Time to put on a new set of Kala Round Wound strings on my custom sunburst Kala California (EADGC-tuning)
Stringing Guide
1. Remove all the old strings
2. Make sure to tape down the bridge saddle so it doesn’t move
A piece of masking tape helps to keep the bridge saddle in place
3. Remove string back plate (if you have one)
4. Start with unpacking the E (lowest) string (and next time around the A and so on…)
5. Check and see if any metal washers are still in the string barrel. If so remove the one on the new string you’re about to install
When you remove the old strings the old metal washers might still be in the barrel. In that case let it be and remove the washer from the new string.
6. Put the sting through the lowest string slot/barrel
String threaded in the through body bridge barrel/slot.
7. Stretch the string past the string post. I use a cable cutter to measure how long the string needs to be before I cut it. I don’t want to have to much excess string around the post. 2-4 turns around the post is the goal.
I have found that the plastic handles on this cutter gives me enough string for the string post.
8. Put the end of the string into the hole in the middle of the string post. Push it down as far as it goes
This is how much of the string that goes down into the middle of the tuner.Bend the string (see no. 9)
9. Bend it to the right for the lowest two strings (tuners pointing upwards) and left for the top three strings (tuners pointing downwards
Turn the tuner and make sure you let the string add turns beneath the first!
10. Keep turning the tuning peg to get rid of the slack
11. Use a tuner and tune the string up to approx. one whole tone beneath the goal pitch (ex. D for the E-string)
12. Repeat step 4-11 for all the remaining stings
13. Put the string back plate back
14. Tune the strings up to pitch. Come back and retune until they stay in tune. This can take a day of two depending how much you play and stretch the strings
Using a tuner to tune up to pitch. Notice that I have approx. 2-4 turns around the string post on the strings. Try to get the last winding as close to the base of the tuner as possible. This will help to get a good string pressure over the nut and prevent the stings from “popping out” of the nut slots.
Time to make some new music with a fresh set of strings. Yummy!
Hope this is helpful for your next string changing session!
Chillin’ with a lovely sunset at Helen Putnam Regional Park, Petaluma, CA USA
Here comes a long overdue travelogue…I know almost a year has flown by…
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In January I traveled to California for the NAMM show in Anaheim to promote the Ubass alongside Kala.
You can read about my experiences from Winter NAMM 2017 here!
Petaluma and Kala Brand Music
My trip started with a visit to Petaluma, CA, the home of Kala Brand Music. This was the second time I visited the Kala headquarters and since the first time in the summer of 2015 a lot has happened. The Ubass has evolved and in October 2017 the company moved to a new and bigger facility that includes a great factory where the California series of the solid body UBasses are built alongside the Elite series of the ukulele models.
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My focus for this visit was to make some videos with the Kala video crew and also talk about Winter NAMM that was just around the corner. I brought my two custom solid body ubasses with the prototype E-A-D-G-C string sets. I did some videos with them alongside the new Kala Journeyman ubass and a 5-string California koa solid body ubass with regular B-E-A-D-G tuning.
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Me and my wife really had a wonderful time in lovely Petaluma situated about an hour drive north of San Francisco. The town has a lovely downtown area and a beautiful countryside. We spent some time in the Helen Putnam Regional Park and caught a lovely sunset over the rolling green hills.
Magical sunset at the Helen Putnam Regional Park
I also had the privilege visiting the home of Kala Brand Music president, Mike Upton, and we had a nice little jam in his living room!
Jammin’ at Mike Uptons place
Winter NAMM 2018
We flew down to Anaheim January 24 one day before the four day music trade show would start at the Anaheim Convention Center. From the NAMM.org homepage:
”The 2018 NAMM Show gathered the music, sound and event technology industries for the largest show in NAMM history, welcoming 115,000 registrants, more than 7,000 brands, exciting events and triple the industry education.” https://www.namm.org/
Pre-NAMM-day (January 24)
I went to pick up my name badge and got to see the wonderful Kala booth. It was a lot bigger then last year. Really spacious and beautiful with a genius and practical design!
The big wall of ukuleles at the Kala booth Winter NAMM 2018 (Since I took this photo with the panorama option on my iPhone it looks a bit strange. But it also show you the massive display in its full glory!)
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Day 1 (January 25)
From the get go there was a steady stream of things happening. Musical highlights was standing a few feet away to one of my musical heroes, the fabulous organ player Joey DeFrancesco, when he played some super lovely organ jazz at the Visconti Organ booth. I told him about that lovely concert I heard him perform in Stockholm many years ago. YES!
He came to Stockholm in October. I saw the show with some friends. Did he have a bass player with him…no…was it still great… YES!!!
The evening was spent at the Bass Bash a special bass event, a great hang! The year before I brought a Kala Ubass there for the ”raffle”. This night I heard performances by Abe Laboriel (Open Hands) and the John Patitucci Guitar Quartet with the amazing Nate Smith on drums (Side note: In this video I play to loops from thelooploft.com played by Nate Smith!)
Laboriel and Patitucci both received Lifetime Achievement Awards from Yamaha this night!
