I just picked up the Risa Tenor and was wondering how you like the Vox Amplug with yours. Have you tried it with the Amplug into Garageband to experiment with any of the effects(I’m assuming this is possible)? I’m mostly going to use it for travel and late night practice, but I love messing with tech:)

You give up a few effects like flanging and phasing, but the Mobile has a REAL acoustic setting. (The Micro Cube’s acoustic setting is actually designed to make a steel stringed electric sound acoustic and not suited for use with an acoustic steel or nylon guitar.) The Mobile Cube’s Acoustic setting is solid. It also has settings for Clean electric setting (sounds jazzy with the Solid), Overdrive (The Hendrix/Van Halen Brown Sound) and Dist (Mesa Boogie Rectifier style, smooth but crunchy like chunky peanut butter and makes the Solid’s sustain shine). These all sound excellent with the Solid. You also have a stereo Chorus button (fairly pronounced but still in the range of sweet sound) and, like the Micro, a knob that can control the amount and speed of delay or the amount of reverb.

The Mobile can be mounted on a mic stand and is loud enough for your uke and mic when performing at a small coffee house. I have been running mine for about 10 hours now on a set of Lithium AAs and there’s no sign they need replacing. I also use the Mic input and knob on the Mobile to add in the Korg Kaossilator to create rhythm tracks. Very nice combo for some techno tracks while composing.

This amp is not cheap. At $150 it’s well above the $30 mini-practice amps. But then, the sound you get is way above that league as well.

Keep ukin’,

Kevin

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1C3gTI6UHw

I won’t pretend to know much about what good sound is supposed to sound like, but I really do like my Microcube quite a bit.

Mike has been awesome. He sent me higher res pictures, answered all my questions and sent me a sound sample. Maybe it’s not truly a custom because it was already built, but I can’t find any fault with what he already came up with.

Now the struggle comes to try not to open it before Christmas. I’ll have my husband test it out while I walk the dog or something.

what are you having Michael at MP ukes build for you? He does a fantastic job! I love mine

But I’m following you with a case of CUAS. I’ve got an MP concert on the way, and I’m thinking of letting a local luthier from Lottonen guitars have a uke commission. That’s a ways away yet, but other than a 6 or 8 string Kala just to say I have a 6 or 8 string uke, I can’t think of a production uke I want right now.

Unless it was a GString concert. I wouldn’t say no to one of those.

http://www.uklectic.com – be warned, it’s another custom.

You used to be a guitar player right? Yeah, you string instrument players probably won’t have any issues with it. I’ve always been string instrument-challenged so everything has to be right where my fingers want to go or else I’m hopeless.

Like you, I found it tough to tune, but then you’re right, the strings settle in and you can leave it alone. I never did try to switch to any other string brand. I thought the Worths (the Risa branded strings are Worths. No stock strings from Risa!) suited nicely.

This is the biggest mistake many electric uke players make – the wrong kind of amp. So many are playing on Microcubes and DA5s, because both of those have lots of effects on board, that they don’t pause and listen. It sounds wrong when you compare it to what it sounds like with a proper acoustic amp meant specifically for nylon strings and usually having a switch to switch between passive and active pickups.

And I don’t know of any tiny acoustic amps.

But it is portable, and darn near bullet proof. I found the neck uncomfortable to play on and the strings too far apart. It’s built great though.

Electric uke players – if you’re not using steel strings with magnetic pickups or humbuckers, make sure you’re using an acoustic amp. They’re not any more expensive than the electric ones, just a little bigger.