A noob with a few questions

[vices like vipers]

Hey everyone, I have been lurking around here for a little while.
I would like to build my own amp, but I have no idea where to start.
I was going to build a Tube amp, but then I saw the price of tubes, and that just turned me off of that idea. So now I'm looking into solid state.
So here are the questions.
1. I have a bunch of computer parts (and computer power supplies), I was wondering if there is any way I could use them?
2. How would I go about building my very own solid state amp?
(I have dial up, so it is kind of hard to download teemuk's book. But if I need it, I will try and download it tonight)

My knows how to read schematics and stuff, so he will be helping me build this.

Before we get started on the amp, we are going to make a Breath conttroler like the one Meshuggah uses.
Tat way I will get some more experience with wiring and stuff.

[joecool85]

Well, what do you want in an amp?  Lots of effects?  Lots of equalization?  Just a good clean power amp?  How much wattage?

I would suggest getting your feet wet building a cheap and simple (but very useful and awesome sounding) Little Gem circuit.  It produces 1/2 watt of power and has an excellent overdrive.  It runs on a 9v battery.  As for the computer parts, not much for a "real" amp, but I did build a 9v Little Gem into a computer PSU - it came out pretty slick.

http://runoffgroove.com/littlegem.html

[DJPhil]

Hey everyone, I have been lurking around here for a little while.
I would like to build my own amp, but I have no idea where to start.
I was going to build a Tube amp, but then I saw the price of tubes, and that just turned me off of that idea. So now I'm looking into solid state.

Nothing wrong with that. The higher voltages of tubes turned me away, as I'm clumsy enough to really hurt myself. It's been a while, so I'd feel confident now but when I started I didn't have the safety knowledge or equipment to be effective.

1. I have a bunch of computer parts (and computer power supplies), I was wondering if there is any way I could use them?

Sort of, but it winds up being a lot of work to salvage things. The best computer parts to salvage from are really old ISA and PCI soundcards and occasionally old CD-ROM drives, as they sometimes have an amp chip you can use (google the part number for a datasheet). Most of the stuff will be surface mount and very difficult to work with. It makes for great soldering and desoldering practice, but tends not to be worth it in the end unless you're very, very low budget (as I am).
You may find folks out there using old computer power supplies to power their projects, but I'd recommend caution for two big reasons and a little one:

First, they're capable of extremely high power compared to the needs of most of the circuitry you'll be working with. This means that if you have a short somewhere the computer power supply will happily pump out several to tens of amps and cause parts and wires to smoke and glow before the current limiting kicks in. Wall wart power supplies and batteries are much safer to work with until you're ready to start working with mains powered power amps, and a fault will likely only cause your parts to get hot or glow for a moment as opposed to the fireworks a high current supply is capable of providing.

Second, they're switching based supplies with the wrong sort of voltages (mostly). An older AT supply (one with a switch attached) will usually have high current supplies for +12V, +5V, and +3V, and low current (or absent) supplies for -5V and -12V. Newer ATX supplies (big 20 plus pin motherboard connector) will often omit the low current supplies and crank up the amperage well beyond the older AT versions. These are really inconvenient voltages when working with audio, which often requires +/- 15V or higher, or 30V plus in a single ended supply.

Third, they're switchmode power supplies that aren't really designed for low noise. When you're working on a preamp and trying to minimize noise it's very irritating to work with a noisy supply. This is less of a concern, and can be solved somewhat with filtering and post regulation.

2. How would I go about building my very own solid state amp?
(I have dial up, so it is kind of hard to download teemuk's book. But if I need it, I will try and download it tonight)

I can not recommend Teemuk's book highly enough. I'm on my third read through of it, interspersed with other books. It's worth taking the time to download. It's over 400 pages of everything you'll need after you've mastered the basics.
I'm with Joecool on the Little Gem. It's an excellent, simple project to get you started and it'll be useful forever. It works great as a sanity check, something you're sure works just fine and you can use as a go-to when you want to be sure the signal you're using is good. That, and if you hook it up to a proper guitar speaker it'll amaze you how good it sounds for being so simple.

Before we get started on the amp, we are going to make a Breath conttroler like the one Meshuggah uses.
Tat way I will get some more experience with wiring and stuff.

I had to look that one up. I couldn't find a schematic, but it sounds like a pretty advanced project to start with! It's always good to have a big idea pushing you to learn all the little bits, so if it starts to look like too much don't despair, just set it aside for a bit and build something simple to get more practice.

Hope that helps some.

[vices like vipers]

Well, what do you want in an amp?  Lots of effects?  Lots of equalization?  Just a good clean power amp?  How much wattage?

