Amplates - The Blog!

Wood grain Marshall beauty!

2011-06-27T18:58:00.000-07:00

Kirk Greenman out in Hawaii needed a faceplate and backplate to compliment his Marshall build that he finished with an amazing wood grain front panel. The folks at Amplates.com were happy to help out by using his old plates as templates to ensure a perfect retrofit on the amp chassis!

Princeton Amps Never Looked This Good!

2011-03-15T06:16:00.000-07:00

Deric Dobesh wanted a modern looking faceplate and nameplate to complement the green tolex and wheat grille on his Fender Princeton Reverb style build. He liked the slick look of the brushed silver/black faceplate material and we used the same stock to make the matching nameplate. The result, I think you'll agree, is fantastic! Great job, Deric.

Better than a Marshall

2010-12-14T18:50:00.000-08:00

Holy moley is this some fantastic work by Derek Choice over at Funk Logic! He came to Amplates.com to have us fabricate his cheeky faceplates (note the model name on the backplate). All we can say is wow!

Amplates.com has a new phone number!

2010-12-02T20:24:00.000-08:00

Amplates.com has a brand-new telephone number! The new number is 202-656-0080. The old number still works but the voice mail is funky, so we're encouraging everyone to use the new number (which is now plastered all over the web site at Amplates.com!

So call us at 202-656-0080 or email us at jvallina AT amplates DOT com for help with any custom faceplates, nameplates, or grille cloth orders you may have. As always, thanks so much to our valued customers!

Austria in the house!

2010-11-30T17:51:00.000-08:00

Alexander Strassnig came to Amplates.com for help fabricating the nameplates to put the finishing touch on his beautiful "Alestra" amp and cabinet. We think you'll agree that the final product was the epitome of an Amplates.com Excellent Amp! Great work, Alexander!

Red Barchetta!

2010-11-22T20:29:00.000-08:00

John Fontenot over at Barchetta Valve Amps in Louisiana just finished working with Amplates.com on the custom plexi-style faceplate for his newest creation, the HVA-50. Mighty fine looking amp, John!

Great video of the Carr amplifier factory

2010-05-18T13:05:00.000-07:00

I've always loved the look and sound of Carr amps. Plus, Steve Carr seems to be one of the nice guys in the industry. Here's a cool video by Ask Our Musicaians that takes you on a guided tour of the Carr shop.

Interesting guide to audio calculations

2010-05-13T08:09:00.000-07:00

This is a cool site that seems to have every type of audio and circuit calculator known to man. Enjoy!

Seng Piel Audio Calculations

Another "Excellent Amp!"

2008-06-03T18:30:00.000-07:00

Brian Davis at Whole Tone music has made a beautiful line of amps, but the Deja Blue is the cream of the crop. Congratulations to Brian for a job very well done! You indeed have an "Excellent Amp!"

Amplates.com "Excellent Amp!" Award

2008-02-27T10:26:00.000-08:00

Congratulations to Greg Koelling, the recipient of our first Amplates.com "Excellent Amp!" award! His 5E3-based head design and 1 X 12" cab are a perfect example of the top-notch workmanship and understated, yet powerful design that home builders aspire to. Great job, Greg!

Cool Amp Gallery Features Vintage Designs

2008-01-18T09:39:00.000-08:00

Vintage amps come in more flavors than Marshall and Fender. Some of the coolest designs around stem from the smaller players who tried to make their mark with more outrageous designs than the two big boys.

The guys over at We-Buy-Amps.com have a great gallery of obscure and unusual amps that might help the homebrewer get ideas for the look of his or her new amp.

Here at amplates.com, we love it when our customers go for the more unusual design elements, and we can take an idea from an old Gibson or National, like those in the photos above, and run with it. Happy amping!

Insane DIY triode - made from scratch!

2008-01-04T07:55:00.000-08:00

If you think you are a DIY tube god, I've got news. You don't have anything on this crazy French dude who—get this—makes his own tubes. Click the link for a step-by-step video of the entire process. Amazing stuff.

Holidays are here!

2007-12-13T12:19:00.000-08:00

We here at Amplates.com hope everyone is having a blast for the holidays! Wanted to give everyone a heads up that we will be closed from Dec. 17- Jan. 2 to celebrate with family and friends, so get your orders in pronto!

A huge thanks goes out to our fantastic customers! Have a wonderful holiday and fantastic New Year!

New stuff a brewing

2007-08-23T08:34:00.000-07:00

Things have been busy over here at Amplates.com. We are getting ready to roll out a new web site for a brand-spanking new product line that we're really excited about. Stay tuned!

Plan ahead for faceplate design

2007-08-16T10:03:00.000-07:00

When designing and building your amp, be sure to plan ahead on the faceplate side of things, too. You want to make sure that you have enough real estate to fit control labels and other markings, plus any logos or flourishes.

Inspirational faceplate design

2007-08-13T06:55:00.000-07:00

For inspiration, I like to look to the more unusual amplifier faceplates from the past, and this 1964 Gibson Titan III bass amp is a good one to draw from.

