Croaky Keith
Well-known member
My preferred way to play steel strings is with a light pick. too painful not to, for me.
My preferred way to play steel strings is with a light pick.
I dunno much about steel strings nor magnetic pickups. Are they a problem with reentrant tuning? Aren't the pickups usually slanted, emphasising the bass of the lowest string, the 4th? And isn't the height usually adjustable only from the ends? Or should it have a pickup with the screwable pole pieces?
And of course, the brigde had better be adjustable. And nut maybe changed.
No issues with re-entrant (or any tuning) with regards steel strings and magnetic pickups.
Whether you have the pickups slanted, split, adjusted, screwable, etc is all a matter of preference and decisions the manufacturer has made.
Another way of looking at it is, steel string electric ukuleles are basically small electric guitars.
The same concepts and plethora of design options apply.
At night when everyone is asleep I can plug this into my Line 6 Pocket Pod with head phones and play as loud as I want!
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Yes, but I thought the electric guitar designs were mainly aimed for tunings that run from lowest (4) to highest (1). But like I said, I know little about this.
What has also pointed me in that direction is the fact that I haven't come across any steel string ukulele (nor tenor guitar) that came tuned reentrant. Which is not the case with solid or semi-solid body nylon string ukes.
Maybe the manufacturers think they will more likely be played much like an electric guitar: with a pick, no fingerstyle, campanella nor drone strumming, etc? And the sound will be mofe similar to electric guitar too, without the high notes both beginning and ending the strums.
With steel strings, you do really need a pick, unless you have really strong finger nails.
Many people play steel strings without a pick.
There's no rule - all preference.
Is anyone using a separate preamp, like LR Baggs Venue, with an electric uke? Uke -> preamp -> power amp?
Benefits I could think of: better tone shaping, built-in tuner, boost stomp, effects loop (if it's missing elsewhere?), sound quality (?), perhaps?
Could it also double as a headphone amp?
Sorry, I'm a total dummy with these, who just bought a Clearwater electric uke and trying to figure everything out!
I have two amps - a very small Honey Tone (battery or 120v) and a Fender Frontman 10G that cost $60.
Ok, what different functions they serve for you?
BTW, I dared try the Venue as a headphone amp. I had to crank the volume on the uke and the Venue, and its gain (and the tone controls) southeast. It doesn't clip (there's a meter), but the sound is quite silent. It also comes from the right can only, left is totally silent. I tried with a buch of different headphones, and the result was very similar.
Would it be fair to estimate that there won't be any damage to either of the three (uke, preamp, headphones), but the arrangement is not optimal either? I also have a 25€ micro stack that has a headphone out. Its sound quality is worse, but it's louder (and the gain can create more distortion)...
I'm designing a headless electric concert ukulele. But now I'm struggling in choosing double or single pickup version. Right now I'm with a single on the neck. It seems minimalistic and clean.
But would there be a situation that I'll be missing a bridge pickup for different tone? And is a bridge-only pickup have any advantage over the neck-only?
I play mostly in fingerpicking and tapping style.