Microphonic pickup

Ukecaster

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I have 2 tenors with pickups, one has an active Baggs UST ribbon, with battery and controls on side panel, another has a passive Schatten UST, which was added to the uke before I got it. The passive UST is so microphonic for my strumming style, it picks up every scrape of my hands on the strings, and loads of noise just from my arm resting on the bridge. Way more than a K&K I once had in another uke. Is there anything I can do to reduce this noise (external preamp, etc)? Otherwise, I won't be plugging it in, as I can't deal with it. The other uke with active Baggs has a very low noise threshold by comparison.
 
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I have one bass uke that I had converted from a junior guitar, it came with a mic/disc style piezo pickup and it too amplifies every touch, scrape, release of the strings, which drives me nuts. A preamp will not make a difference, the only thing I had considered is to replace the mic pickup with an under saddle type, which involves more work than I want to do. So instead I'm selling it and will replace with an under saddle or maybe a magnetic pickup type instrument.


This is Michael Kohan in Los Angeles, Beverly Grove near the Beverly Center
8 tenor cutaway ukes, 4 acoustic bass ukes, 12 solid body bass ukes, 14 mini electric bass guitars (Total: 38)

Donate to The Ukulele Kids Club, they provide ukuleles to children in hospital music therapy programs. www.theukc.org
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Nature of the beast. Though moving the SBT to a different location might help slightly, the general experience will still be noisy. USTs don't sound quite as good, but are really the more practical pickup style.
 
Pre-amp or just amp... I guess turning down the treble might help? :/

I'm just plugging the noisy passive Schatten UST equipped tenor directly into my amp, a Fishman Loudbox Mini. Would an outboard preamp help to dial out the contact noises? If so, which one? As is, I can't use it, but wish I could.
 
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I'm just plugging the noisy passive Schatten UST equipped tenor directly into my amp, a Fishman Loudbox Mini. Would an outboard preamp help to dial out the contact noises? If so, which one? As is, I can't use it, but wish I could.

The Loudbox Mini has a super high impedance input, which is already ideal. A preamp wouldn't do much, if anything, to improve the situation.

EQ could help, but unless you're a super clever mix engineer type with some sophisticated gear, the odds are you'll "fix" your uke's tone to death. The best-case scenario here is still sort of pissing up a rope. You might defeat some of the noise, but your pickup itself will end up sounding thin/cheap/unnatural.

Hate to be negative, but it's a problem at the source. The golden rule of audio: gold in, gold out. Try moving the SBT to a different spot with some double-side tape.
 
Different amps could behave very differently.
I have a soprano with a soundboard transducer which is really sensitive and brittle sounding through my Behringer PA amp, even if I use an acoustic pre-amp to adjust the EQ.

I recently obtained a Roland Mobile Cube for cheap.. plugged the same ukulele in and it sounded brilliant!
Something about the Roland's acoustic amp capability must be well matched to the sensitive soundboard transducer *shrugs*
 
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