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How to Amplify a ukulele

Young man playing a ukulele in a room with posters on the wall.

Interested in amplifying your ukulele? Provided your ukulele has an electrical pickup, it's quite easy. And this free video ukulele lesson from Live Ukulele will show you how it's done.

To plug in your 'ukulele you need three things:

* An ukulele with a pickup

* An instrument cable

* An amp

Plug one end of the instrument cable into the jack on the bottom of your ukulele.

Plug the other end of the cable into the "input" jack on your amp. Plug the amp into an electrical outlet (or install batteries). Make sure that all of the volume knobs on your amp (volume and gain) and volume slider (or knob) on active pickup controls are set to 0. Turn your amp on. Turn the volume knob up as you play, until you reach the desired volume level (With an active pickup, turn your amp's volume to halfway and then move the volume slider (or knob) to control the master volume). Play!

Plugging into your home audio system:

A home audio system is essentially a small PA because it is only used for amplifying a clean sound – your CDs wouldn't sound very good played through an electric guitar amp.

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