Capabilities of the Uke

LoVeBirD-

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Hi Folks,

Basic question for a newbie. Is a ukulele able to make sounds like this (the one that she starts plays at 1:37):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=31&v=Nvt6fdrrSEo&feature=emb_title

Do I need an electric ukulele to make sounds like that. I know/I'm aware, it's a guitar she's using -- but can a ukulele even make sounds like that? That sounds like R & B stuff. Just trying to get the answer to the question above specifically and wondering if this instrument is capable of anything like the above genre.

Thanks in advance.
 
Hi Folks,

Basic question for a newbie. Is a ukulele able to make sounds like this (the one that she starts plays at 1:37):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=31&v=Nvt6fdrrSEo&feature=emb_title

Do I need an electric ukulele to make sounds like that. I know/I'm aware, it's a guitar she's using -- but can a ukulele even make sounds like that? That sounds like R & B stuff. Just trying to get the answer to the question above specifically and wondering if this instrument is capable of anything like the above genre.

Thanks in advance.

no (added extra characters)
 
Sort of. But if that's the sound you are looking for, why not buy a guitar?

I love this instrument and chose this one to express myself on. There's something about the uke that drew me to it. I know I'm still new but it's kind of a personal thing
 
Some effects work really well with the 'ukulele. In that video, James Hill is playing through a JFET overdrive into a tube-based guitar amp (and possibly also a bass amp).

If you're interested in going down that rabbit hole, check out my "Pedalboard Reflections" thread here on UU. In particular, see the write-ups on wah, compression, delay, octave (particularly sub octave), phaser (& chorus for retro stuff), and delay. Those are all effects frequently used in R&B. If you get an electo-acoustic or electric uke, you can plug into some DAW software and use software effects modules to change your sound to find what you think you'd enjoy.

Your musical life will likely be simpler if you go the electric guitar route, but the 'ukulele is pretty versatile and can certainly play within the genre (although it will never sound quite like the guitar in the video you linked). Take a listen to Karlie Goya sometime for some inspiration.

Either way, if you don't already play R&B, you should start with an unplugged instrument while you hone your chops. Most R&B playing comes down to feel. The effects are just the icing on the cake.
 
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I love this instrument and chose this one to express myself on. There's something about the uke that drew me to it. I know I'm still new but it's kind of a personal thing

I'd second what @chris667 posted. If you are chasing after a certain sound, then you should get something that gets closer to making that sound.

Now, if you like ukulele, you should ask yourself why? Perhaps you'll discover something (e.g. a song you've heard on the uke that you liked). Then it can guide you in your uke selection.
 
The U-tube examples shown show nothing about the capabilities of the instrument(s) and a lot about the capabilities of the player(s). Rig any instrument with a pickup, string it and tune it to suit and feed it into a chosen selection of distortions and amplifiers and it can be made to sound more or less just as you want it to.

Cool or pointless - YMMV ;)
 
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I'll say it this way, it's really up to you and how much effort and expense you want to put in. Yes, a uke can make any of the sounds shown with enough practice and the right equipment.


This is Michael Kohan in Los Angeles, Beverly Grove near the Beverly Center
9 tenor cutaway ukes, 4 acoustic bass ukes, 12 solid body bass ukes, 14 mini electric bass guitars (Total: 39)

• 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
 
Of course you can. Noting that you can't have the two bass strings and the tuning could be GCEA instead of DGBE.

You need an electric uke that has steel strings, like an electric guitar. Then plug it into an amp.

To get the exact Fender sound perfect would be a technical challenge, but my Jupiter Creek electric ukulele actually has Fender Telecaster hardware and pick-ups sit-up for four strings. It uses normal Fender steel strings. So if you can access the Fender hardware for that model, you can commission a ukulele that is very similar.

The Jupiter Creek brand is no longer made, the maker died a few years ago, but he would get some nice wood and the hardware and turn it into a great electric ukulele, and then post it for sale on eBay. It requires some skill and knowledge to get it right, but there are custom makers who know how to get it right.

