First amp lots of static

[blathan]

Ok so i tried to make my first amp and it works! it's based off of a LM386 chip driving an 8 ohm speaker. if i play very softly, like so softly you can barely hear the noise is not there, however if you play loud (hard on strings) it will come out like it has a fuzz pedal before it.  Any suggestions on cleaning up the tone a bit?

If you play a chord and let it ring out, as it tapers off the noise drops off suddenly.

The instructions i used were here:

http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Build_Your_Own_Guitar_Amplifier

Thanks in advance.

[Enzo]

We can see what they WANT you to build, but the problem is we can't see what you DID build.  A missing connection or an electrolytic cap in backwards could easily cause such problems.

Your story showed two links in the Get Schematic section.  One was the straight schematic, the other was a pictorial of the layout.

[J M Fahey]

BEWARE !!!!!
The link you posted re-links to the actual schematic, which looks fine, and to a suggested layout:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/54804764@N00/401719542/


FWIW, *all* who built it complain it does not work  :loco  :grr  :trouble

Some comments taken from that page:

This diagram helped me a lot--the one in make was pretty difficult to understand.
I am getting tons of distortion through the amp though.

Thanks very much, cairn, for this, too. I'm making the project with my 14-year-old guitar-god-wannabe, and he was pretty disappointed when we got the equivalent of crickets chirping out of the circuit--nothing.

i have built my board according to this schematic The only problem is that my ic get really hot like burning. I look at the comment and one guys says he wired his backward. I flip flopped the wired and it got even hotter. What could cause the IC to over heat?

and so on.

Yes, it *looks* fine, same as GGG project, but it does not identify IC pin1 or , to be more precise, it does not say that the PCB is "seen from above", the IC is also seen from above, and the tracks are on *the other side* of the PCB and actually invisible from above, so there's a big potential for confusion there.

I suggest you get the original GGG project and follow it.
The simple original one, not the "2"
http://www.runoffgroove.com/littlegem.html

[blathan]

Ok so I have made essentially the same amp, but not on a soldier-less breadboard but on a perf board and it sounds bee u tee ful!  Thanks for all the suggestions from everyone.  One of the things that i changed is the wire from stranded to solid as well as adding a 8-pin chip holder to the circuit maybe helping keep the lm386 cooler?? Well whatever fixed the noise issue im good with it now to put it in the box i made for it and take some pics and post.

[Enzo]

Glad you got it working.

The type of wire won;t matter, and I kinda think it didn;t have a chance to overheat.  MY money is still on a wrong or missing connection before.  But it is right at this point, and that is what matters.