I would suggest getting your feet wet building a cheap and simple (but very useful and awesome sounding) Little Gem circuit.  It produces 1/2 watt of power and has an excellent overdrive.  It runs on a 9v battery.  As for the computer parts, not much for a "real" amp, but I did build a 9v Little Gem into a computer PSU - it came out pretty slick.

http://runoffgroove.com/littlegem.html

What I want is a 2 channel amp. 1st channel clean, and the 2nd channel to have some thick crunchy distortion (I play alot of progressive death metal, other stuff like that ) and a enough power to play at small venues. but I guess I can always mic it. Right now I'm using a Epiphone EA300 25 watt amp.
If this is what it takes for me to build a nice amp then I am willing to do almost any thing. And thank you very much for the link, I'll try and start with that before I touch any where near about 60 watts haha

Hey everyone, I have been lurking around here for a little while.
I would like to build my own amp, but I have no idea where to start.
I was going to build a Tube amp, but then I saw the price of tubes, and that just turned me off of that idea. So now I'm looking into solid state.

Nothing wrong with that. The higher voltages of tubes turned me away, as I'm clumsy enough to really hurt myself. It's been a while, so I'd feel confident now but when I started I didn't have the safety knowledge or equipment to be effective.

1. I have a bunch of computer parts (and computer power supplies), I was wondering if there is any way I could use them?

Sort of, but it winds up being a lot of work to salvage things. The best computer parts to salvage from are really old ISA and PCI soundcards and occasionally old CD-ROM drives, as they sometimes have an amp chip you can use (google the part number for a datasheet). Most of the stuff will be surface mount and very difficult to work with. It makes for great soldering and desoldering practice, but tends not to be worth it in the end unless you're very, very low budget (as I am).
You may find folks out there using old computer power supplies to power their projects, but I'd recommend caution for two big reasons and a little one:

First, they're capable of extremely high power compared to the needs of most of the circuitry you'll be working with. This means that if you have a short somewhere the computer power supply will happily pump out several to tens of amps and cause parts and wires to smoke and glow before the current limiting kicks in. Wall wart power supplies and batteries are much safer to work with until you're ready to start working with mains powered power amps, and a fault will likely only cause your parts to get hot or glow for a moment as opposed to the fireworks a high current supply is capable of providing.

Second, they're switching based supplies with the wrong sort of voltages (mostly). An older AT supply (one with a switch attached) will usually have high current supplies for +12V, +5V, and +3V, and low current (or absent) supplies for -5V and -12V. Newer ATX supplies (big 20 plus pin motherboard connector) will often omit the low current supplies and crank up the amperage well beyond the older AT versions. These are really inconvenient voltages when working with audio, which often requires +/- 15V or higher, or 30V plus in a single ended supply.

Third, they're switchmode power supplies that aren't really designed for low noise. When you're working on a preamp and trying to minimize noise it's very irritating to work with a noisy supply. This is less of a concern, and can be solved somewhat with filtering and post regulation.

2. How would I go about building my very own solid state amp?
(I have dial up, so it is kind of hard to download teemuk's book. But if I need it, I will try and download it tonight)

I can not recommend Teemuk's book highly enough. I'm on my third read through of it, interspersed with other books. It's worth taking the time to download. It's over 400 pages of everything you'll need after you've mastered the basics.
I'm with Joecool on the Little Gem. It's an excellent, simple project to get you started and it'll be useful forever. It works great as a sanity check, something you're sure works just fine and you can use as a go-to when you want to be sure the signal you're using is good. That, and if you hook it up to a proper guitar speaker it'll amaze you how good it sounds for being so simple.

Before we get started on the amp, we are going to make a Breath conttroler like the one Meshuggah uses.
Tat way I will get some more experience with wiring and stuff.

I had to look that one up. I couldn't find a schematic, but it sounds like a pretty advanced project to start with! It's always good to have a big idea pushing you to learn all the little bits, so if it starts to look like too much don't despair, just set it aside for a bit and build something simple to get more practice.

Hope that helps some.

Thanks, DJphil. this helps me alot. heres that link to the Breath controller schematic I was talking about.
http://tubefreak.com/breath1.gif
this one is for the power supply unit http://tubefreak.com/breath2.gif

[J M Fahey]

Well, that breathcontroller *is* a complex project compared to what we are suggesting you to start with.
I would start by building a Gem or similar, to get my feet wet and have something "real", even if small, to play with, then things progressively more powerful and complex.
You mention a "heavy/death metal" sound, how do you get it now?

[vices like vipers]

Well, that breathcontroller *is* a complex project compared to what we are suggesting you to start with.
I would start by building a Gem or similar, to get my feet wet and have something "real", even if small, to play with, then things progressively more powerful and complex.
You mention a "heavy/death metal" sound, how do you get it now?