The plate uses legible typography for the controls and a futuristic script face for the amp logo. The use of rules and outlines gives the design movement to imply that this amp is forward and ultra modern (for 1965 it was!). And you've gotta love those stovetop knobs!

Thanks to the Gibson Garage for posting this and hundreds of other great pics of the classic Gibson amp line!

Whither Schematic Heaven?

2007-08-08T08:17:00.000-07:00

Don't know what the deal is, but Schematic Heaven has been down for about a week now. The entire homebrew amp-builder community is hoping against hope that this is only a temporary state of affairs! It would be a major loss if this great site were to go away for good.

During the (we hope) temporary outage, you can go to the Web archived version of the Schematic Heaven site and grab all of the schematics you need for now.

You can also find some schematics at the Triode site and at the Free Information Society site.

The list to end all lists

2007-08-07T12:54:00.000-07:00

In case you might want to start your own amplifier company (more power to you!), Philip Ruetz over at DIY Guitar Amp has the be-all, end-all list of links to your competition. His list of guitar amp manufacturers is a veritable who's who of the big guys, the bou-teeks and even the smart-alec newcomers on the block. Check it out!

What makes a good faceplate design?

2007-08-02T06:38:00.000-07:00

Since faceplates are our bread and butter around here at Amplates.com, I figured a primer on what makes a good plate design might be in order. Bullet points are always fun, so try these tips on for size:

• Legibility. There are two basic types of fonts: text and display. You want to use text fonts for your control labels. If you use crazy, squiggly or super stylized fonts in positions above controls where they need to be small to fit, they won't be readable. Save the squiggles for your amp name and logo.

• Simplicity. Don't throw the kitchen sink on your faceplate. This isn't the launch control for ICBMs, it's a guitar amp built to be used on a cramped, dark stage. You need to be able to quickly and easily change settings, and having 1 billion small knobs and switches will seriously muck up the works.

• Style. The world doesn't need another Fender or Marshall clone. Think outside the box a little when choosing fonts, colors, and design elements. Simply adding a rule or box on your plate can make it stand out from the hordes and make people go "wow!"

New Download! Cap codes revealed!

2007-07-30T07:50:00.000-07:00

Okay, here's another builder's quick reference for your shop, this time all about capacitor codes. I think that whomever invented capacitors used an Enigma machine to label them.

Screwing up the value of a cap can wreck a tonestack or completely alter the sound of your interstage signal. I can never remember how to go from pF to nF to uF to wtfF without looking, so here's a cheat sheet to help us keep it straight if you're the same way. Enjoy!

DIY Electronics Swap Meet August 19th

2007-07-27T07:30:00.000-07:00

Man, I wish I were still in Northern California so I could attend this!

According to the annoucement of the meet, "Suggested items to bring for sell or trade include musical instruments, amplifiers, electronic parts and supplies, electronic assembly tools, technical books, electronic test gear, electronic kits, etc." Might be a place to find some good projects or parts.

The swap meet will be at the seminal punk club 924 Gilman St. in Berkeley, CA on August 19th. Hours are from 11am-3pm. Get the full scoop on the DIY Electronics and Musicians swap here.

NOStalgia - the fragrance for tube geeks

2007-07-26T07:44:00.001-07:00

Speaking of downloads

2007-07-24T06:31:00.000-07:00

In my post yesterday, I linked to a ton o' vintage electronic texts. But if you're only going to download one reference manual for tubes, you need to get the mother lode—the Radiotron Designer's Handbook, Vol. 4. This is the book for anyone serious about learning tube technology.

Be forewarned: at north of 1,400 pages, it's frickin' huge. Don't even bother trying to print the whole thing unless you have a ream of paper handy. Still, worth every second of download time.

For an math-challenged person like me, the chapter on mathematics was worth the whole download.

Incredible digital library of out-of-print tech books

2007-07-23T06:48:00.000-07:00

I grokked this amazing site chock full of out-of-print tube tech books over at 18watt.com this weekend (good find, Bentaro!).

I downloaded about 100 million hours' worth of reading material in my quest to understand what the hell the Miller effect has to do with anything. This morning on the Metro I was in full Millertime mode.

Downloadable tube pinout guide

2007-07-20T09:41:00.000-07:00

I don't know about you, but I'm constantly having to look up the pinouts of tubes during my builds. Even when wiring common tubes that I have memorized by now, such as the 12ax7, I invariably have one last look at the data sheet just to make sure before the power up. After all, nobody likes 300 volts on their grids.

But here's the problem: In the middle of a build cycle, my shop tends to get a little messy, so data sheets get buried, laptops are upstairs...you know the drill. So I decided to make up a printable, standard-letter sized sheet with all the pinouts for the most-used tubes in amp building. Now I can just tack one sheet to my shop wall for those last-minute sanity checks.

Feel free to click here to download the tube printout guide for use in your shop. You'll need Adobe Reader to open and print it, but I think almost everyone has that these days. I hope it makes your builds go a little bit faster and easier.

