What to do with an old practice amp?

[Focalized]

My first amp, Fender Bullit. Thought maybe I could build a better little solid state amp with maybe a couple built in effects.

Any recommendations? Maybe something a bit more than the Ruby type projects I've seen. How about one with a one tube preamp. Anything to give me ideas.

[GibsonGM]

You could tear out your amp's preamp section, and yes, do a nice tube preamp! Get some preamp crunch!     

Or build in a simple preamp, add pre and post EQ, PLUS selectable overdrive, crunch distortion, and metal distortion ;o)   With appropriate recovery stages where you have insertion loss, of course...that would cover all your clipping needs...

I'm not familiar with the Bullit or what it puts out, probably not a lot.  So you kinda have to balance doing cool things to it with the payback (can you use it live? Maybe do a line out so you could? That sort of stuff).    But you really could have fun with it! 
Let us know what you decide to do...

[chi_boy]

Maybe you could put a Firefly in it.

http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=84856.0

[Gus]

Do you have access to a good speaker and cab with the same ohms rating as the Bullit that you could try with the amp? 
The schematic shows a current feedback design
http://support.fender.com/schematics/guitar_amplifiers/Bullet_Reverb_schematic.pdf

You might be surprised as how good a practice amp can sound with a good speaker(s) and cabinet.  Current feedback can sound very nice with solid state amps.

[Focalized]

A little all tube amp seems nice, but wanted to try something with parts I already have. Not buying a PCB I mean. Tube wise I have some preamp tubes.


It has an external speaker out but I don't have a extension cab. Just a few other combo amps. Is it safe to plug speaker out into another amp? I kind of remember doing something like that long ago when I got my second crappy amp.

My champ is 4 ohms but no point in trying that, probably sound the same. My Classic 30 is 16 Ohms. My Tech 21 amp is 8 ohms with a 12in speaker. Might sound better through it.

But I'm still thinking about a small amp with a couple effects so that I can reuse the full front panel with has seven pots. I firstly looked sat the little Ruby amps and Noisy Cricket.

[GibsonGM]

Check out some of the tube preamps that are rolling around on here; low voltage stuff running on anywhere from 12 to 40 volts!   12AU7's and the like, giving good results at lower B+'s.   Don't go towards 12AX7's unless you plan to provide them a much higher voltage to run on 

If your power supply can handle it, you might be able to do more than the traditional 2 stage/1 triode thing...you could possibly do FOUR stages, so you can drive a tone stack as well as get your crunch! 

[Gus]

I think you should try the amp with other speakers. 
The drive section has diode clipping compare that section to a blues breaker, note how the gain control works
A link about feedback http://sound.westhost.com/project56.htm

I tend to like a single 12" speaker much more than a single 8"  for guitar with an open back cabinet.
A good tube amp with a 8" speaker will still be limited by the cabinet and speaker size

Look at speaker prices and construction

A friend had bought a nice 2 x12 cab we installed a good pair of speakers I forget the model we used a solid state practice amp to test it(older voltage feedback type).  It sounded very good nothing like the sound of the  8" speaker and small open back cabinet.

[Focalized]

I'll try it with my Trademark 60 once I get some extensions to the speaker wires made up.

My original idea was a Ruby or Noisy Cricket with a couple effects. Just never looked into those little amps before. I'd have to figure how to power it all with one source I hope. I'm not really comfortable with higher voltage work aside from a kit with good instruction like the Champ I built.