Anyone here tried a bass octave pedal on uke?

King David

King David

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Does it work well? I’m assuming I’d really have to change strings to linear style (Low G), but even then I’m not sure if an octave pedal would work as well like it does on a guitar. It’s just the top 3 strings on the guitar are already much lower notes to begin with.

So, specifically looking for people’s opinions who have actually tried this on a low g uke. Does it sound good with an octave pedal and are the lowest note G&C strings bass-like enough to get by when run through a sub/bass amp? Thanks!
 
Is there a particular reason you want to go that route? Why not just buy an inexpensive bass uke. You seem to have a bass amp already.

This is Michael Kohan in Los Angeles, Beverly Grove near the Beverly Center
9 tenor cutaway ukes, 6 acoustic bass ukes, 12 solid body bass ukes, 14 mini electric bass guitars (Total: 41)

• Donate to The Ukulele Kids Club, they provide ukuleles to children in hospital music therapy programs. www.theukc.org
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kohanmike said:
Is there a particular reason you want to go that route? Why not just buy an inexpensive bass uke. You seem to have a bass amp already.
Click to expand...

Ahh yeah, I don’t want a separate instrument.

Anyone actually tried this???
 
Hmm, I haven't actually tried it either, but even with a low G (G3), dropping an octave only gets you to G2 and guitar is E2. Bass guitar is E1. So your pedal would have to drop two octaves to get near the range of bass guitar.

Are you wanting to play single note bass lines on the uke? I could try it with a plug-in.
 
I have tried it yes. I put my uke through a Boss OC-3. I tried to combine with a looper so I could play my own bass lines.

The OC-3 can drop down two octaves into bass guitar territory. However the tone that resulted was very flat and boring. It retained none of the timbre of a plucked string, and sounded more like plain sine-wave.

Adding some distortion made it slightly better, but still wasn't a replacement for a real bass sound. I gave up on the idea after only a gig or two.

These days I only use the OC-3 to thicken out my chords a little when playing solo.
 
Thank you Jim and Almero! Perfect and informative posts. Almero, kind of what I was guessing... good to know even two octaves down still didn’t quite do it. Jim ya the guitars low notes I guess are just where you need to be to then drop octaves and have a decent bass sound. Maybe in the future they will build something, but for now you’d probably need fancy rmc gold or graphtech midi pickups installed to a uke then run through a guitar effects processor to get a decent bass sound. Good to know, cheers gentlemen appreciate your help!
 
I have tried with a relatively inexpensive octave pedal (Danelectro).

It didn't work very well.
Definitely worth getting an actual bass or bass ukulele.
 
If you get a good one they work fine. I had a Digitech Drop that tracked SUPER WELL.

The problem is that when you detune nylon strings down an octave they sound like rubber bands. Definitely gets a more convincing sound from a bari with a distortion pedal. (I think with the right processing you could fool people into thinking it was an electric guitar. But at that point you might as well get a Gibson and a Marshall.)

It all depends what you're trying to do...
 
One of the members of my practice group has a small Roland Cube amp with a bass octave switch. He uses it a lot in sessions where we don't have a bass player. I have an older larger Cube that doesn't have this and I'm envious.
 
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