the whole bundle of messy wires needed to get everything going.
With a USB plug on the end, you could go into an iPad with the
Apple iPad Camera Connection Kit (30-pin) -/-
Lightning to USB Camera Adapter , or into an Android device with an
'On-The-Go' (OTG) cable, and of course USB direct into your computer whether it be Mac, Windows or Linux if the USB part of the preamp is '
Class Compliant' for CoreAudio (Mac) or ASIO (Windows) without any drivers. If using Linux (like Debian, Arch or Ubuntu), 'Class Compliant' should be no issue either.
Full spec is here.
This technology
ALREADY exists in a $35 (street price) device called the
Griffin iMic, which I have used both with the Mac and the iPad and it works really well and sounds very good.
It's time for these instrument makers to step it up a little and offer some more options.
Also, I agree with Brad (HippyGuy) that I too would love to see Godin add MIDI to the Multi-Uke, either them or BlackBird to add it to their carbon fiber tenor ukulele, since they too are using the RMC saddle pickups in this model and they have the MIDI function as an option in both of the nylon and steel string guitar lines.
My interest in having MIDI is
not for triggering synths, piano or flute sounds with my instrument, but rather to
capture the MIDI, and then import that into a notation (or tablature) program to get a proper and accurate
transcription of music that
I have written. There are literally dozens of software packages to generate notation from MIDI, and this would help me a great deal in many ways.
This is a great topic. Thanks for the thread.
-Booli
