Building An Amp Circuit?

[donbenjy]

hey, me and my mate (who paly guitar and bass respectivly) were wondering about building an amp each ourselves...we already have our cases so its jsut the circuit we want. its kinda a wacky project, they dont need 2 be real quality amps or anything, see the housing is gonna be the main attraction of these, we're not looknig for the best amp out there or anything. but we would want EQ controls OD channels but other than that we dont care. oh these are gonna be SS btw, if we used valves we'd break em with these cases (not sayin what they are, its a secret ) so is there a circuit around for an amp we can use? both bass and regular guitar? oh btw, what makes say, a diezel better than a shitty 15W combo? im kinda unclear about why amps can be crap, except the obvious power ratings. we're prolly gonna connect them 2 1x12W speaker each. we know a fair bit about electronics and are both good solderers so we're looking to see if there are schematics around that we can just print off, etch and solder to? the speakers we just wanna solder onto the board or use SIL/DILs for if thats possible. i dont kno alot about amp circuitry although i do mod my guitar a fair bit. im guessing that if you change the values of caps to make a bass amp circuit?

oh, if theres any reason why this is a bad idea, just say cos, as i said, we dont know much about amp circuits. but they dont need 2 be reall good quality amps at all.

cheers

[truerussian558]

here's a lot of fender amp schems, some are tube but more are solid state, just look around.

[donbenjy]

coool, thanks! errrrr, these boards look quite large well i could give it a try...they dont use chips do they? will thesesound like proper fender amps, or is there another factor involved?

[Paul Marossy]

99% of solid state amps use IC chips. Why don't you build something like a Fender Champ, P1 Extreme or an Octal Fatness or similar? These are all around 5 watts or so and they are pretty loaud if you are just looking for a "bedroom amp". You'd probably be a lot happier with the sound of a Class A tube amp than some cheap Peavey type of thing.

[lovekraft]

http://hammer.ampage.org

Scroll down to "Mini-amp". See if that suits ya!

[Paul Marossy]

That's a good point lovecraft brings up. If you're OK with about a 1/2 watt, you could also try building the Little Gem or the Little Gem MkII at www.runoffgroove.com

I built the Little Gem, and it's a cool little solid state practice amp that won't cost a lot to build. Here's the one I built: http://www.diyguitarist.com/GuitarAmps/LittleGem.htm

[Workbench]

Try Hoffmanamps.com You will see a great deal of info and a great forum to learn about building tube amps

[donbenjy]

hey, thanks for the feedback...but i dont think i made myself too clear...this is gonna have to be a pretty high power amp, for gigging, but not huge venues so i dont need somethin of a stack size...but im thinkin anythin above 30W SS kinda sound is what i need :S and i cant use tubes because its gonna be knocked about abit, i woudl fdefinately prefer a tube sound, bu5 not possible in my situation atm.

the ICs, are these standard chips or picaxes which id need to program? im guessing a regular chip cos i cant see why id need to program a chip to amp sonething...

anyway, i might try the princeton 65...unless anyone happens to have a spare old amp they dont use that they wouldn't mind selling off cheaply....tbh i just need the board and transformer, not the speaker or casing because they will be customised

[truerussian558]

get friendly with This site. Great selection, especially with solid state stuff. and the prices are pretty good, if you buy in larger quantities of the stuff then they're even better and it would be cheaper to buy yours and your friends parts at the same time (especially if its the same amp)

Edited February 9, 2005 by truerussian558

[Paul Marossy]

Honestly, you could probably buy a used solid state amp for probably less than you will spend to build your own - and it sounds like spare cash is a problem for you. Anyhow, the IC chips should be standard single, dual or quad opamps unless what you want to build is some kind of digital modeling amp. Then you would be talking about programming chips and stuff like that...

[donbenjy]

well i could bu a fairly good amp if i saved up, but im only 16 and i thought this would be a cool project...the case if the main thing, so i could get a 3nd hand thing for cheaper i guess...was just looknig at my optinos really

i do have an old 15W fender, if i kept the impedance and power rtatings the same, coudl i put a bigger speaker in?

[Paul Marossy]

Sure, you could put a bigger speaker in it. It probably won't make it any louder, though...