Just for fun, I built the Little Gem from ROG. Here is a little picture essay of my project: http://www.diyguitarist.com/GuitarAmps/LittleGem.htm
sweet :P
thanks paul, always a pleasure reading your stuff.
Thats great Paul, very neat build/cab ( as ever ) LOVE the covering !
I'm just about to build the "Little Gem" so its very inspiring !
It would go very well with my "Tiny Tube Reamer" LOL
Cheers,
Marty.
Very nice build! 8) 8) 8)
cool! looks like a heavy duty, ready fer "action" amp.
-sorry, just had to !
very cool, i love the photo essays!
one question: why the little gem and not the ruby? i'm thinking of building one of these and to me it looked like the ruby was the gem's successor.
I should think more of a big daddy actually.
The sounds are very similar though.
Putting a fet stage and not a buffer (big daddy) in front of the 386 will add more transparent sounds when more cleanish. Yet I should use a fet stage without decoupling cap at the source for not to much heavy metal gain there.
i own a smokey and that's a little too dirty for effects testing, although it sounds great one on one with my guitar.
am i right in thinking the ruby is the cleanest of the rog pack? (sorry for hi-jacking the thread, by the way)
I'm glad that you guys like it. 8)
I could always change out the circuit if I decide that I don't like it...
I tried to look at the page, but something is going on with my website again. :evil:
Really beautiful, Paul.
I had a thought for a mod that could be done: Instead of connecting the input to Pin 2 (inv in), you could connect it to Pin 3 (non-inv in) through a 10K pot to ground and have Pin 2 connect directly to ground. This is what it shows for a gain of 20 application right on the LM386 data sheet. It probably would sound a bit cleaner. Or you could even use the gain of 50 or 200 version, which is the same thing as described above, but with a cap or a cap and resistor in series between Pin 1 & 8. The Little Gem is almost just like the gain of 20 schematic on the data sheet except fo the input arrangment and the addition of a gain control.
Anyhow, just some thoughts. I like it like it is, if I roll the volume back on my guitar, it sounds pretty clean, and I can get distortion by turning it up. So far I like it just like it is...
Hey Paul, what's the rating on those speakers?
It says on the back of the speakers "50 watts maximum". You could use almost any speaker with this circuit - it's only 1/2 a watt...
BTW, I have been playing this for a couple of days now, and I think it sounds pretty good with those speakers. 8)
Nice amp ! Speakers look like Kewl JBL's
Yeah, I like the way that those speakers look, too.
Thrift stores can be a great resource for some things. I have had really good luck finding small speakers and all sorts of wall warts to use with various projects I have made, for very little out-of-pocket. 8)
That looks really useful - the "fake cab" plate is great :)
You mean the fake chassis? That worked out kind of cool considering that this whole project was kind of thrown together, so to speak. I started with the speaker baffle, and that mostly dictated what size the enclosure should be. I built the enclsoure without really knowing how to do the "chassis", until I had a thought to do something similar to my Fender Hot Rod DeVille. So that control cutaway was done "after the fact", after I figured out the chassis part. It's not perfect as it will pick up radiated 60Hz hum if you point it at a computer for instance, but it's not very noticeable. A little bit of shielding on the inside could eliminate that. Anyhow, the rest of it was pretty straight forward - I just used my experience from the three tube amps I have built so far and applied it to this project. I even had a thought tonight that one could build a two-channel version of this - one channel would be the Little Gem and the other channel would be the Ruby. I took probably about 7-8 hours to build the entrire thing. Building the cabinet is what took most of the time... 8)
I used a similar approach when I built my Ruby. It was a piece of steel used for fencing i believe. Check it out here in the projects section.
http://photobucket.com/albums/v368/soma_hero/
Great minds think alike, eh? :lol:
Seriously though, I was playing my Strat through my Little Gem this morning, and with the Strat it sounds very clean. I have to turn the gain almost to max. to get some distortion. With either of my humbucker equipped Ibanez guitars, it has much more distortion. I think I still like it just like it is... 8)
Yeah, I meant "fake chassis" not "fake cab." The cab looks plenty real :)
I've thought about building a practice amp using a transparent SS power amp section and some of the RoG amp sims as preamp sections; that could sound pretty cool. The idea has been thrown around here a bit, but running the pedals straight into your amp would do the same thing. How does it respond to pedals?
Haven't tried running any pedals thru it yet. I'll give that a try this weekend when I have more time.