Note that in the world of ukuleles there are electric ukuleles and there are also electric ukuleles. I am posting about the ones that have real steel string and electromagnetic pick-ups, not the ones with piezo pick-ups.

Check out a Google search on electric ukuleles and look for the ones which have electro-magnetic pick-ups and steel strings. You should find one or two to choose from.

There are also some excellent student model electric guitars these days which are 3/4 or 5/8 or 1/2 size, about the size of a baritone ukulele. You can find a used one and hot rod it with better pick-ups and other hardware. It is a six-string, but it is also small like a ukulele and can be a lot of fun.

I have one of those Risa LP electric tenor ukuleles. I'm assuming that would suffice?
 
Some effects work really well with the 'ukulele. In that video, James Hill is playing through a JFET overdrive into a tube-based guitar amp (and possibly also a bass amp).

If you're interested in going down that rabbit hole, check out my "Pedalboard Reflections" thread here on UU. In particular, see the write-ups on wah, compression, delay, octave (particularly sub octave), phaser (& chorus for retro stuff), and delay. Those are all effects frequently used in R&B. If you get an electo-acoustic or electric uke, you can plug into some DAW software and use software effects modules to change your sound to find what you think you'd enjoy.

Your musical life will likely be simpler if you go the electric guitar route, but the 'ukulele is pretty versatile and can certainly play within the genre (although it will never sound quite like the guitar in the video you linked). Take a listen to Karlie Goya sometime for some inspiration.

Either way, if you don't already play R&B, you should start with an unplugged instrument while you hone your chops. Most R&B playing comes down to feel. The effects are just the icing on the cake.

I had to Google that just now (DAW). Are there any free ones that are pretty good that you're aware of that can help? I'm assuming I will need to buy an amp that plugs into my PC via USB, right? In the meantime, I'm going to take a look at the thread you've suggested and read through it.
 
I had to Google that just now (DAW). Are there any free ones that are pretty good that you're aware of that can help? I'm assuming I will need to buy an amp that plugs into my PC via USB, right? In the meantime, I'm going to take a look at the thread you've suggested and read through it.

Don't short yourself, a good DAW is not costly at all, and no you don't need an amp, you need an interface, sort of like a mixer, that's USB to which you plug in your uke.
 
I had to Google that just now (DAW). Are there any free ones that are pretty good that you're aware of that can help? I'm assuming I will need to buy an amp that plugs into my PC via USB, right? In the meantime, I'm going to take a look at the thread you've suggested and read through it.

If you're doing this on a budget and you want live playback, get Reaper ($60, free trial period) and optionally install the SWS/S&M and LBX Stripper extensions (free). You could also use Cakewalk (free) but it comes with a steeper learning curve.

For interfaces, check out the Behringer UMC2 and UMC202HD. It's better than its price would seem to indicate.

Alternatively, you can go the amp route and use some sort of multi-effects unit or individual stompboxes. You'll probably pay a premium if you go the amp & stompbox chain route.
 
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I think a Risa Les Paul would be a good start.

You can twiddle the knobs on the amp and the guitar to find the sound you are looking for. When you get it, take a photo of the amp and the guitar so you can remember the settings. I am not sure how complicated your amp is, but the Risa Les Paul looks like it has two pick-ups, which gives three options for pick-up selection. It also has a tone and volume control, so you can spend a week just working out the on-board controls and finding the sound you want.

First find the sound without playing a complicated piece, then fine tune as you put in more details. Just strum some simple chords and a scale in the middle of the fretboard while you are finding the sound. Try each pick-up combination, try the tone control, work out if you what more bass or treble etc.. If you can, turn it up loud.

If you tune the tenor to DGBE, it will have the same notes/fretboard as the guitar, less the two bass strings. So you can play any tune which uses the four high strings as written. Then you can overlay what ever sound you can wrangle out of the combination of your amp and the pick-ups and the controls on the guitar.

