Have a chat to the shop owner, and explain to him. Can you remember who was standing behind the till with your card?

So with the help from the guys at ssguitar, i'm going to go with an alembic jobbie as was used by Gilmore. Should be getting some schweet tones from that. Seems rather solid. Transformer from karl should be in the mail already ?
Any crunch though will have to come from external pedal. Not too bothered about that though. Still getting my fingers to loosen up.
Thanks for all the input guys. Much appreciated.
Towards october, i will build a full valve amp.

This is on my new guitar. Thick strings, and don't think its the normal 440 tune. On my electric i get it 70% of the time. End April i will take both new guitars for setup and new strings.
I think if I hear the transition legato, it should trigger something in me to get it right.

As a noob, I'm having some issues with D -> F Barre transition.
Can I request a simple recording from a pro doing a basic arpeggio on that shift a few times?

D -> F -> D -> F -> D -> F

Basic Arpeggio
Base, 3,2,1,2,3
Tempo 110 bbm


From F -> D it is not so bad. Sounds well connected. Vice versa I loose nearly 2/4 of the beat trying to change hands. Been practicing his transition for a week, and not not seeing major improvement from D-> F Barre. Dont want to use the cheat F just yet.

Thanks for the advice guys. Will start with lighter strings, and maybe check to see if the action can drop a further 0.5mm without introducing fret trebble

I'm rebuilding that hybrid I got from Arno West. It's a Marshall S80. 2 x fat 12" 4 ohm drivers.
I loved the sound. Unfurtunatly after sizable effort to repair it was declared dead. A few of the chips fried, and the PSU is faulty. So I really want to get something almost the same in sound..
I've got the solid state power stage ready. 2 x 40 watt outputs. So now I simply need to build an overdrivable preamp section that the guitar will plug into.
At a later stage I will get that 5 watt tweed kit from Mars, but for now a simple design only for the pre-amp section is what I need.

I'm rebuilding a marshal amp. I've got the new power stage sourced.
However...
The preamp and overdrive is still a headache. I need to understand the dynamics before i can design it.
The idea is to use an 12ax7 valve for that.
The input signal on the power stage is set to max 2v. This i quite high. I can adjust to about 1v
Do i need 2 stages before that? I a normal preamp, that will be overdriven by a 2nd preamp? Or do i just give one preamp a very large gain range from clean to crunchy?
Any one got simple circuit diagrams for it?

Hey guys. So I acquired 2 more guitars.
A santa fe semi acoustic and a classical from the 80's.
Now they both need some love and i need some advice. on the semi acoustic the strings are so tight that i struggle with f barre chord. You seriously need to grip this like a vice grip to get some clean tones.
I've never owned a steel acoustic so not sure if this is normal.
On my electric, you simply touch the strings for clean tone.
Can i have the same feel on the semi?

Then the classical has not been played in 20 years. It belonged to my wife's late mother. Still have string on. What worries me is that the action is almost 1cm. Its unplayable. Could it be that the the neck has bent upwards?
The saddle does seem to be too high as well.

Could these two jobs be done by a novice, or is this luthier territory?

Excellent documents! Thanks a mil!!
Much more info in there than I will ever need. Fantastic resource, and great reference guide when playing with valves.

I bought a 12ax7 from mr valve, and will also get the original EC(something) back that was in my busted marshal amp. Seems like this project is taking off soon ?
Will be curious to compare the sound from the ElectroHarmonix 12AX7 with the original marshal valve.

Gearhead wrote: If you must... Good info on hybrids and gainclones to be had on diyaudio.com, but you probably found them already.

Haha, power stage is built ?
Tested it on some mordaunt short speakers and sounds great. Very clean, no white noise even on max vol.
very true to the original signal. Maybe slightly bright. So all character will have to be imposed from the pre. I think i will have to include some tone controls as well.

Sounds stunning!!!!

Well the valve portion works fine.
The valve state is a hybrid amp. Thus valve pre-amp, and solid state power amp. However, it seems marshal has included another stage in the middle that is also solid state. It is the power circuit that popped. The chip itself was glowing red, then cracked. This was due to a zener failure just before that. I replaced the chip, and the zeners, but too much other portions was blown as well. Also that chip is very rare. It is no longer in production, and I managed to track one down in pretoria. They sold me their last one. Doubt I will find another one.

This is the pre-amp I'm going to build now.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Guitar-Tube-Pre-Amp/

That will feed into the 50 watt gainclone chipamp.