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Day 2 (January 26)
It was great to once again, if super brief, say hi to one of my mentors, Victor Wooten. I attended one of his camps outside Nashville back in 2011. Anthony Wellington was one of the many great instructors at the camp. Joe Craven was a guest at the camp. A super talented multi instrumentalist. So great to meet him again! Also got to meet Christian Fabian, a great bass player born in Sweden but now lives in NYC.
I also met some great musician friends! Please check out Ariane Cap she’s a great bass player and educator (I met her at that Wooten Camp back in 2011) I also met Sam Montooth a great singer, bass player, teacher based, as well as Ariane, in the LA area.
One of my Ubass ”papas” Bakithi Kumolo is always such a great hang. We had some nice talks and jams at the Kala booth. He performed at the Bass Bach on the second day of NAMM and almost played my solid body ubass! 🙂
I also met some new friends and they were also Bakithi admires!
Oscar Cartaya a great latin bass player and ubass artist visited the booth and also played at the Bass Bash.
I ran into Ida Nielsen (played bass with Prince) and Morten Ehlers (the founder of Bass Buddha, a bass shop in Denmark.
I met Christopher Bolte at the Frankfurt Musikmesse back in 2014 and now we finaly meet again. He’s a fellow Gruvgear artist.
Greg Olwell, the editor of Ukulele Magazine, came by the booth. He writes for the Ukulele Magazine and made a great ukulele bass roundup a couple of years ago.
It’s so great to hear talented ukulele players jam. Corey Fujimoto and Andreas David are super musical on their ukuleles! Andreas managed the German ukulele site Gute Ukulele!
Meeting more new friends, Amie Cool, trying out a new pedal by Ruppert Musical Instruments and seeing Jeff Berlin in a nearby booth concludes the Day 2 travelogue.
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Day 3 (January 27)
Some highlights this day was seeing good friends Ariane and Wolf. We had a nice little lunch away from the crazy show floor.
I got to meet Kala Ubass Artist Nik West. She had her signature ubass on display at the booth.
The duo Go West demoed at the booth. So did Corey, Andreas and myself.
I don’t have any pictures but have to mention the wonderful Jule amps the Jule Potter makes!
I would finally be able to meet Richard Mari Cocco Jr, (president) and Eric Cocco (vice president) for the great string maker LaBella
I got to meet great friend and ubass player Greg Gohde too! While walking outside after a long day we heard som crazy energic funky music performed by Kyotaro and Rikuo, a Japanese rhythm section duo. We closed out the day with some great food at the Disney Resort.
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Day 4
So it’s time for the final show day!
Bakithi came by the booth again so did bass player/actor Sekou Bunch. He did some great jams. I will probably share some of that later! Divinity Roxx, former musical director with Beyoncé, came by too.
The great Ukulenny demoed at the booth. My new friend Simon Poulton tried the Kala Journeyman. The Japanese bass player from Kyotaro & Rikuo from Day 3 visited the booth too.
I went to see Christopher Bolte demo at the gruvgear booth and got to met good friend Jay Baldemor. Gruvgear make a really nice and sturdy gigbag for ubass!
I also went to the Elrick booth to try out some lovely basses built by Rob Elrick
It was so great to work alongside my great Kala Family once again! See you soon!
The new Jorneyman ubass is one of three new ubasses in a new entry level line. These models are offered in fretted versions and will hopefully be available in fretless versions too later on. I played all three of these and they are a great addition to the existent line of ubasses. https://kalabrand.com/blogs/u-bass-news/namm-2018-new-u-bass-preview
This concludes my travelogue around this wonderful Ubass Adventure!
A short background to my version
The classic song is, as you probably know, from the opera Porgy and Bess, by George Gershwin. It was first performed in Boston in 1935 before it moved to Broadway, New York.
Twenty-six years later… I guess it’s about time to do another song from the classic opera ”Summertime”, by far, the most classic and recognizable song from Porgy and Bess. It has been performed by countless of musicians across the globe since 1935 and onwards.
My version is quite short. I present the melody twice, first instrumental with the melody played on my Kala California acoustic-electric fretless Ubass. Then sung and harmonized the second time around. All vocals by yours truly. 🙂
Recently I started to use a acoustic pickup by Ehrlund microphones to enhance these percussive sounds. Before playing with this technique only really worked in the studio, where I could use a separate mic to pick up the percussive sounds, or in a small intimate live setting where the audience is near the performance.
The pickup is blended with the built in piezo and this makes it possible to play bigger venues and the percussive parts can be heard alongside the tapped bass part. More about this in a later blog post!
Besides the core parts of bass line/percussion played and recorded live on a small dock by the lake Storsjön in Jämtland, Sweden I added vocals and, for the first time in any of my videos, ukulele parts!
I hope you will enjoy my version of the Gershwin classic!
As a pround owner of, what I believe, the first run of exotic top versions of the solid body California model I’m happy to tell you about seven new instruments that Kala custom shop just finished.
These are available now and with free International shipping!
Want to hear how a fretted 5-string sounds? Please check out my solid body review and my first jammin’ video featuring the flame maple exotic top!
