Few questions

[kirkesp]

Hi people, first post here,

well two days ago I had an idea, which was to build a little amp head, for use with headphones,
I've been doing so much research online about circuitry, the only skills I have are from highschool electronics and i've
smoked too much pot to remember most of it.., but I can follow instructions and trouble-shoot quite well

Anyway, My original plan was to build a 2 channel amp head, clean/distortion with a 3band EQ. that fell through as
the people at the electronics shop couldn't help me with my diagrams, so I brought pre-built guitar kits from
a store called jaycar, and they suck to be honest, theyre 12volt, one basicly just amplifies the clean sig and the distortion sounds like
static, like distorted headphones not a distorted guitar, Im sure I run it properly, guitar into distortion -> then into the amp.

Anyway, I need some advice and information, im not satisfied with what I brought, so I want to build my own.

I was checking this out, http://www.4thlevelmedia.com/DrBoogeyPartsLayout.gif

Is this just purely distortion or is it clean too? and is it the dual rec pedal?
What would be needed for a clean channel aswel?

Basicly I want to make a small head (than runs only powerfull enough for headphones)
I wasn't sure how this worked though..

is it like this, guitar - > preamp - > distortion - > EQ - > amp?/headphones?

allthough the circuit in that link above has a good EQ so i wouldn't need another..

I want the face of the amp basicly to be like this,

Input - >on button -> (dist on/off  button -> Gain - Low - Mid - High - Presence - volume) -> master volume -> 3.5mm output

with a couple of LED's

I just sort of need to know if this is all possible at 9/12 volts, (from the wall), from my understanding,
the preamp takes it to the level of which an amplifier needs to amplify it, so it goes pre-amp -> effects -> amp?

but then do I need an amp for it or just headphones? is it possible to pack all this tone into somthing that isn't amplified/ just headphones?

I don't know someone please take the confusion out of my head and help tell me what I need, would be muchly apprieciated,
some links / vids would be great, I'd love to know what the circuit and each component actualy does to the guitar signal,
like does a resistor make it less loud ect? capacitors and stuff... i would much like not to need op-amps aswel, i don't understand what
they are, and i couldn't find the little things at the shop..

Thank you.

Michael

[petemoore]

Hi people, first post here,

well two days ago I had an idea, which was to build a little amp head, for use with headphones,
I've been doing so much research online about circuitry, the only skills I have are from highschool electronics and i've
smoked too much pot to remember most of it.., but I can follow instructions and trouble-shoot quite well
    Partier eh..? cool. Just don't lean on my memory too hard Anyway, My original plan was to build a 2 channel amp head, clean/distortion with a 3band EQ. that fell through as
the people at the electronics shop couldn't help me with my diagrams, so I brought pre-built guitar kits from
a store called jaycar, and they suck to be honest, theyre 12volt, one basicly just amplifies the clean sig and the distortion sounds like
static, like distorted headphones not a distorted guitar, Im sure I run it properly, guitar into distortion -> then into the amp.

Anyway, I need some advice and information, im not satisfied with what I brought, so I want to build my own.

I was checking this out, http://www.4thlevelmedia.com/DrBoogeyPartsLayout.gif

Is this just purely distortion or is it clean too? and is it the dual rec pedal?
What would be needed for a clean channel aswel?

Basicly I want to make a small head (than runs only powerfull enough for headphones)
I wasn't sure how this worked though..

is it like this, guitar - > preamp - > distortion - > EQ - > amp?/headphones?

allthough the circuit in that link above has a good EQ so i wouldn't need another..

I want the face of the amp basicly to be like this,

Input - >on button -> (dist on/off  button -> Gain - Low - Mid - High - Presence - volume) -> master volume -> 3.5mm output

with a couple of LED's

I just sort of need to know if this is all possible at 9/12 volts, (from the wall), from my understanding,
the preamp takes it to the level of which an amplifier needs to amplify it, so it goes pre-amp -> effects -> amp?

but then do I need an amp for it or just headphones? is it possible to pack all this tone into somthing that isn't amplified/ just headphones?

I don't know someone please take the confusion out of my head and help tell me what I need, would be muchly apprieciated,
some links / vids would be great, I'd love to know what the circuit and each component actualy does to the guitar signal,
like does a resistor make it less loud ect? capacitors and stuff... i would much like not to need op-amps aswel, i don't understand what
they are, and i couldn't find the little things at the shop..

