Post your DIY Musical Instruments/Amps here!

Maybe one of the smallest standalone valve combo amplifier ever made, with only 200x150x80mm for cab dimensions :

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A perfect desktop tube amp :

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5" NOS AlNiCo speaker, 2.5W rms clean tone, 6GW8/ECL86 tube, powered directly on 240VAC/50Hz mains :

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Here is a sample :

event:http://soundcloud.com/tubelectron/r05-0002-radiotone-squier-cathedral-bluesmp3

A+!
 
Just finished my 32 watt stereo guitar amp.
 

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Build Diary: The FTLecaster

Building the FTLecaster: Conversion of a Telecaster clone into a dual Quad Rail/dual output music generating machine. Not so much in the way of technical detail, but rather documenting th
Nothing to update on the FTLecaster itself. The build is solid and reliable and I see no need to expansion. However, it is being even more relegated to a role of human/machine interface. One hardware addition to the system: a TASCAM US-224 USB low latency mixer/interface. And one software: Jam Origin's Guitar-To-MIDI app. It uses a fast tone recognition algorithm (not unlike voice and facial recognition) to pick up the tones being generated, yes tones as in plural, it's polyphonic, and push these through to MIDI. Thus, without any un-guitar-like hardware -- meaning your best, most accustomed, or heck I got nothin better to do with this one -- as long as it has one pickup, and any others can be shut off, any guitar can become a MIDI trigger and make any sound(S) that can be crammed into and extracted back out from any other MIDI instrument. I built the guitar I dreamed of four decades ago, and have now added the capability I imagined before MIDI was invented. If George Jetson played guitar, it'd be something that evolved from this.
 
And, and....

Excuse the blurrity of the photos. New camera, not nearly as good as the old one.

A 1948 Philco AM/FM/SW table top radio.

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Gutted, and guts replaced with a '67 or '68 Silvertone organ amp, gained up as much as reasonable. Two TA Weber 8" ceramic Signature Series wedged up inside behind the grill on a slightly horn like baffle.

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My best (meaning well intentioned but woefully inadequate) Les Paul imitations look great coming from this. Switch over to some enhanced Frippish sounding stuff, and I can imagine it being time-machined back to the 50's and causing the McCarthyism scare to include a call for government backed exorcisms. I just lurvs brain whiplashing contrast.
 
diy all-tube guitar preamp

this is a diy tube preamp, i used Kevin O'Connor circuit design,now i have to convert it to being foot switchable it's a 2 channel preamp,also need to make decent control labels,the rack is my old standby Siab/Paia

Dusk
 

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Peg Dulcimer project

I invented this instrument called a Peg Dulcimer. The idea is very complicated, it's sort of the opposite of tapping with both hands on a guitar or chapman stick. Instead, the main technique is pull offs, and plucking with both hands. It's not really a very feasible concept, but I got a prototype sort of working, and for the first time I had callouses on both hands from playing it. It's in a state of dis-repair, and I'm hoping that someone might continue to work on this project and make something out of it. I see it more as a folk instrument where you play fast like banjo picking.

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The Peg Dulcimer Project
 
That is cute. You did a nice job of cramming things into a little space.

Yes very cute amp tubelectron and your acoustic guitar looks awesome Printer.

Thanks ! But the acoustic guitar - nonetheless nice - is not from me :D

Some of my other guitar amp releases, all built from scratch :

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A+!
 
heres my SG...one of a kind :)

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jackson concept 6 stringer with whatever pickups i ripped out of the epiphone LP. and i think its a schaeller? humbucking single coil in the middle.

jackson concert bass...see how nicely they match? :)

and of course,the SG, my junkyard rescue, had a broken head....glued and pinned it, only to drop it a week later. no idea what brand.
this way it looks heaps better :) genuine vintage dimarzios...if 70's or so is vintage?


dont have a pic of my electroharmonix lap steel with three "necks"... and not in the mood to take one :(
 
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G'Day from The Land Down Under -
Just registered here and thought I would drop in and say G'Day from OZ - I got hooked many years ago on TUBE Amps and have built quite a few over the years, mostly from scratch, and they just keep getting better as I learn more about them and I love bending some strings on my guitars through some home built amps & pedals - it makes it more satisfying knowing that I built most everything myself - most of it anyway or heavilly modified it to my specifications, likes & tastes .... All Good fun and a great hobby ...
Cheers to All -
frostbite
COOMA NSW
Australia.
 

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My just-finished build: one channel from an old Magnavox 175/67, with an added 12AU7 front-end stage (choke loaded, just because), wrapped up in a box for guitar. The speaker is a JBL E110.

The sound is very clean and punchy, and gets some quite nice crunch if you push it hard. Plenty loud.

Bonus feature: dual-color power LED. Green powered from the heater, which comes on right away. Red in the cathode bias circuit, which lights up as the tubes warm up. I'm really pleased with the result :)
 

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Hi inguz -
Thanks - there is plenty of room in my home made chassis - if no one has guessed, it is a section of galvanised steel building shed purlin (frame). Gauranteed not to rust but a bit hard to cut the holes in ... it will not flex like aluminium, that much I do know as there is a lot of weight in those transformers ...
Cheers,
frostbite.