OT - I Built A Practice Amp!! Now With Pictures And New Beef Flavour!

[phaeton]

That is VERY cool and sounds amazingly good, Phaeton! You built the combo and I built the head version...

 

Actually... Funny as this may be, the amp in the pic no longer exists as you see it. It's got some extra switches in it now, but the circuitboard and speaker are disconnected, as is the input. I've torn it apart to use the speaker on another project.

 

Last night on my breadboard i (wired up? inserted up?) cobbled together another copy of this one. It actually sounded much better than the first, but i can't see what i did differently this time

 

Then i got crazy and built a BlueStrat-modified FuzzFace circuit into the front of it, then i modded it some more myself (read: swapped out resistors and caps for different values just to see what they'd do). I like what i've sorta stumbled upon so much i might make a permanent version of it.

 

I'll keep y'all posted if i do.

 

Oh and about the FuzzFace i built to Bluestrat's spec- if this is what his sound like, i like them a lot more than the sounds i hear on the Hendrix albums, FWIW.

[the stranger]

I just listened to the clips you posted. I'll be waiting to hear what the new version sounds like.

[phaeton]

I want to hear Boggs' amp with a real speaker on it.

 

I could borrow the speaker from the Reverend, but i'd rather not.. heh.

[phaeton]

It actually sounded much better than the first, but i can't see what i did differently this time

 

The last amp was 9V battery powered, this one is wall-wart powered (also at 9V). Wuddyasay my difference is better power? The 9V i used in the amp will only give about 5.7V now per DVOM with no load. If i play for awhile and the measure it (again with just the DVOM and no real load) it seems closer to 3.9-4.3V.

 

Also, the wall-wart powered circuit hums. I'm assuming that this is coming from the wall-wart itself (fast DC pulses from the transformer). You can fix this by sticking a good-sized cap (220uf-ish?) in series with the power supply, right?

 

o---9V+ from wallwart---+|(---Pos Supply to circuit---o

 

Right?

 

Bluestrat?

Boggs?

Phil?

DTR?

 

[Boggs]

Hell, I don't know... I just built what you told me to in the first place!

[Blue Strat]

Originally posted by pprohaeton:

Oh and about the FuzzFace i built to Bluestrat's spec- if this is what his sound like, i like them a lot more than the sounds i hear on the Hendrix albums, FWIW.

Woah, cool!!

 

Did you build the 2N2222 NPN version or the 2N3904 NPN? I've got two, and they don't sound the same. The 2N2222 NPN version has more of a treble fizz to it while the 2N3906 PNP version is fatter with more of a bloated sound. I'm not sure it's fair to compare the two, because the 2N2222 is to the schematic on my site and my personal 2N3906 PNP version has a different set of values.

 

I should really post some sound clips of the two, for comparison.

 

Here's the link for anyone interested:

 

http://geocities.com/teleman28056/fuzz_face_schematics.html

[phaeton]

I built the 2N2222 NPN version... (originals were PNP, right?)

 

I thought maybe you were pulling the schems off yer site (and out of yer sig block) bc you might market some.

 

Yeah.. i don't know if what i ended up with is because of your design or my fumbling, but i like it- it's not overly fizzy sounding, it's kinda muffled and squashed all to hell, yet i can play all my fucked up powerchords through it and they come out recognizeable.

 

Not a sound you can use for everything, but it's a good one. Mainly what i've done is replace C1 with a jumper wire, change R3 to 2K7 and... uhh.. something else.. i can't remember which... For some reason i'm having some trouble distinguishing colours on the resistors, and i'm confusing orange and red, violet for brown and such.

 

Dunno if it's the flourescent light in my room or what. I don't remember having this trouble before. I'll have to find a different light source and draw a schematic from the circuit and compare them. I'll keep ya posted.

[Blue Strat]

I've thought about putting a 47k resistor in series with a 50k pot (wired as a variable resistor) in place of the 100k resistor in the circuit. A Vox Tone Bender is pretty much the same circuit as the Fuzz Face, but it was NPN silicon whereas the Fuzz Face was PNP germanium. The Fuzz Face uses a 100k, the Tone Bender uses a 47k. A switch could be used instead of the 50k pot.

 

I'm not too industrious. I haven't done anything with the two designs I've got, either the Fuzz Face or the 741 based fuzz I built. Both of them fit on the same board, both cost the same money to build, and they'll both use the same 4" drain cap case.

 

The 741 based fuzz is a sonic cross between a Big Muff Pi and a Fuzz Face. Gain of 10,001! It's a non-inverting design with a high impedance input (500k). Mine is built with a true bypass, but I could bypass the true bypass and put in an LED.

[aeon]

I loved the righteous tone in the 20-200 clip, lovely!

 

 

cheers,

aeon

[Anderton]

<>

 

But the 386 is vintage, man...it's pre-CBS!

[phaeton]

But the 386 is vintage, man...it's pre-CBS!

 

I just got privvy to a small, but select quantity of LM383 Non-Masters. This is the STUFF man. These are *THE SOUND* when it comes to Practice Amplifiers. The chips Like Mom Used To Bake. Remember back to your childhood- those powerchords that were so dense, thick and crispy you could only carry 2 at a time in your Radio Flyer? Here's the magic right HERE.

 

They've never been obsolete, they just had to stop making them because they're too loud. If it weren't for those silly watchdog groups snuffing these out 20 years ago, i wouldn't have had to spend months trying to hunt them down, or pay such a premium ($5.95 each!)

 

(ok, truth be told, they were hard to find, but there's a modern replacement available.)

 

It's one of Craig's designs, so let's all blame him.

[Blue Strat]

I'm working on getting my mini-amp put back together. I'm trying to find a 1.5" speaker for the garage door opener enclosure. I've got a 1/8" jack, a on/off switch, the 1.75" square board, the 9V, and the speaker to fit inside of a thick walled 2.25" x 4.62" x 1" ABS enclosure.