New realizations or "what I think I learned today"

[Planobilly]

Hi Guys,
As you all know, I have been trying to learn to build excellent guitar amps. Most of my failures have been related to various amounts of hum/hiss and noises in the amps.

The Fender style Deluxe Reverb AB763 circuit I built is finally working just about perfect now. I had a lot of advice from many sources, people, books, the internet. I listen to all that and never got to where I was satisfied with the results.

At the end of the day I implemented my own ideas concerning grounding schemes which finally worked. With all the controls turned up all the way you can only tell if the amp is on by looking at the pilot light. Zero noise, zero hum/hiss. I now have clean clear undistorted sound when I want it and both preamp and output tube distortion when I want it. Man what a pain in the butt learning curve.

To get to that point, I had to disregard the type of components and methods used in the old amps of the sixties and stop repeating the mistakes of a bygone era. I had to stop listening to the nonsense that so many guitar players are so dearly attached too and I include myself in that group...lol

Electronics as far as guitar amps go is extremely unforgiving. I guess all electronics is. Everything has to be dead on. One bad solder joint, one out of value component, one wire 10mm to close to the next and the whole thing just does not function correctly.

I am beginning to think the best thing is to learn everything you can from every source there is and take all information with a grain of salt. Don't assume that the world famous designer is always correct or not. Don't assume anything. Use your own brain and work like hell till you get the results you are looking for.

For the last few weeks I have had some significant self doubts about my ability to learn this stuff. If I live long enough I may just get there...lol

Cheers,

Billy

 

[jim hardy]

Bill

Use your own brain and work like hell till you get the results you are looking for.

Your adventures are proof positive that we learn 10X more by doing than by reading about doing. Recall Melville's "Consumptive Usher" .

Congratulations on your success .

 

[Planobilly]

Thanks Jim,

It was a "small" brick in the road to success. The larger success was a greater degree of self confidence. Fear of failure, self doubts, concern for what other people may think, to much need for acceptance, all combine to essentially guarantee failure. Emotional state has a large part to play in anyone succeeding or failing at anything.

Thank you so much for all the help and encouragement you have provided to me.

Cheers,

Billy

 

[jim hardy]

It was a "small" brick in the road to success. The larger success was a greater degree of self confidence. Fear of failure, self doubts, concern for what other people may think, to much need for acceptance, all combine to essentially guarantee failure. Emotional state has a large part to play in anyone succeeding or failing at anything.

One of the pleasures of aging - accepting that those fears are natural and trudging through them.

I still to tell myself "No way out but through... my best is usually good enough , and i'll get better as i go.

Progress not perfection.

There should be FFT in something that you own already. That Rockland is a wonderful analog instrument if you can find one.

That LM359 filter is a great design but with my high Q(around 70) bandpass the board layout became important, just like in your amps. First one was on verge of oscillation.

old jim