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When it comes to portable pickers, a ukulele can make a great travel companion. Wanderers looking for a tough traveler with more bottom end might be interested in the carbon-fiber baritone and bass ukes from Utah’s Klos Guitars.Continue ReadingCategory… Continue reading Klos aims low with carbon-fiber baritone and bass ukuleles
With the holiday season fast approaching, there’s a good chance that some well-meaning friend or relative might buy a toy musical instrument for your children, safe in the knowledge that …read more Continue reading A Kid’s Toy Guitar Turned Into An Electric Ukulele
Learning to play an instrument is hard, but technology can help you along and keep you motivated. We’ve seen a number of inventive solutions over the years – including follow-the-lights setups, others that gamify the experience and even one that puts a… Continue reading Roadie Coach designed to be your personal guitar teacher
PopuMusic has followed its learning ukulele from 2017 and last year’s acoustic guitar – each featuring follow-me LED lighting in the neck – with a new version of the uke that rocks a different shape and features a built-in pre-amp with effects.Continue… Continue reading Smart learning uke fattens the tone with built-in pre-amp
A ukulele is a great instrument to pick to learn to play music. It’s easy to hold, has a smaller number of strings than a guitar, is fretted unlike a …read more Continue reading Don’t Fret Over the Ukulele
After completing its third successful Kickstarter, Band Industries started shipping the Roadie 3 – a kind of electronic multi-tool for string pickers – out to backers in November 2020. As with the previous generations, we got sent one to try.Continue R… Continue reading Review: Roadie 3 motorized multi-tool for stringed instruments
When you think about singer-songwriters, the name Bob Dylan might come to your mind. You might think about Jeff Buckley, you might think about Hank Williams, Springsteen, David Bowie, or Prince. You’d be wrong. The greatest singer-songwriter of all time is Tiny Tim, the guy who looks like Weird Al traveled in time and did a cameo in Baker-era Doctor Who. Tiny Tim had the voice of an angel, because Mammon and Belial were angels too, I guess. Tiny Tim is also the inspiration behind the current resurgence of the ukulele, the one thing keeping the stringed instrument industry …read more
Continue reading This Ukulele Does Chiptunes, and Not Just Because It’s Made Out Of a Game Boy
You may laugh off the ukulele as a toy or joke instrument, and admittedly, their starting price tag and the quality that usually comes with such a price tag doesn’t help much to get a different opinion on that. But it also makes it the perfect instrument for your next project. After all, they’re easy to handle, portable, and cheap enough to use a drill and other tools on them without too much regret. Plus, a little knowledge to play can get you far, and [Elaine] can teach you the essential, “all the pop songs use it”, four chords …read more
A classic one-man band generally features a stringed instrument or two, a harmonica in a hands-free holder, and some kind of percussion, usually a bass drum worn like a backpack and maybe some cymbals between the knees. The musician might also knock or tap the sound-boards of stringed instruments percussively with their strumming hand, which is something classical and flamenco guitarists can pull off with surprising range.
The musician usually has to manipulate each instrument manually. When it comes to percussion, [JimRD] has another idea: keep the beat by pounding the soundboard with a solenoid. He built a simple Arduino-driven …read more
Continue reading Modified Uke Keeps the Beat with a Solenoid