Keeping your plates original

2007-07-19T11:55:00.000-07:00

I often get emails from customers with semi-designed faceplates or instructions for font choices that they find appealing. This is great! It's always cool when customers know what they want.

But at times, what someone wants is what everyone wants. Take the top two fonts for Amplates.com design in the last two years: Magneto and Deftone Stylus. These are two very cool, retro fonts, but they are becoming victims to their own popularity. If a customer really wants to go with one of those, then hey, by all means, we'll do it. But I try to steer customers to other, also cool script fonts if possible. A lot of my customers aren't aware of the wealth of font choices at their disposal. That's where my experience comes in:

Why not try some new-school retro fonts like Nougat or Hamburger Heaven? You too, can be a "Saucy Millionaire"! In fact, there are literally thousands of fonts to choose from, and I can recommend something that will look cool, be very readable, and will stand out from the crowd.

What's more, we can use those fonts as a starting point to design a completely original logo to truly brand your amps. I'm a big believer that whether you make 1 amp or 10,000, quality and originality count.

17 Things I Wish I Knew Before My First Guitar Amp Build

2007-07-19T10:01:00.000-07:00

DISCLAIMER: USE AT YOUR OWN RISK. THERE ARE DEADLY VOLTAGES AND CURRENTS IN ANY TUBE AMPLIFIER AND YOU CAN KILL YOURSELF IF YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING. THE BELOW TIPS ARE FOR GENERAL REFERENCE ONLY.

1. SAFETY FIRST! Go read and study up on electronics safety. The GeoFX blurb on safety is a good start.You can kill yourself by doing amp work improperly!

2. Never put two hands inside an engergized circuit, EVER. One hand in the back pocket when taking voltage readings or chopsticking components.

3. Chopstick with a wooden chopstick, not a pencil. Graphite conducts!

4. Discharge the filter caps before working inside an amp. To do this, wire a 100K/1W resistor with insulated alligator clips on both ends (use some wire on one end of the resistor to give yourself some slack to work with). Be sure to shrink wrap any exposed resistor leads. Clip one end of the tool to the chassis, and then clip the other to the + side of the first filter cap. Use your meter to verify that no voltage remains on the cap before working on the amp. Make sure you remember to remove the discharge tool before powering the amp back up!

5. Learn to solder a proper joint BEFORE starting the amp wiring. Heat the turret and component (with a heat sink for capacitors and diodes) and flow the solder onto it. Don't "blob" it on.

6. Learn to read a schematic before starting your project. It's not hard, and if you start on an old Champ schematic, you'll learn all the basics right away.

7. Read the P1 Theory Document, even if you're not planning on building a P1. You won't understand everything, but it's a GREAT way to learn how amps work.

8. After you've wired your amp, go through a copy of the schematic connection by connection with a highlighter, making sure everything is there and properly connected. You will find at least one error, guaranteed!

9. Don't just turn the finished amp on. Get Paul Ruby's start-up guide and use it! Transformers are very easy to kill, and very expensive to replace. Be extremely careful on your first power-up. If you use Ruby's guide, 99% of the time, you will be golden.

10. To reduce filament hum, the center tap on the 6.3V secondary windings should be connected to the cathode of the power tube, not ground (this applies to cathode-biased power amps only). If your transformer doesn't have a center tap (if it only has two green wires, with no green/yellow striped wire), wire up two 100 ohm resistors to make a "poor man's center tap". Solder one end of each resistor to either green secondary lead, and solder the other sides of the resistors together. Then run a wire from where the resistors meet to the cathode pin of the power tube.

11. Plan your amp carefully, and use a paper template to mark your chassis for drilling. Use a center punch on all holes, and remember, you can always make a hole bigger, but never smaller...take your time.

12. This photo shows the proper way to wire an input jack. (Photo is from the fabulous Ampmaker.com kit build guide.)

13. When choosing a power transformer or output transformer. Pay close attention to the current handling capabilities, not just the voltages.

14. Use 600V teflon wire!

15. Never use 1/4 watt resistors in a guitar amp. 1/2 watt should be used in most signal paths, and 1 watt most everywhere else, unless the schematic specifically says otherwise.

16. When using shielded wire for signal leads, only ground one end of the shield, and shrink wrap the other end to make sure the metal braid doesn't short anything out.

17. Leave the "power" switch in the "on" position while working on an amp, and turn it off by unplugging it from the wall. This will keep you from accidentally forgetting that even with the switch in the "off" position, you have 115VAC on the terminals of the switch and, in some cases, fuse housing.

To parallel or not to parallel, that is the question

2007-07-19T08:56:00.001-07:00

There is an interesting discussion going on over at AX84.com right now about the benefits and drawbacks of using paralleled preamp tubes.

I've used paralleled 12ax7s and 12au7s in clean amps with success, but found them to be a bit mushy in higher gain situations. Turns out I may not have been using them correctly for the higher gain settings. To check out what the gurus have to say, hit the link to the discussion on AX84.com.