What amp to choose?

[KingCrimson]

I'm new to this discussion group, and I'm not so sure how much time I should put into trying to learn how to build my own amp (as opposed to just buying one and focusing time on my wife and my chops).

Anyway, right now I'm at a crossroads as to which direction to focus on, and would find it interesting to see what some of you experts had to say.

I REALLY am interested in trying out and buying an 18 watt clone, such as Gabi's, but geez, I can't even try one out. I live in Central Florida and the ONLY amp sold out here is the Peavey Pacer.....well....ok... maybe not true. On the other hand, I've had thoughts in my head about just going the cheap route and getting one of those 15 watt, all tube Crates with the V on the front and a 12 inch Celestion for about 400 bucks. I've heard pretty good things about those for the price.....just change out a couple of the stock tubes (please, someone talk me out of this).

I've also had thoughts about going with a Fender clone company called Allen, for about 1500 bucks, but do I want to build around a classic Marshall tone or a classic Fender tone? Which direction would give me the most diversity?

I realize some of these questions won't be answered for several years, and maybe I'll end up with both types of amps and just A/B them.

As far as the trying to learn how to build one, I probably won't go down that road unless I am able to apprentice under someone who lives around here to get hands on experience instead of going it alone. If I did decide to go it alone, how did some of you newbies get the courage to do so and how many times did you get shocked before you got on track?

The bottom line is, I bet Jeff Beck could plug into a cheap Crate amp and sound great, but I'm not Jeff Beck, so I'd like a great sounding piece of machinery behind me to give people the illusion that I'm good, and also to inspire me to play better by expanding my tonal boundaries. But so many roads and so little time.....and not quite rich yet.

Folks, feel free to slug your screen if my post was complete nonsense and unnecessarily took up precious bandwidth on this site.

[Foster]

It's not nonsense at all, but it's virtually impossible to provide an "answer." From your mention of Marshall, Fender, and Beck, you sound like a guy who is interested primarily in the classic, vintage type tones, as opposed to (say) the latest M-Boogie metal gain monster. But I could be wrong. So the first question to answer would be what do you want for tone?

For me, the answer is a classic BF tone for clean, a Marshall Plexi for dirt, and the same boosted for leads. Although lately I'm missing the original tone of my Gilmore Jr. (I put in a mod to voice it more like a Marshall -- stock tone is a bit more Fender on steroids). IMO, no one amp can really do it all.

As far as building them, I literally spent MONTHS trying to get started. The safety issue was huge for me. Seems ridiculous now, but I couldn't seem to find a place on the Web where anybody explained how to properly discharge caps. Probably that's because anybody following your advice who hurts themselves winds up suing you. Anyway, eventually I bought Tom Mitchell's book "How to Service Your Own Tube Amp." Had a great safety section, and shows you how to build a bleeder resistor tool and how to use it. After that, you need to know how to solder, how to use a multimeter, and how to identify components. Get yourself a kit for a basic amp and build it. It's actually a lot of fun, and if you get a good kit for your first build with some good instructions, not nearly as difficult as it looks. There's a recent thread on low power amps that will give you some ideas. You can get a kit for as little as $200, depending on what you want and how much work you want to do drilling out the chassis by yourself!

The great thing about building amps yourself is you can get pretty much exactly what you want, in the power output you want. The learning curve is a bit steep, but you'll start figuring things out fast. (At least on the building them side; designing them still mostly a great big mystery to me. That's my next project.)

For now, I've got an old silverface Twin I use for clean -- because I don't push it, works well enough at both bedroom and gigging levels. I've got the Gilmore for rhythm and lead at bedroom level, and I'm hoping to build an 18 Watt TMB for gigging. Who knows, maybe after that, I'll revert the Gilmore to original and build a P1 Extreme.... It's addictive!

Whatever you choose, have fun with it, and good luck.

[Jef]

My first build was a Fender Tweed Deluxe clone, from a Mission Amps kit. It was fairly easy to build (a weekend's work), my only soldering experience before was soldering a jack to a guitar cable.
The tweed deluxe although being a classic Fender, is tonewise somewhere between classic Fender and classic Marshall territory (think Neil Young, early ZZ Top, Joe Welsh). As a matter of fact, the first Marshall amp was almost a dead on copy from a tweed Fender original (Tweed Bassman)
The deluxe is not a clean amp, altough it has a VERY nice, woody clean tone at low volumes. It distorts great, around 3 on the volume knob, giving fantastic grind.
Right now I have a Silverface Fender Bandmaster Reverb for cleans and I am currently building my first 18W TMB....

Jef

[idiotwithasolderingiron]

My first build was a JTM-45 from scratch. Not the easisest of choices, but in the end worked out fine and sounds great. For a great introduction into ampbuilding, check out the ax84.com site and bulletin boards. Lots of people from here also post over there, and its a fantastic resource if you want to build a foundation from the ground up.

The 18watt Lite variants are pretty simple builds, and folks here can help you with questions you might have. Kinda depends on if you want to get into building amps as a hobby. If you dont, then there is nothing wrong with the Crate Vintage series. They sound excellent and are a good value. Heck, Billy Gibbons was running a pair of the 30 watt ones on ZZ Tops last Tonite Show apperance.

Various folks offer kits that will get you started; Nik at ceriatone.com is an amazing value, and for the classic Fender Deluxe, Bruce at Mission Amps as mentioned earlier is a great guy too. You dont have to spend big dollars unless you are really into the repro appearance thing.

[KingCrimson]

Guys, I appreciate the advice.......I may rule out the Crate V Series though because, although they may be good for the money, I fear they are probably a bit too cookie-cutter. Even though Gibbons and Walsh are using them, I guarantee they have them modded to the max underneath the facade.

I'll keep saving my money.....until then I'll keep eavesdropping in on you experts here to see if I can develop enough balls to try a project myself.

[ThePirate]

KC, I'd like to offer you some consolation. Building your first build isn't all that hard. Especially with help here on the forums. In fact, provided that you triple check your wiring, there's a good chance that it'll work the first time. Most of the newbies that I hear about manage this, so long as they don't bite off more than they can chew and try to build a complex amp to begin with. Start simple. An 18watt lite II is a good bet, I'd say. And if you can devote the time to it, learn as much about tube theory and amps as you can! It'll help. I'm going to tell you that if you mess up anything during the initial power-up process, it'll most likely be this: your fingers will find the high voltage from the power transformer once, and only once. Then, you'll never do it again. Just be sure to follow the safety rules as described in just about every building site I can think of.

[KingCrimson]

Start simple. An 18watt lite II is a good bet, I'd say. And if you can devote the time to it, learn as much about tube theory and amps as you can!

Where can I find a list of parts or a parts supplier for these 18 watt projects? And are most of you building the cabinet also?

I'm also probably going to invest in a couple of basic electronics books and tube amp repair books, but are there any step-by-step directions available, besides just the schematics, for the 18 watt Lite?

(BTW, Idiotwithasolderingiron, I went to ceriatone.com and found where you guys probably get most of your parts - thanks)

I'll continue to do searches and dig around on this site, but I can tell I've got lotsa splainin' to do if I submit a sound file to this site after I build an amp and it sounds like the tone in the guitar solo in the original "Louie Louie" by the Kingsmen.