Bottlehead Forum
General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: willspeed on June 02, 2011, 03:26:42 AM
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Hey guys,
I'm sorta throwing around the idea of building an amp for an acoustic/electric guitar, I was wondering if anyone had some resources that I could check out.
Thanks in advance!
Will
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I have been looking at one of these but haven't purchased anything yet. Tube Depot seems to be a standup company, they have always done right by me.
http://www.tubedepot.com/kitsguitar.html
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Another good source: http://www.ax84.com/classicprojects.html (http://www.ax84.com/classicprojects.html)
John
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When you say acoustic electric, do you mean an acoustic with a piezo pickup, or an archtop hollowbody with traditional magnetic coil pickups? I've been experimenting with some ideas for the latter, and I have had a couple of requests for the former.
Electric guitar guys are a very conservative bunch, from what I can tell the range of creativity in guitar amps that sell well is "do you want to clone a Fender, a Marshall or a Vox?" I am working on some ideas that don't follow any of those approaches exactly. But you do have to understand what creates the kind of sounds that are popular and try to get the amp to behave in such a way as to emulate them to some extent, so there are a lot of similarities.
With an acoustic I would suggest a different approach. I think what a lot of acoustic players would really like the sound of is a large diaphragm condenser or maybe a ribbon mic setup playing through what would essentially be a high end PA. A mic allows for trying something like a single ended hi-fi amp and maybe a Lowther driver. You can get a pretty dynamic clean tone with a setup like that.
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in kit form you might check...
http://www.guytronix.com/
i've built this amp and can attest it is sweet
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Yes, the Guytronix amps have a very good reputation. I am going to begin experimenting with a rather different all pentode design but something that is generally in the same range of output power, maybe about 3 watts. An earlier 4-5 watt amp design I did using 12AX7s and a 6V6 is now being tried out on some session recording that my friend Art Khu has been working on, using an Epiphone Emperor II with fairly heavy flatwounds and a Kent Armstrong neck pup I installed (thanks jcastelletti, he spent a week in the woodshed with it as soon as he got it and he loves it!). Art seems pretty happy with the results so far and I might post a sample if I can get permission.
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Very cool! I would love to hear it. I'm glad Art is enjoying the Emperor. It was a good sounding guitar stock I bet it sounds great with the pickup upgrade! I would love to hear what you cook up for an amp!