I'm fairly comfortable with electronics. Except when I do things like putting a power supply board with 110v charged caps on my lap. I tend to talk very dirty then! half a farad takes some time to drain. plenty french escaped my mouth there.
This is my previous audio project.
http://www.guitarforum.co.za/amps-speakers-and-valves/diy-projects/msg231905/#msg231905
Allas, my budget is a lot smaller this time.
I think I will stick with the solid state and valve pre-amp with a gain control in order to induce clipping for now. Hopefully I can get away by spending not more than about 2K. When budget improves, I will try and get my hands on the mars JTM45 kit. Maybe even the smaller one. Scared that 30watts will obliterate the drivers of the S80.

Ps, all of this will be built into the cassis of the s80, along with the 2x 40 watt 12" drivers

So about 18 month ago i bought a valvestate s80 from this forum. What a lovely thing it was.
Unfortunately she played her last few notes,
I had the head portion in, but all the electronics is fried. I tried myself to fix as well, and she is done. Between me and the experts, it is unanimous.
That said, i'm gong to create new life...
40 watt chipamp is waiting to be built this december.
I need some advice on the preamp sections.
Im planning a preamp based on 12ax7 tubes
Any one got diagrams and or experience? i'm still stuggelng to understand the dynamics.
Do i have 3 stages? Ie, overdrive feeds into preamp, feeds into power amp.
Or do i just have a pre amp with clipping high gain into the power amp?
Then i want 4 effects in series with a button i can bypass or engage.
Chorus/delay
Overdrive
Full on heavy distortion.
Wah (i understand this is tricky, since it is a digital effect)

I'm hoping to tackle this in the holiday season from the 22nd onwards.
Any one with experience/pointers/diagram etc?
Need a basic design before then so that i can have the transformer wound to specs, and source the parts before every one closes.
The power amp parts i have already. I can choose between 40watt chipamp, or duel channel 120watt sold state based on naim nap 200.
I need help on the pre and effects stages.

Started on some german nylon classic that belongs to my oldman. Then bought epihone gibson les paul clone. Paid r600 that included boss metal zone. Want to shoot myself for getting rid of that pedal. They are selling now for 1400 .( loved that pedal in the 90's as much as my mom hated it.
After that bought ibanez something. This was pre- gio series. Cant remember.
Got rx170 now after 15 year hiatus from guitar.

lindsey buckingham from Fleetwood mac.
Just check that 4 minute solo in I'm so afraid. Not as heavy as most of you prefer, but it's right up my alley for enjoyment.

Tamago wrote: Hi there

I was doing some R&D today about whether to do a local electronics magazine or not, and I saw this post of yours come up.

While the build is commendable, I can offer you a few pointers.

Some of the capacitors you used there are really low-grade. Those HITANO caps are really cheap and should not be used in audio equipment.

Those screw terminal blocks are also a big no-no for audio equipment. They have resistance issues as I have experienced using them in many designs of security equipment over the years.

Thanks for the advice. I always appreciate helpful criticism. Helps with future builds.
The wires on the terminal blocks has been tinned. Then using pliers I held down the block and let the screw "bite" into the lead to try and counter scratchy, high resistance joins. Not ideal, and going to redo the pre-amp any ways.
This pre-amp is based on the SRPP design. I want to do a srpp+ at some stage. SRPP+. so that I can hopefuly drive some 300 ohm headphones directly from the pre-out. the + version is said to be strong enough to do that.
I bought the hitanos because I had experience with the Hitano low ESR caps. They are quite fantastic where low ESR is needed. sounded better than the Panasonic low ESR caps. Used them in the power amp.
Currently I'm not happy with the phono stage. These caps might be a good starting point. It is an op amp based phono stage, so by design far from the best. I might be doing a solid state, or valve phono stage at some stage. Just need to get the finances to stabilise a little 1st.
thanks again for the pointers.

Nirvana unplugged!

I'ts a IbanexRX160.
I'm practicing arpeggio, and plucking, so no whammy or hard strumming. I'm also using my fingers, and not a pic.
About the strings... well I have no idea! It is the original set from when my wife bought it for me in may. There is a bit of a vibration on on E6, so I will perhaps send it in to Phil Cullam for a service, and mention the tuning. If it stays like that, then i guess it is normal. My nylon lasted several days, so I thought that might be the same with electric steel.
Any ways, thanks guys. Feeling a little more comfortable.