Thanks for the help...I found the problem and got my distortion sounding really good...I appreciate everyone who's helped with their replies...

I have heard many people mention they are building a class A, B, C, or D amplifier and I was wondering what the differences were...and if so which one would be best for building a small practice amp...I am hoping to build one and I would greatly appreciate the help.  Thanks.

This looks like something I might want to build....would you place the speaker where the rhetostat is?  Or is it connected some other way?  Also, where could you buy a speaker for a small amp like this and is there any specific kind of speaker I should be looking for?  Thanks.

I have been trying to get more sustain out of my distortion pedal.  Everytime I strum I get distortion but it quickly goes away without any real sustain...does anybody know a way to make it sustain longer?  Also, for some reason my E,A,D,G, and B strings all distort but my high E string stays clean.  If anyone knows why this may be happening I would appreciate the help...Thanks.

I am trying to build a distortion pedal and when I hook everything up I only get a clean signal right back.  I am trying to make the signal distort by clipping it symmetrically using two diodes.  If anyone has any idea why I might not be getting the distortion I want or if they can offer any help I would greatly appreciate it...

I have attached my circuit below

I just built my distortion circuit but I think I am bypassing it because I am getting
no distortion and none of my knobs on my potentiometers have any affect on the signal.  I think this may be because of how I am hooking up my input (stereo) and output
(mono) jacks.  I understand there is a ring, tip, and sleeve and I
currently have the ring to ground, the sleeve to the negative terminal of
a 9V battery, and the tip into the rest of the circuit for the input
stereo jack.  For the output mono jack I connected the ring to the ground
and the other terminal to the output of my circuit.  I am just a little
frustrated with it right now and if you can help I would greatly
appreciate it.  Thanks.

Hello,
I am trying to design my gain stage right now but I just realized I don't what know magnitude I will get out of my guitar (i.e. volts, frequency) so I don't know how large (or small) a signal I am recieving at the input of the amplifier.  Does anyone know what a typical output signal from an electric guitar is? (I am using a Fender Strat).  Thanks for your help.

Hey everyone,
I am looking to build a small practice amp around (8-10 Watts) and I need some help.  I need help in how to actually go about doing this.  I would greatly appreciate it if someone could help me with a schematic and actually explain the details of the components so that I can understand why certain capacitors, op-amps, transistors and load resistances were used.  I am excited to try and build one and I hope you can help.  Thanks again.