The Amp Garage

I finally ran out of my 1lb roll of solder yesterday. I went to my local parts house and they were out of what I normally use. I have been using Kester 60/40 rosin core .031 dia. for several years. They had three or four other types of Kester. The lead free type (gag) and one called no clean @ $30 ...

This is why I really do not like the semi-technical discussions of class of operation. There is so much misinformation, some deliberate, and even more simple and honest misunderstanding of what is a very, very complex phenomenon that it becomes almost impossible. Here's an example: "Think it through...

Tell him to buy one of the Grail series reverb stompboxes from Electro Harmonix--they're all great! One of them in a loop sounds WAY better than most spring tanks anyway. Grail reverb puts no money in Mr. LeBlanc's till. :( Unless he sells Joe Mothpockets an effects loop... :roll: Everyone says I'm...

The only thing with the old organ amps is they fed heaters for like a zillion tubes so you may find the heater supply a bit high. Otherwise big iron good. I likes me some big iron. Over in one tube hifi forum I was in we used to joke about the weight to watts ratio. I built one stereo amp that does ...

I've not seen the Ampmedic stuff.

F&Ts are very good. I don't see a reason to pay more for anything.

Depends on where the pot is in circuit. Usually the value is completely non-critical and the worst that will happen is you might get a little loading on the previous stage. If there are other resistors in series with it or a bright cap across it, it will affect the tone and taper somewhat. I can't i...

I edited one of my schematics to give you a better idea of how to proceed. 1N4007 diodes are fine or use a FWB package. The R & C values are for example only. I left the DC heaters, you may not want those. Good Luck & God Bless, John If you use that FWB with the same transformer that would give the...

I bet the B-15 pre and V4 Output would make an awesome amp!!! Along those lines, I'm wrapping up my 100 watt B15 build, it's a B15N preamp and pi, hitting post-pi cathode followers into a pair of 6550's at very high voltages, gigantic filter caps and super-sized Hammond transformers. Fun build and ...

I finally talked a local bass player into letting me build a real amp for him. He decided to do it after his so called SVT classic gave out on him for the last time. I opened the classic up and closed it back up, what a piece of junk. Thin pc boards, ribbon connectors. Here is the amp I'm building ...

If I had to leave the house to play a gig, not knowing what sort of music or where, I would either take the 90's Fender Concert or the modded Marshall 4104 with the 2x12 extension cab. The Fender would be less likely to scare others and has channel switching. The Marshall is capable of brootulz or a...

I remove flux, aesthetics if nothing else.

Acetone and a cheap acid brush with the bristles cut short to scrub.

My first experiment would be as minimal a change as possible. Try to dig up a schem, or just trace and experiment with the various inputs and see if there isn't one that doesn't have an appropriate gain level for guitar. Or one that's close anyway. A lot of those old PA mics had some drive and the a...

Since they'll probably be getting the money from her insurance company they'll probably pay pretty quick, probably.

Glad you're mostly okay.

So was the b!^ch on the damn cell phone when she hit you?

Get well quick. Her too.

Even very good meters, including a lot of Flukes have a hard time with very low resistance values. Just get the 1% resistors and consider it good. These amps do not care about fractions of a milliamp of static bias. If you are biasing to some point that is so close to a threshold that it makes a di...

I say the best approach on the caps is to experiment with your stash. It's real easy to tack them into place. Just tack em in to try them and then solder it properly when you find the ones you like. Same approach for a bright cap on the volume controls if you want one. Actually isn't it a requiremen...