Ken's Electric Ukulele Tabs
This is a website about playing the electric ukulele, which yes, is
a thing. If you are a guitar purist, or you have very firm opinions
on gear, you likely won't like this site and might already feel your
blood pressure rising. Beware that my approach is as pure as New
York snow: I'm freely using octavers and pitch shifters and other
effects. Musically, I am cutting corners and approximating like
crazy. There is only so much you can do with four strings!
I began playing ukulele out of laziness, believing it to be an
easier instrument to pick up. While I do think the uke generally has
a lower level of entry difficulty than a guitar, it's also a
different instrument and calls for different strategies (the strings
tend to be softer and allow playing without picks a bit more). As
well, once you start to reach the limits of four strings and fewer
frets, the fun/challenge becomes stretching what the instrument can
do. To do this, you need to go electric, and such a thing does
exist: solid-body electric ukuleles. I could just play a guitar. But
everyone does that! How many electric ukulelists do you know?
Play one for a few hours, and you'll already be the best only
e-uke player among your friends.
I'm not belittling traditional acoustic ukuleles or their players,
let alone guitarists. I'm sometimes accused of making fun of
someone's favorite song or band, and I'm not. I guess I just found
my voice and feel more comfortable with an electric uke.
Mistakes!:
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Instrument. I'm playing a Clearwater tenor electric ukulele
with drop-G tuning (the lowest string is an octave down instead of
up). In some countries this brand name is Vorson. There aren't many
makers of e-ukes apart from a few small craft shops, although the
Risa line is more professionally made. One advantage e-ukes have
over electric guitars is cost: the basic pickups and electronics are
pretty much the same; there's just less wood and finishing. If you
know anything about an electric guitar, the electronics should feel
immediately familiar; mine has two pickups and a tone and volume
knob. I use regular electric guitar strings (Ernie Ball Regular
Slinky) and just use the top four strings (.26, .17, .13, .10). You
can buy dedicated electric ukulele strings, but there's really no
need to.
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Gear. Presently I'm using an Azor compressor to boost
volume, then a TC mini Sub 'n' Up octave pedal (when needed), then a
Mooer Pitch Box (when needed), then a Zoom G3xn effects unit, then a
Behringer U-Phoria UMC22 input device to transfer the analog signal
into my PC. I edit with Da Vinci Resolve, a free video editor.
Again, a low cost enterprise (my video "studio" is a webcam and a
smartphone). In older videos I'm using a Zoom G1-Four and sometimes
a (terrible) knockoff Eno octaver. Because a uke doesn't have much
gain, I have the compressor level set pretty high.
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Patches.
When you see my patch setups, they are optimized for the G3xn but
mostly still work for a G1-Four. The G3xn allows 6-7 pedal modules
in a patch and the G1 allows five, so one or two might need
sacrificing in a G1-Four. You can also use these patches with an
electric guitar, but you might need to dial back the gain a bit, as
an e-uke puts out less volume. I know that some type of direct Zoom
loader file might be better than a picture, but they never work for
me. |
Tab. Tablature occupies a legal grey area. It's sort-of
legal, but you can sort-of copyright published tab books. All of
this tab is made by my ear and a bit of adapting from guitar tab,
particularly from Songsterr. It won't be perfect, but it should get
you close. Bends or slides are indicated with slashes; an h
indicates a hammer-on, and a p is a pull-off, though they
aren't always marked. I've tried to indicate where I pitch-shift
down with an effect. You're not going to sound like Josh Homme with
these patches and tab (his tone is infamously hard to reproduce
anyway). But I hope this page is useful and enjoyable, and helps you
along with a fun and unusual instrument. And if you make a video, I
hope you tell me. |