pix of Custom built guitar amps/cabs

[erix]

Here's little studio amp I made over the winter from stuff lying around.
 
The cabinet is genuine plywood stained and cleared. The alnico 6" speaker, grill cloth, and power cord from an old tube record player I got at a junk store. The chassis is brushed brass with a clear coat, power transformer from an old boombox.
 
This is built with a hybrid 12V space charge tube amp circuit I made years ago with a new PCB PLUS a fuzz on another PCB I made.
Controls are: Fuzz Bypass, Shape, Fuzz, Fuzz Volume, Tone, Preamp Gain
   
The shape control is a rotary switch that selects input ("top") and output ("bottom:) caps. There are four settings:
Paris = thin top, thin bottom
Rachel = thin top big bottom
Pamela = big top, little bottom
Oprah = big top, big bottom

You can get ALL kinds of sound out of this little thing. It's never really clean, even with the fuzz off and the gain rolled back - probably the speaker. You can have real synthy fun with the neck pickup & tone rolled all the way back into Oprah or get the icepick through the forehead on Paris and a single coil. I've never plugged it into a cabinet but it should do pretty ok...

eric

[deadastronaut]

nice!......

oprah ....lol..

[kurtlives]

This amp started about a year and a half ago. It's my first full build/design. The idea was to have a small little head (PR size chassis and cab) that covered lots of ground. The amp is 50W PP fixed bias. Clean and overdrive channel with a great reverb circuit thrown in too. The clean is like a mix between a BF Fender and a Dumble, the OD is an Dumble ODS with some tweaks here and there. Overall I think it sounds great!

The amp was actually done at the end of last summer. After finishing school this April I had some time to get back to it. Worked out some bugs and did some tone tweaking. Really when the amp started up the tone was ok but nothing special at all. The longest part was getting the tone dialed in to my liking. Spent the last couple months listening and tweaking. Finally yesterday I added some more NFB which did the trick for the last tone issue I was addressing. So now it is done!




















Tone is amazing! I dialed it in perfectly for my strat. All pickup positions sound fantastic (something I haven't really found on any other amp, usually don't use bridge). Cleans are very full and complex with real popping bass and mids, very tight. Nice clear highs without being to in your face. Good bit of compression and feel to this channel.

Overdrive is great, really rips, gotta record it. 3 way voicing switch adds many tones and makes the OD quite versatile.

Reverb is ideal for me, not too in your face and intense as an old BF Fender. More mid emphasize in the reverb than the typical high influence of a BF Fender.

Lots of other neat switches and features...Class A switch and Mid Boost, Deep, Hi/Lo gain switches. O and adding the FX loop buffer, really like that tone wise. The FX loop buffer is switchable.


Circuitry has changed a bunch since original schems. I can post later if interested...

[davent]

That's wonderful Chris, a long, sonically fulfilling journey! Always good to see your schematic.

Take care!
dave

[kurtlives]

Thanks Dave.







You might recognize the mains filter from a chat we had last year. That was when I was designing.

[Cap]

my little amp head with a ruby inside and fake tubes too 




Ric.

[deadastronaut]

^ ...love it...

what did you use for fake tubes?...

[John Lyons]

That's great! Nice work.
Cute little bugger.

[Cap]

thanks!

@deadastronaut: I used old light bulbs..12V car door lights I think, with amber leds

[Taylor]

Oh wow, I want one! That's awesome.

I may steal your idea and build one of my Tiny Giant amps in this style.

[ugly_guitar_guy]

Here's an iso cab that I built a few months ago for home recording (hard to record at "normal" volumes in a tiny apartment) and for use at church to keep my stage volume quieter. Baltic Birch plywood, 75 watt celestion, and SM-57. The jacks for the mic and speaker are mounted on the back so I can plug directly in and rock away! One of the best and most used things I've ever built. one of these days I'll slap some tolex on it and make it look nicer.

[John Lyons]

Hey, that looks nice?
Do you notice any build up of lower mids/lows with the sealed chamber?
I see you have it lined with foam but...

[elshiftos]

my little amp head with a ruby inside and fake tubes too 

That is one of the coolest things I've seen on here!

[deadastronaut]

^ have you made a seperate matching cab?...great little amp...

[ugly_guitar_guy]

Hey, that looks nice?
Do you notice any build up of lower mids/lows with the sealed chamber?
I see you have it lined with foam but...

Surprisingly it gives a very clear sound and doesn't get muddy at all, and I've got all kinds of layers of different foam all around the box, on both sides of the speaker. I would like to change the speaker and put in a Celestion Vintage 30 because I just prefer the sound of those when recording. What truly blew me away was how quiet this thing really does get though. I can crank my Mesa Mark V in my apartment and it's barely more than having a small practice amp going in the room, and when I open the lid it'd face-melting loud!

[sixstring531]

My rehoused Bad Cat Black Cat cab.

Guess what my last name is?

[John Lyons]

That looks nice! Is is walnut on the top and sides?

[sixstring531]

Mahogany -- just like my Les Paul!

[phector2004]

Wow! Nice amp! I think I remember you posting an earlier version of it, glad to see how well it turned out

What are all the knobs and switches on the back? I'm guessing the first ones are reverb-related, but are the others involved in biasing? Volume control?

Enjoy it!

[tasos]

Great work kurtlives!
I am looking for a way to do the lettering on a preamp i am making...i though of etching...
Any other ideas?