When I was writing material for the Small Change Diaries debut album it occurred to me that when it came to playing live I needed to think about amplification. I have a good background in electric amplification, I didn’t have great awareness of acoustic amplification and even less knowledge of ukulele amplification! I already owned an AER acoustic amp and a respectable Marshall acoustic amp that I used for my piezo equipped Parker instruments.
However in the relentless search for sonic perfection I looked a little further to find the world of Schertler
amps. Purchasing these amps is not for the faint hearted as they are literally in my view the Ferrari end of acoustic amplification, but are sonically superb. I settled on a Unico Deluxe amp and as luck would have it I found an ex demo one. The price would probably still cause a heart attack with many players, but it is built like a tank with three separate EQ channels and is better than everything else I have come across.
The next challenge is how to amplify the growing array of ukuleles. The ones I had built by Rob Collins have all been fitted with Baggs pickups and worked pretty well. However I wanted to start amplifying at least one of the Collings concert ukes and the James Tripp prototype ukulele. With some research I found that Bill Collings recommends McIntyre pickups. I was initially put off by the fact that these passive pickups are half the price of the Baggs, but took the plunge and had two fitted to the previously mentioned ukes. It’s important to remember that these are passive, so they need a pre amp. Fortunately Shimo already provided me with a pedal which works perfectly with these. 
This sorted the main sound but it occurred to me that as I have a number of solos with the band it would be useful to have some means to boost the signal. This is not a simple matter as many guitar boost pedals including the Diaz don’t work that well with acoustic instruments. My long term guitar advisor and tech recommended the RC Booster and I’m delighted to report that it works brilliantly with the Shimo pedal. The fundamental sound of the ukulele is maintained and the RC allows a boost in level that doesn’t compromise the tone.
Another forgotten component in any set up is the actual cable used. I have for years been trying out numerous cables to see what works best in different amp combinations. I came across Lava Cable in the USA a while back and rang Mark the head guy would recommended Ultramafic cable. One again this just sounds better than everything else and is more musical to my ears. This currently is to date the best combination of gear that means that the tone of each ukulele is maintained and it’s a relatively simple set up to use. Next month I’ll be looking at the Fire Eye Red Duel preamp which has a send/return function, allowing for further sonic exploration.