Thank you.

Michael

[petemoore]

  Not strange, Debugging sticky thread should be your friend and help you out 1,000 times, Thank RG in advance and later.
    We start with the headphones: effeciency matters as to how loud = quantity of power input required to make them 'go'. Impedance matching the amp>drivers requires knowing the headphone impedance, then the required amp impedance ballpark can be known. Or start with amp and match headphones to it, either way a starting number allows calcs to begin.
  Then lets' say the 9v amplifier is having troubles driving the headphones, and 15v allows a little bit better power to work with, above that the LM386 is out of spec, so other chips capable of carrying more current and accomodating greater power/headrooom is worth checking in to.
  With SS the concept is rigid: Linear transfer for the most part between speaker and amplifier. [mostly and for discussion, wwe're not looking to distort headphone speakers, and amp distortion is equally undesirable, caveat being it may be desirable, thread taking the turn towards clean transfers between amp/speaker for relevant discussion purposes at least.
  So say we have clean SS amplifier, we tried distorting it and blew a speaker and torqued an eardrum, decided it will be kept clean in the future...so that we can now look at the preamp.
  The preamp is where [for discussion purposes here] all the distortion comes from when SS amplifying to drive a speaker. [teeny little LM386 amps 'get away with distorting' because they can't blow a speaker if they huffed and puffed, and the speaker squelches some of the nasty hash by way of being stubborn compared to the driving capability of the amp [I said I was gonna keep the amp>speaker transfers clean and simple and strayed right off].
  Back to clean amp/speaker, using the preamp to get distortion:
  The Boogie is big heavy-distorter circuit. We'll go with that for now, call it the dirty channel or the Distortion channel.
  The clean channel is the Boogie in bypass mode...and is only as clean as the amp/speakers.
  "Clean" a relative term that means a bit dirty. To me at least, pure clean wide frequency response with perfect linear transfers is boring to irritate [cool for a while to hear what a string/pickup 'sounds like']. So some kinda speaker-dirt or preamp dirt or reverb or...something to add character so it doesn't sound like a steel wire wiggling around a copper one.
  could be anything, Fetzer for starters ?
  That said expect headphones to sound like headphones, LM386's to be somewhat limited yet probably capable of driving the drivers [helps to know more about the driver requirements such as ohmage etc.].
  That's the way I do it anyway, look at the speaker situation good and hard because it's the hard part to get good [easier these days, can't get cheap like an amplifier though]. Then match the amp to it...a quick hookup'n'try or lengthy pre-study-selection process.
  Get that working at least semi-linear, then mutilate the linearity with a distorter in front as 'preamp'.
 
 
 
 

[markeebee]

Hi Kirkesp, and welcome.

So, I would suggest you check out www.runoffgroove.com.  They have some really nice, really easy projects to get you going.

The Ruby amp at ROG is a cute starting point.....you could build it so that you have the option of driving a speaker with it, or use it with headphones by adding the couple of extra components shown on the last page here:  http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/pdf/ggg_ruby.pdf

The Ruby is a really cool sounding amp on its own, but if you build it and decide it's not quite right for you, Stage 2 could be that you add one of the ROG ampsim/preamp circuits in front of it, according to your taste.  Like:   Guitar -> Thor or Umble or Uno or whatever -> Ruby -> Phones.

For more tweakability you could add EQ:  Guitar -> Thor or Umble or Uno or whatever -> Tonemender -> Ruby -> Phones.

And maybe a cabsim:  Guitar -> Thor or Umble or Uno or whatever -> Tonemender -> Ruby -> Condor -> Phones.

Also, you could use two or more of the ampsim modules to give dual channelability.  Or something.

There's probably a hundred other ways of skinning your particular cat, but I kinda like the idea of doing it in easy chunks and comparing the differences along the way.

[kirkesp]

I checked out that site, very helpfull man, they sound good,


i like the uno the best, but can I use the link I posted in my first topic?, im a metal player, so a really heavy
distortion would suit me best.

So your suggesting -> guitar-> distortion -> EQ(tonemender) -> cab simulation -> ruby -> phones

that sounds pretty good to me, um, i think all the distortion circuits have their own EQ's,
if I built these circuits, and connected them together for headphones, is that it ? or do I need to change
certain things

Thanks for your replies guys