Post your DIY Musical Instruments/Amps here!

Ciao a tutti !

Here are pictures of an effects box ... based on the famous ADAU1701
and of a 3 ways loudspeaker.

hcb.jpg


loudspeaker.jpg



These items are used with the Glowstar 8 tubes "radial" amp
posted here at the end of March.

All will be on demo this week-end at the European Maker Faire
in Rome, Italy.

An Eko Sunblaster italian guitar will be the signal source.

Marco
 
It's not mine as in ownership -- it belongs to my local Home Depot. I call it mine because I made it for them as a gift, in return for all the help they've given me for lutherie as well as home stuff.
Delivering it:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/teb8yumjyu472/IMG_20170324_163843216.jpg?dl=0

To do this all legal and stuff, I called the corporate head counsel and got permission to use their trademarks. He gave it gladly. While I was on a roll, I also asked for copy right permission to provide them with an extended, improved, and downright head banging version of the music in their "Let's Do This (lawn/carpet/paint/etc)" TV commercial. He gladly gave that too. I recorded it with the guitar I made for them, plus a bass, and 40 some "instruments" created from various tool use sound bites:
Let's Do This Song
Dropbox - Let's Do This Song.mp3
 
My Teensy based DIY MIDI step & pattern sequencer:

Zeus-Commander-SPS-16_F#2.jpg

It is unique in that it uses motorised faders for setting and recall of step parameters. The faders allow for quick and precise setting of the step parameters: Pitch, velocity, note length, note timing and two assignable MIDI controllers.
It's intended as a performance sequencer, for creating and manipulating patterns in real time.

More details and pictures (video) are on the Teensy forum: Zeus Commander SPS-16, MIDI step & pattern sequencer
 
Hope this picture attachment works..


Here's my hand made strat built by a luthier friend. I customised the switchgear to allow bridge coil tap, Telecaster mode and all three pickups. (one of the knobs is also a pull switch)

The small amp is a Fender Pro Junior I modifed. The big one is a ground up build of 5F2 like circuit with twin 6V6 grafted into a 1990s Princeton cabinet. Both covered in tweed so they sound better...
 

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Black Sunshine and the British Invader....


Both are kits that I built and customized.


Black Sunshine has a Free Way selector switch, neck and bridge pickups are Seymour Duncan Distortions (with Series / Split / Parallel toggle) , middle is a P-Rail (with Rail / Humbucker / P-90 toggle). CK pots.


Designed to sound like a Strat / Tele with an LP soul. Still waiting on the White Pearl Pickguard as the cream one just doesn't look right.





British Invader has Seymour Duncan Invader pickups (with Series / Split / Parallel toggle) and CK pots.


Designed as a very versatile LP (Heavy Metal, Jazz and in-between).


Both have many hours of hand rubbed oil finish, no poly whats-a-ma-call-it goo on these.
 

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A nice pair

My two electrics.

On the left a hand built HSH Strat with Telecaster look and pull switch coil taps. This includes "Bridge+Neck" and "All three" 5 way switch positions

On the right my Luthier customised Tele with three pickups working as HHH or SHS with second mini tap switch. It includes a "Bridge and Neck" 5 way switch position.
 

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I built this little solid-state amp as a gift for a friend. He's a senior citizen with a physical handicap, so the amp had to be relatively light.

This amplifier is unconventional in a few ways, with a class D power amp board, and a discrete front end with a mix of JFETs and bipolar junction transistors. There's an active one-knob "tilt" tone control, and a permanent EQ curve built in to the preamp to remove most of the usual solid-state harshness.

The speaker complement is unusual too - it uses two boom-box 6.5" speakers in a ported enclosure, both for light weight, and because my budget for building the amp was very tight. The grille-cloth is a dollar-store place mat. The handle is a Home Depot drawer-pull.

The monogrammed letters (the owner's initials) were 3D-printed by a friend, and I spray-painted the resulting print, then went over the raised letters with a metallic gold marker pen.

-Gnobuddy
 

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I built a parts Strat some 40 years ago. Did not turn out the way I'd hoped.

Here is my recent attempt. It exceeded my expectations!

The parts list:



Warmoth clear gloss finished swamp ash body, hard tail. Body cavities lined with copper tape.

Warmoth vintage / modern neck; quarter sawn maple, Macassar Ebony in 10" / 16" compound radius, abalone dots, 1.75" nut, 1" fatback, and 6105 SS frets.

Callaham hardware; vintage hardtail bridge, SS string ferrules, SS 50s reproduction string tree, polished neck plate with all SS screws and .017" aluminium under pickguard shield.

Warmoth jack plate.

Greasy Groove pickguard. Tortoise CamoStrat SSS 11 Hole Pickguard, Pearloid, Tortoise, Speciality

Schaller M6 Mini 18:1 tuners.

Lace Sensor Holy Grail 3-pack added 4/22/2019. Had SD SSL-1L installed to start.

Mojotone 5-way blender kit with orange drop: Un-Assembled Strat Blender 5-Way Wiring Kit

(2) CTS 250k vintage taper audio split shaft 7% tolerance potentiometers
(1) CTS Blender 250k audio split shaft potentiometer
(1) Switchcraft CRL 5-way switch
(1) Switchcraft mono input jack
(1) Orange drop .022mfd capacitor
(2 ft) Pre-tinned cloth covered black wire
(2 ft) Pre-tinned cloth covered white wire
(1) Volume mod cap and resistor

Fender knobs, pickup covers and switch tip in parchment.


A chronological image gallery of the parts as they arrived along with the build as it progressed: StratoPartscaster Build | Flickr
 
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Travel mandolin

Hi all ,
it's my very first post here in this forum
My last build is a travel training mandolin , I can connect headphones on the 3,5mm jack and play it with no noise around
or plug on a guitar amp on a 6,35 mm jack for playing on stage for example.
Side are removable if you want to put the instrument in a small bag to carry it everywhere .
Tuners are back from the bridge for a good weight balance and reduce the total lenght of the body.
 

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Five or six years ago I bought a guitar kit from Rochler and it took me a long time to finish this build. Two years ago I had access to the job workshop and could freely paint my new speakers as well as the guitar, which just happens to be a Stratocaster-clone (isn't that original??).

I wanted it to stand out, so I picked the golden details :cool:.
 

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Five or six years ago I bought a guitar kit from Rochler and it took me a long time to finish this build. Two years ago I had access to the job workshop and could freely paint my new speakers as well as the guitar, which just happens to be a Stratocaster-clone (isn't that original??).

I wanted it to stand out, so I picked the golden details :cool:.

I remember my first guitar which was a Fender Musicmaster.
Didnt play too bad.
I stripped it down and sprayed it as the old paint was a mess.
I used purple metalic paint and it came out very nice.

For the last 20 years I have had a Peavey Patriot. 20 yeras of hard use and fretboard hardly marked or worn and the paint is as good as new.
I did pay about 10x more for the Peavey which was hand made.