Acoustic Ukulele Bass

colemole

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 8, 2012
Messages
83
Reaction score
1
Location
Saskatchewan
Is there such a tihing with out a pickup and amp??
 
Sure, you're just not going to get enough volume from the small body to be useful for much other than practice.
 
Agree with Jim. I have 5 acoustic bass ukes, they're fine when I sit at home practicing, but not when played with other instruments. Even walking around to hospital rooms with a couple of uke players, I use a small Blackstar Fly3 Bass Duo so I can be heard.

Bass ukes acoustic 5.jpg

Walnut hospital gig close.jpg



This is Michael Kohan in Los Angeles, Beverly West near the Beverly Center
9 tenor cutaway ukes, 5 acoustic bass ukes, 10 solid body bass ukes, 13 mini electric bass guitars (Total: 37)

• Donate to The Ukulele Kids Club, they provide ukuleles to children in hospital music therapy programs. www.theukc.org
• Member The CC Strummers: YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/CCStrummers/video, Facebook: www.facebook.com/TheCCStrummers
 
Putting some numbers on it: I received a new acoustic Ubass today. At about a foot from the sound hole it measured 70 dB. At the same distance my baritone measured 80 dB. The decibel scale is logarithmic, so that's a big difference, and I measured way closer than anybody would actually listen. I can't pluck a string and see the meter much farther away.
 
Agree with Jim. I have 5 acoustic bass ukes, they're fine when I sit at home practicing, but not when played with other instruments. Even walking around to hospital rooms with a couple of uke players, I use a small Blackstar Fly3 Bass Duo so I can be heard.

Bass ukes acoustic 5.jpg

Walnut hospital gig close.jpg



This is Michael Kohan in Los Angeles, Beverly West near the Beverly Center
9 tenor cutaway ukes, 5 acoustic bass ukes, 10 solid body bass ukes, 13 mini electric bass guitars (Total: 37)

• Donate to The Ukulele Kids Club, they provide ukuleles to children in hospital music therapy programs. www.theukc.org
• Member The CC Strummers: YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/CCStrummers/video, Facebook: www.facebook.com/TheCCStrummers

So you find you need the Duo to be heard above the other accoustic players? I'm just curious as I have a Fly3 Bass (single unit) for practice, but I have no idea if it would be suitable for accompanying an accoustic guitar/uke.
 
So you find you need the Duo to be heard above the other accoustic players? I'm just curious as I have a Fly3 Bass (single unit) for practice, but I have no idea if it would be suitable for accompanying an accoustic guitar/uke.

I would say the duo unit would be the best to use, but even the single could work. I do keep the volume rather low. Come to think of it, on Sundays I'll meet with a group of guitar players in a park where I play my ukulele, one guy brought a U-bass with a single Fly 3, which was OK, but when I pulled out my duo for him to use (I also use it with my set of harmonicas and a special palm mic), it did sound that much better.
 
Is there such a tihing with out a pickup and amp??

At our uke club we have a guy playing a Mexican Guitarrón, which cuts through many ukulele's.
It is bulkier than a uke-bass and will take sometime to get used to because of the tuning (ADGCA).
Oh, and it is fretless.
 
At our uke club we have a guy playing a Mexican Guitarrón, which cuts through many ukulele's.
It is bulkier than a uke-bass and will take sometime to get used to because of the tuning (ADGCA).
Oh, and it is fretless.

Watch a real Guitarron player and you'll be astonished that anyone gets away without serious repetitive stress injury. They grab pairs of strings with RH thumb and middle finger, pull them straight UP away from the fingerboard, then let them go.

Honestly I think it'd be easier to learn how to play upright bass. But, you can stroll the guitarron.
 
CM, Making a uke scale bass neck fit to a body big enough to cut thru an acoustic mix without amplification seems to be a challenge that has gone unfulfilled. I considered mounting a 22.5" scale neck into a covered re-enforced galvanized washtub with a lid and sound hole. But, why? My amplified B'uke sounds great. If my fellow ukers don't like my bottom end, they can kiss it goodbye.
 
I put the 4 lower strings from a set of La Bella 900 flat wound classical guitar strings on my essentially unused baritone uke. It’s tuned EADG, just like the lower 4 strings of a guitar, or an octave higher than a contrabass. Alternatively I can turn in into an octave uke - GCEA but an octave lower.

It still doesn’t get much use, but it’s fun on occasion.
 
Top Bottom