Welll I really want to make that breathcontroller, because it makes such sick sound.
I'll see what my dad says about building it, He has a Degree in collage for electronics.
But its been a While since he has messed around with any electronics.
I also know alittle bit about electonics, I can follow schematics. but the problem is, I dont know what every thing does. So thats a big problem for me. I also can solder pretty well. I guess I should of said this alot earlier. But I will try and make the Gem before I make the breathcontroller.
Right now for get the deathmetal sound, I am running a Epiphone EA300 with the gain fully up, bass mid and treble all the way up, and a Berhinger Comp with the sustain at its lowest, attack at 12, tone all the way up, and level all the way up. but its still not giving me the tone I seek. I guess it needs some reverb. I'm looking for the tone like a plea for a purging on the song Holocaust, or like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9w1gWJBjQrM

Thank you for putting up with my noobieness 

[J M Fahey]

Hi VLV.
You mention

Welll I really want to make that breathcontroller, because it makes such sick sound.

, I don't find how it might do such thing.
By itself it does not provide distortion, it's only a variable gain preamp controlled by that funny Yamaha controller you blow into.
Maybe Meshuggah uses it to overdrive another piece of equipment, which does the actual distortion.
Your EA300 is too small to provide much Death into your Metal, but go step by step.
You can start by building a Ruby or Gem , which will have 3 great results:
1) you actually build something which will work
2) it will be a cool little amp, which can be battery powered, so you can play *anywhere* and impress the chicks (that alone is worth the effort) and
3) it can be used as a booster/distortion pedal to drive your amp into a very heavy distortion; how's that?
It's a well documented project, showing layout and suggested board, and has been built by many.
4) If you are interested only in a distortion pedal, you can build (in order of heavyness and complexity): an MXR Distortion+ ; a RAT (you'll love it) or a Marshall Guv'nor (a full Marshall preamp crammed into a Pedal).
In sites such as GGG you can find instructions, layouts, iron-on PCBs, etc.
Good luck.

[vices like vipers]

Hi VLV.
You mention

Welll I really want to make that breathcontroller, because it makes such sick sound.

, I don't find how it might do such thing.
By itself it does not provide distortion, it's only a variable gain preamp controlled by that funny Yamaha controller you blow into.
Maybe Meshuggah uses it to overdrive another piece of equipment, which does the actual distortion.
Your EA300 is too small to provide much Death into your Metal, but go step by step.
You can start by building a Ruby or Gem , which will have 3 great results:
1) you actually build something which will work
2) it will be a cool little amp, which can be battery powered, so you can play *anywhere* and impress the chicks (that alone is worth the effort) and
3) it can be used as a booster/distortion pedal to drive your amp into a very heavy distortion; how's that?
It's a well documented project, showing layout and suggested board, and has been built by many.
4) If you are interested only in a distortion pedal, you can build (in order of heavyness and complexity): an MXR Distortion+ ; a RAT (you'll love it) or a Marshall Guv'nor (a full Marshall preamp crammed into a Pedal).
In sites such as GGG you can find instructions, layouts, iron-on PCBs, etc.
Good luck.

Its mostly the breath controller that does the work. the Schematics for the controller, are to make it usable for your guitar or what ever you want to use it for.
Its like mixing a wind instrument with your guitar, so if you blow deferently into the controller it changes the way it sounds.
by its self it doesnt sound that great. But i think hedoes exactly what you are saying to take full advantage of it.
I know it really sucks for death metal, it has like half the crunch of the bands i said earlier. it works really well for hardcore and other gernes, but not so well for what I want.
I dont like using batterys to much, so I might try and make it use a wall wort, or get a Visal sound 1 spot
I like the idea that I can use it for a booster.
I'll look into it.

ok so I'm guessing I will hold off on th Breath controller, but I would like to know what you think about the simple version of it http://tubefreak.com/breath3.gif?

[J M Fahey]

From what I see it's an electronic volume control (a VCA) controlled by the Breath controller, which is probably not much more tham an electret microphone or similar which detects your blowing into it.
That signal is rectified and low-pass filtered (<300 Hz approximately) before controlling the gain either in a humble MC3340 , as here, or in a fancy Mitsubishi chip.
I repeat that here you have nothing that clips or distorts; at most a little if you set it to too much gain.

[vices like vipers]

Well what I should of said that its more of a effect then a sound, So its pretty much a hightech volume pedal. But it gives you a deferent control over your guitar. the reason I say deferent is because you can do things with your breath that you cant do with a pedal, you know what i mean?
heres a link to a video with him using it at a show
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gd5FpKveS9U