Why YOU should get a ukulele

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Why YOU should get a ukulele

Trig Discipline: Jun 3, 2008; Please leave the room if you think this might offend you.; Grimey Drawer

Mach Twang posted:

I love my lady so much... She got this for me last Saturday and I've been driving her crazy with Bootsy Collins, Jimi Jazz, The Jackson 5 and Stevie Wonder all weekend long.

If you like ukes and also happen to play the bass, this is for you. While it is on the quiet side unplugged, it sounds surprisingly like an upright plugged in. My buddy was nice enough to loan me his Eden Nemesis 200 watt bass amp for a spell and it sounds awesome with some serious thump.

The bridge pickup looks pretty hefty.

It's got some spiffy Hipshot tuners and the strings are FAT and really resonate. They are very responsive and have a surprising amount of tension to them.

(did I mention that I love my wife..? love you baby)

I played one of those in a store and loved it. When I can scrape the cash together, I might go for one of the fretless models.

# ¿ May 8, 2010 16:09

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# ¿ Apr 16, 2024 21:23

Trig Discipline: Jun 3, 2008; Please leave the room if you think this might offend you.; Grimey Drawer

Poodlebear posted:

I ordered a uke back in the beginnings of this thread, some years ago, and I've become decent, but bored. I don't play much anymore. Not because I don't enjoy it, I just don't know what else to do. I learned all the songs I liked on ukehunt, sometimes I'll do some messing around, but I lack direction. Is there a book or something I can order to get myself out of this rut? How do I get better?

Learn to fingerpick. It takes a while to get the patterns down, but it sounds pretty and seriously expands the range of things you can do with the instrument.

# ¿ Aug 8, 2010 01:01

Trig Discipline: Jun 3, 2008; Please leave the room if you think this might offend you.; Grimey Drawer

If any of you are in Austin, you might check out The Mighty Uke Roadshow next Monday.

# ¿ Sep 22, 2010 17:59

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Zotwoz posted:

I bit, and I got a ukulele -- just about an hour ago. Before I start practicing, are there any bad habits that I should watch out for? It would really suck to play for months, turn out that I screwed up horribly, and have to waste weeks trying to undo much of the stuff I learned.

Don't get into the habit of thinking you have to do meth to play the uke. It's entirely optional.

# ¿ May 3, 2011 03:37

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The Orange Mage posted:

Yesterday I finally was able to meet up with my grandfather so we could check out each other's ukes. He ended up just flat-out giving it to me for the time being to see if I could dig up information on it, see how much it would cost to get fixed, etc.

It was in worse shape than I expected. The strings are probably 20 years old or so and feel like rubber bands compared to my uke's new Aquilas. It's solid mahogany, except for the two cracks on the back of the body. I tried tuning it up but the first and last strings won't stay as the tuners slip very rapidly. The few strums I did on the crap strings as they detuned produced a drat wonderful tone from the body. Assuming I can manage it, getting this thing back to a playable state will likely produce some amazing sounds.

So far Google has really failed me...there just isn't a whole lot of information out there on these drat things apart from there being five Gibson soprano uke models, with the first appearing in 1927. The Uke-1 is the entry-level, Uke-2 is intermediate, and Uke-3 is the pro-level. Uke-4 and Uke-5 were made at later dates than the original three and have a resonator cone, gold-plated or someshit in the latter's case.

I haven't been able to figure out which model mine is, or any identifying marks on mine aside from the headstock saying "The Gibson" as opposed to later models going with just "Gibson." Also, my grandfather doesn't remember exactly how he acquired this drat thing.

So, does anyone know much about these, or point me somewhere that does? I'll be making a thread and UU shortly to see if the good folks over there can help.

Oh poo poo those cracks must be from when Angelina Jolie got ahold of it.

:xd:

# ¿ Jun 18, 2012 13:38

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The Orange Mage posted:

I have no idea what this joke(?) means.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/dictionary.php?act=3&topicid=352

# ¿ Jun 18, 2012 14:19

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Arsenic Lupin posted:

Anybody got other uke-evangelism techniques?

Lysistrata method.

# ¿ Oct 1, 2012 22:42

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LunaSky posted:

I was thinking about getting a uke for my daughter and I to learn to play together. She is 5 would her hands be to small? Thanks.

Probably not:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWc6PZhFd7s

# ¿ Sep 7, 2013 03:03

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Heads up: there's a decent-looking uke on sale for MF's Stupid Deal of the Day today.

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/acoustic-ukuleles/lanikai-lu-series-lu-21tek-tenor-acoustic-electric-ukulele-with-fishman-kula-electronics

# ¿ Dec 24, 2013 22:23

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KingSlime posted:

Hey guys, so lately I've been plucking away on a friend's ukelele and, as a pretty pro drummer and someone with decent knowledge of theory, it turns out I'm not half bad at this thing! I'm interested in picking one up because I know I can get pretty sick at it, kinda feels like "easy mode" guitar with its own character.

So a friend told me he has a second-hand uke I can get from him for $100. From what he tells me, it's an acoustic/electric tenor kala. Here are the pictures he sent me:

Based on the little research I've done, a Kala tenor sounds appealimg, especially because I am pretty serious when it comes to music and I'd definitely enjoy the fuller sound/extra frets. Based on these pictures though, I can't tell if this model is a concert or a tenor, though I have no reason to believe the seller is lying or misinformed.

My question is, this is a good deal for a flat 100? I'm hoping it might be possible to ID the specific model based on this pic but honestly, I'm seeing a couple of different electric Kala tenors online that all match the pic, and they all vary in price range. Depending on which specific model, I'm either getting a decent deal or being sold a used instrument for the price of a new one.

What do you all think? At least it's Kala so (as per this thread), it's unlikely I'll end up with a crappy instrument regardless of price.

I think I had that exact model, and I loved it. I bought a Bushman and sold the Kala, and now I kinda wish I'd kept the Kala instead. The Bushman is great, but I actually liked the sound of the Kala better.

# ¿ Jul 8, 2014 22:19

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A looping pedal is always fun, and good for practicing solos. Lay down a quick chord progression, loop it, and go to town.

# ¿ Feb 3, 2015 04:13

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# ¿ Apr 16, 2024 21:23

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TapTheForwardAssist posted:

As much as I've seen some neat stuff from looping, I'm really curious about the ultra-cheap looping effects available on smartphones now. For that matter, how easy is it to just buy an app that has a bunch of effects pedals on it, and then spend a few bucks on eBay for the cords/jacks to route it from your uke/guitar through your phone-app-pedals and to an amp?

I've played around with Loopy a bit. It's a great app, but for me it turns out to be easier to time loops appropriately if I'm keying them on and off with my foot than with my finger. You can get fancy and hook a midi control pedal into Loopy, but I haven't bothered since I have a DL4.

Running guitar or a uke into an iPad is fairly easy with something like the iRig, and some of the models in Amplitube sound pretty good. Certainly if you've already got an iPad or iPhone it's one of the cheapest and easiest ways to throw some decent effects onto your sound. My old 3rd gen iPad struggles a bit with some of them, but I've just ordered a new iPad Air 2 today so that shouldn't be an issue for me any more. Since the introduction of Audiobus, there is now very little that you can't do on an iPad, recording-wise. I don't really think that it's the best platform for a lot of stuff, but pretty much everything is possible.

# ¿ Feb 3, 2015 09:30

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Why YOU should get a ukulele