Getting an absolutely perfect copy of the Fender may be too hard, but you should be able to get some amazing sounds when you work out how to get the combination of your uke and amp to work for you.

Thank you so much for this post. What I gather is that I need to mess around with this uke to find the sound that I want using both the onboard knobs and the amp. I bought this amp and it has those knobs you're talking about: https://www.amazon.com/Fender-Frontman-Electric-Guitar-Amplifier/dp/B001L8PIFW

My understanding is that tuning the tenor to DBGE would require me to change the strings right? Also, wouldn't I have to relearn all of my chords? Either way, seems like it's time for me to get to playing around until I settle on a sound I like!
 
I'll say it this way, it's really up to you and how much effort and expense you want to put in. Yes, a uke can make any of the sounds shown with enough practice and the right equipment.


This is Michael Kohan in Los Angeles, Beverly Grove near the Beverly Center
9 tenor cutaway ukes, 4 acoustic bass ukes, 12 solid body bass ukes, 14 mini electric bass guitars (Total: 39)

• 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

Yep...I'm learning you're absolutely right about this....I need to increase my skill level
 
If you're doing this on a budget and you want live playback, get Reaper ($60, free trial period) and optionally install the SWS/S&M and LBX Stripper extensions (free). You could also use Cakewalk (free) but it comes with a steeper learning curve.

For interfaces, check out the Behringer UMC2 and UMC202HD. It's better than its price would seem to indicate.

Alternatively, you can go the amp route and use some sort of multi-effects unit or individual stompboxes. You'll probably pay a premium if you go the amp & stompbox chain route.

Thank you for sharing the names of some of these tools. I had no clue people were using all of these to get different sounds. I thought these different sounds were coming out of people's instruments all this time.
 
Since you have a Fender Frontman already, the easiest route to playing around with effects would be to buy a used multieffects unit such as those made by Line 6, Zoom, or Digitech. The Frontman's weakest link is its speaker, so you might also want to look into increasing the amount of clean headroom available by changing out the speaker for a Jensen MOD6/15. This would increase the Frontman's utility as a guitar amp for R&B (I'm not saying it would transform the amp into something considerably better, but it's worth looking into).

Of course, even with a great amp, you'll never sound any better than YOU sound, so above all else, work hard on your chops.
 
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Thank you for sharing the names of some of these tools. I had no clue people were using all of these to get different sounds. I thought these different sounds were coming out of people's instruments all this time.

In a sense, you're quite right to think that the different sounds come out of instruments. The core electric signal is still produced by pickups installed in an instrument, and this core signal is is then amplified and processed before being fed into a driver in some kind of cabinet.

The software route is only one way of many to skin this particular cat. I prefer to use a pedalboard and pair of combo amps, but I'm not averse to using PC software when the need arises.
 
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...My understanding is that tuning the tenor to DBGE would require me to change the strings right? ...

If you detune strings meant for GCEA tuning down to DGBE tuning, whether steel or nylon, you will have floppy strings and crap intonation which are not possible to fix without replacing the strings.

Once the strings settle to tension at a given tuning pitch, tuning down is universally a bad idea for long-term use because of the above.

Your solution is to get strings for the DGBE tuning that have proper tension for the scale length.

In this case you are tenor scale length of 17".

The strings for any different option of tuning and scale length have been discussed here a billion times previously, just search for "strings" and you will see.

But to save you some time, and offer a starting point, if you take any "normal tension" electric guitar set, say 0.09" to 0.042" and use the middle four strings on you tenor RISA, you can tune them to DGBE at reasonable tension for ~17" tenor scale, and with decent intonation for a linear (not re-entrant) tuning.

Basic electric guitar strings are available everywhere and far more common that "steel ukulele strings" and has been discussed and proven that they are the same item yet in different packaging.
 
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