1W "practice" amp

Made this last week, mostly random stuff that I had in my basement. The speaker box is from an old stereo setup I found in the trash a while back, it had a shitty little 4" speaker in it but I squeezed in a 6" I ripped out of an old tube reel to reel that had long since died. Not sure of the ohm's but it sounds way better than the one that was in there.

The amp is built into a little Radio Shack enclosure, has a push button switch for power, I think that came out of the reel to reel too actually. I used an old Fisher Price 9v adapter to power it, just broke open the case and mounted it inside with the amp. For some reason with all my shuffling and knocking it about it ended up putting out like 22 or so volts instead.... Not sure what's up with that. Gives the amp way more headroom and a better sound than a battery does though. I just drilled through the bottom of the enclosure into the speaker box to run the power wires down. That way the cord can come out of the bottom of the cabinet and not the amp enclosure, which I thought would look very stupid. 

The amp itself is a little 1W headphone amp kit, the same kind I used for my reverb box. I added some shitty old caps and resistors to make sure it sounded less sterile, and that's that. Thing is actually really loud, and sounds pretty damn good. I like it a whole lot on theremin and synth, but the clean guitar is nice too. 

Not going to beat an expensive boutique job, but it sounds weird and unique and I should be able to have some fun with it for recording. Spent less than $10 on it too.

More for Less

Akai Gives You More

Acoustic Reincarnation

I had this shitty old Johnson acoustic guitar sitting around and I felt like giving it a new life. My wife painted it all psychedelic like a while back, and that was cool, but it was getting kinda tired and bored. Stripping all the layers of paint off was a bitch, to say the least. I used Strypeeze to make my life easier, worked great and even got the original finish off as well. I wanted to get it down to bare wood and stain it. I used a "black onyx" stain, and just barely brushed it on, then touched up a few spots with a rag. After it dried I went over the whole thing with a brillo sanding pad, they sell 'em at the auto stores, mine was left over from some bondo work I did on my van. Tailpiece is from an old Kay.

Used the Dremel with a large cutoff wheel to make the hole for the pickup. That was actually really easy. I was very surprised.

Simple wiring on the pickup. 1 Humbucker, 1 Volume, 1 Tone. The pickup is out of a 70's Electra and is very loud. I used a vintage "Sangamo" cap on the tone pot, it's huge and weird but 0.47, so I figured what the hell. New Gibson pickup mounting ring, and I threw on some new Fender strap buttons. Front didn't have a spot for one, so I added that. Vintage style "cupcake" volume and tone knobs, those are real slick. I dig 'em. Probably should have taken more/better pictures as I went along, but oh well. It came out cool, and sounds awesome, that's what really matters. Have at those shitty old guitars! Don't throw 'em away! Reincarnate!

UPDATE: Added a new bridge, a nickel Gotoh and some Grover vintage style tuners with the pearly knobs.... oooh. Very nice. The old tuners were total crap, rattled like all hell and didn't really stay in tune very well at all. Had to cut a rectangular hole for the bridge to sit down in, just dremeled one out. I wanted/needed it to sit lower in the body so that the action would come down a bit. The truss rod is an accident waiting to happen on this thing, so I'm not touchin' that. Worked out pretty damn well, action isn't perfect, but a hell of a lot better than it was. Much better intonation also. No buzzes, no rattles, ready to jam on.

If you click on the scan of Gotoh box and read the back it's hilarious. "There may be unable to do it". Haha.

Here it is all finished and ready to go. New bridge, tuners, and etc.

New Dimensions in Sound 1957

Mobile Recording Unit

  

Ron's Mobile Recording Unit, roadside assistance. Laying down some tracks for The Mangled Dead at the jam space using the trusty Tascam 424 MKII cassette 4-track. Bass through the DiyRe Ferrite DI, SM58 on the guitar, simple kick-snare-overhead setup on the drums, sent into the Shure M267 mic mixer. Vocals will get done later back at HQ.

The good thing about recording this way is that I get a fairly decent room sound on the drums, and the performance is a lot more energetic. You can get good and rowdy at the practice space, and drink a lot of beer, so that helps.

  

                   

Old Cans vs. New Cans

I was fixing up some old headphones today and I noticed something odd. All of the old sets I have, like 70's-ish, have actual speakers in them. Like big ass speakers with magnets hanging off the back and everything. Imagine the speakers in your guitar cab or home stereo, like those. All of the newer, post 90's sets, have these shitty little flat things that have no style at all. Plastic fantastic man. Where's all the metal at? You can see what I mean in the photos.

The only thing I needed to fix on the old sets was the glue. Being 30 years old or so, the glue holding the speaker to the frame had wasted away. So I just threw some shoe goo on there and put 'em back together. The set in the photos is from Sears and they needed some new ear cushions as well. I stole the new set from some shitty chinese cans I bought a few years back. Don't buy those. They suck magnificently. Truly horrible, for real. Trust me.