Amplifying Your ‘Ukulele
To plug in your ‘ukulele you need three things:
- An ‘ukulele with a pickup
- An instrument cable
- [Effect(s) if you want/have to use them]
- [Another cable(s) if using effect unit]
- An amp
Plug one end of the instrument cable into the jack on the bottom of your ‘ukulele.
Plug the other end of the cable into the “input” jack on your amp. Plug the amp into an electrical outlet (or install batteries). Make sure that all of the volume knobs on your amp (volume and gain) and volume slider (or knob) on active pickup controls are set to 0. Turn your amp on. Turn the volume knob up as you play, until you reach the desired volume level (With an active pickup, turn your amp’s volume to halfway and then move the volume slider (or knob) to control the master volume). Play!
Amp controls:
- Input – jack where you plug the cable coming from the ‘ukulele in
- Volume – controls output volume
- Gain – controls input volume (distortion)
- Tone or EQ – controls which pitch range gets the most volume
- Amp models (some amps) – selects amp model
- Effects (some amps) – controls effect and amount
Plugging into your home audio system:
I have found that I can get a good amplified sound from my ‘ukulele if I run it through my old Yamaha stereo. A home audio system is essentially a small PA because it is only used for amplifying a clean sound – your CDs wouldn’t sound very good played through an electric guitar amp. Here is my setup:
- ‘Ukulele pickup (passive) to Fishman preamp
- Preamp to Boss ME-50 multi-effects
- Boss into 1/8″ to RCA cable via a 1/4″ to 1/8″ adapter (the adapter is not necessary, it’s just how I’m making due for now. It would be easier to just use a 1/4″ to RCA cable.)
- The RCA jacks plug into the the Line/Auxiliary input on the back of the Yamaha preamp.
From there I power up my multi-effects, check the volumes on both the preamp and the Boss, and slowly turn up the master volume on the stereo. I’m sure this can be done several ways, but at the moment, the Yamaha sounds way better than my Micro Cube. (Now I need to get a RCA to two 1/4″ jacks cable so I can take advantage of the Boss’ stereo chorus and panning!) Use your best judgment if you try this – I can’t make any guarantees.
Feedback:
Feedback is the nasty screeching sound that you hear when a mic gets too close to a speaker. This can also happen with acoustic instruments. You get feedback when the amp’s speaker vibrates the strings of an instrument, and the pick-up feeds the signal back into the amp. This creates a loop that gets louder and louder. Feedback is most common when EQ settings are boosting a certain frequency.
Learn how to plug in effects on the Effects page.
