Distortion for electric tenor uke?

I am having trouble on properly distorting my tenor uke (solid body). I have it running through a basic distortion pedal into a Marshall half-stack. No matter what I do it always comes out muddy or ear piercing any suggestions. I am in a punk/metal band so I am going for that type of distortion. Thanks!

Is it a metal string solid body ukulele with magnetic pickups (hum buckers or single coil)? Or nylon strings and a piezo pickup? Metal strings and magnetic pickups are better for that sort of thing. Maybe try a different pedal? I have a Ibanez TS9 Tube Screamer and it's on the warm 'n creamy side, so not really a metal sound. Designs with Germanium transistors tend to be more mellow and smooth if you're trying to get away from the bright ear piercing tone, e.g., Dunlop Germanium Fuzz Face Mini.

The half-stack is probably your problem. Try running the distortion pedal straight into a PA or acoustic amp. You'd do better with a preamp pedal like the VooDoo Labs Giggity to get the Marshall sound without all the crap that comes out of a piezo through a guitar amp. Then stack the distortion on top.

FWIW, I've found fuzz sounds better than distortion with a uke. Everything else always sounds cheap to my ears.

Distortion is one of the hardest effects to get to sound half-decent with 'ukuleles, even through a PA. There's a fine line between fizzy and muddy when it comes to distorting nylon-strung instruments with piezo pickups.

I'll second Brad's suggestion of fuzz and some kind of amp modelling pedal. Alternatively, you could try something more destructive like a pro co rat or a less muddy distortion pedal like the boss odb-3.

As Gochugogi mentioned, you need steel strings and magnetic pickups to get a fully distorted tone. Most regular ukes have nylon strings and are amplified through piezo pickups which are usually meant for a clean "acoustic" sound.

I have found two routes that I like for distortion on a uke. The first is a Tube Driver, very nice tone but better for bluesy stuff then metal. The other way to go is with a multi-effects processor. I use an old Yamaha FX-500 which I got dirt cheap years ago. I'm sure there are better ones out now. The added effects allow me to find just the right tone (or close to it).

John

I forgot to mention that I started a thread a while back called "Pedalboard Reflections". It's still incomplete (life got in the way), but I plan to pick it back up and finish it before the summer. If you flip to page 4 of that thread, you can find some of my thoughts regarding distortion and fuzz (unfinished) in the context of amplifying 'ukuleles on page 4.

As far as my personal solution, I run a boost and/or compressor into a digital octaver and overdrive (sometimes reversing the order of the octave and overdrive if the overdrive is too fizzy through the PA). This works well for accomplishing lighter overdrive tones, but it's difficult to dial in good tones with more dirt. I should note that I place these effects in the effects loop of a preamp pedal without which they are less effective, but YMMV.

As Brad noted, a superior solution is to combine a preamp pedal or amp modeller with distortion or fuzz.