simple se for guitar amp

Status
Not open for further replies.
Jump to Latest
#2
:cop: Please post guitar amplifier stuff to the I & A forum or perhaps the tubelab forum since this is about the SSE? See the header above Tubes / Valves..

To wit: Tubes / Valves All about our sweet vacuum tubes 🙂 Threads about Musical Instrument Amps of all kinds should be in the Instruments & Amps forum.

Moving it...
 
#4
Has anyone used the tubelab simple se as a guitar amp?
Click to expand...

You know I have! I test all of my creations by plugging in my old ADA MP-1 guitar preamp, setting the controls for warp speed and blasting away. This was the reason for the early change from 1/2 watt screen grid resistors to 1 watt sizes on the SSE board. It seems that normal HiFi use dosen't reveal a problem, but prolonged operation with all knobs turned to 11 can blow the 1/2 watt resistors with EL34's.

Reccomendations? Well what kind of guitar amp do you want? Clean, dirty, loud, really loud, or earth shattering.....

Either way you are going to need some kind of preamp. The output level of a typical electric guitar is not enough to drive the SSE to full crank. You also want some knobs, OK maybe lots of knobs. At least volume bass mid and treble. There are dozens of commercially available guitar preamps available ranging from simple to full blown recording studio. You need one with line level outputs. Just connect the outputs to the SSE and go. Use a guitar speaker, or a HiFi speaker with plenty of power handling capability if a clean acoustic sound is desired. Only one line level output? Parallel both channels and use a speaker with half the impedance you would normally connect to each channel (or two speakers).

I got the old MP-1 used on Ebay at least 15 years ago. It contains 2 12AX7's and can do clean and nice, dirty and loud, or most in between and has line level outputs.

I also have a newer but discontinued Digitech GNX3 guitar workstation. It can connect to a PC, record single tracks or whole songs, and allow jamming along with what you just recorded. It contains no tubes, just some DSP magic, but sounds pretty good. It has stereo outputs so you feed one output to each channel of the SSE, use two speakers and the "Leslie" effect is almost believable.

The other option and one I have been tinkering with over the years is to make your own preamp. If you answer to the "how loud" question was earth shattering, you need a preamp with balanced outputs (typically XLR connectors). Why? Because with balanced outputs and a P-P OPT that mild mannered SSE becomes a 75 watt SCREAMER! (with KT88's)

The SSE can be wired for P-P use with an external phase splitter (which is the same thing as a balanced output). No board modifications are needed.

I have been tinkering with guitar preamps on and off over the last 5 years. You can steal power from the SSE and use the circuit from the Fender, Marshall, Vox,... of your choice. Just build it up to and including the PI and connect the PI outputs (including the caps to the output tube grids) up to the SSE inputs. A master volume control (the SSE stereo volume control) can be included if your preamp doesn't have one. You can reduce the SSE gain by plugging a 12BH7 into the 12AT7 socket.

See this thread for a HiFi version of a SSE to P-P transformation.

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/tubelab/171340-dual-simple-ses-push-pull-w-differential-input.html
 
#5
Thanks, George,
I've got about 2 months (I'm slow) of work on the cabinet. While I do my research.
Right now I'm leaning toward your 100 buck guitar amp design (1.3?).
As it won't be used for anything but recording, and small(ish) venues.
I'll post my questions about that design on that thread.
Paul
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom