Pete - tube amp book qts again

[raymo]

Last time you recommended a bunch of useful books, one of them I already had (Gerald Weber - guide to hip vintage guitar amps)and now the Tube Amp Book by Aspen Pittman I have on special order. You couldn't remember the name of Weber's 2nd book you said tube amps for the tech or somefin, I was wonder'n if it could've been Hal Leonards - Tube Amp Talk for the Guitarist and Tech?

Or if not is that a good book and is Dan Torres' Inside Tube Amps anya good?

And Ritchie Fliegers - Amps! The other half of Rock n Roll, any good?

Thanks Pete.

[OklaStrat]

Re: Pete - tube amp book qts again

Originally posted by Marshall tone:
Last time you recommended a bunch of useful books, one of them I already had (Gerald Weber - guide to hip vintage guitar amps)and now the Tube Amp Book by Aspen Pittman I have on special order. You couldn't remember the name of Weber's 2nd book you said tube amps for the tech or somefin, I was wonder'n if it could've been Hal Leonards - Tube Amp Talk for the Guitarist and Tech?

Or if not is that a good book and is Dan Torres' Inside Tube Amps anya good?

And Ritchie Fliegers - Amps! The other half of Rock n Roll, any good?

Thanks Pete.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">What are you wanting to do - mod amps? build em? or just read more/learn about them?

Pete

[raymo]

Re: Pete - tube amp book qts again

Should've made myself clear, learn to build em [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[OklaStrat]

Re: Pete - tube amp book qts again

Here's the bad thing - there are few books that just say "ok, here's how to build one" - since it's a lot of stuff to digest at once. I'd buy the Torres book if I were you. It explains some stuff in good detail, and has a good overview of everything in fairly plain english. Then if you still are interested in this stuff, get the two Weber books. At that point I would get a kit (gary Gerhart's Gilmore Jr kit is fairly easy to build and cheap too).

It's fun, but addictive.

Pete

[rstites]

Re: Pete - tube amp book qts again

Weber's 2nd book is 'Tube Amp Talk for the Guitarist and Tech'. It's geared towards modding classic amps more than building your own.

I don't know what your background is, but I'd consider 'Tonnes of Tone' by Kevin O'Connor. It's a project book that includes full schematics, layouts, parts lists, and step-by-step instructions for building several tube amp projects. Even if you don't build his projects, reading through them takes you through the steps you need to follow to put something together and give some practical insight. Then you can build something off your favorite schematic. (His power section, preamp, and power amp are good first projects and the preamp is supposed to sound pretty good.)

Here's the link: http://www.londonpower.com/

Ross

[OklaStrat]

Re: Pete - tube amp book qts again

I didn't care much for Kevin's books... after spending near $140 including shipping for three of em, I emailed him a question and was told the answer lied in some sequel books that I should purchase for even more $. Then I was told it was in the ultimate tone (which I have).

His books are interesting, but much more technically 'hard' than the others. There's a lot of math in his books. The Weber books, while yeah, they are Fender-centric for the most part, have great ideas scattered throughout for any model amp and are full of interesting little tidbits. It's arrange pretty horribly tho. The Trainwreck Pages are a must read - cool marshall mods, ways to cut down noise/hum in old (or just built) amps, etc...

Pete

[rstites]

Re: Pete - tube amp book qts again

Pete,

Do you have the one I mention above? It's not technical at all.* It's just a project book. His other books are reasonably technical, though not rigorous. I never got beyond the first O'Connor Ultimate Tone book. He seems to be stretching it out into a large series and I haven't felt like paying the money. I know you weren't impressed by those books. It sounds like his attitude bother's you as much as the books. Aiken's webpages are probably better for the more technical stuff. He's very straight forward and very easy to follow IMO, but probably a bit deep for a beginner.

I don't have the first Weber book, but should probably get it. The 2nd is fine, but it's all text and frankly I think it'd be very confusing to someone without some background. For me, I like schematics, diagrams, and layouts. Those are easier to understand than 3-4 paragraphs of verbage.

I also haven't seen Torres' stuff. I'm probably prejudiced there because his mods/books got slammed a lot on a.g.a when I first came around there, so I never really looked at them. Are the Trainwreck Pages a book or on the web? Point me at them, please.

Btw, one other great place for info is www.ampage.org. Check out the discussions there. Some very knowledgable folks are on there.

*Note: I don't know how relevant this is, but keep in mind than I'm an EE so my concept of what's technical and what's not may be different than others. I don't do anything like this for a living, but have the background back there somewhere. Also, I don't really know how anyone can hope to design anything without understanding some of the technicalities.

Ross

[OklaStrat]

Re: Pete - tube amp book qts again

Ross - yeah, I have the project book, but what bugs me about it is that he makes you build his power supply gizmo for powering all the projects, and then the projects you build have to be tethered to em. Ugggh.

Trainwreck pages are in the hip reference guide to guitar amps by weber, and has a TON of schematics and stuff. A few subjects covered in the trainwreck pages alone:

How a guitar amplifier works
Class A operation
How to bias a fixed bias amp
pickup testing
marshall superbass to super lead conversions
FOUR different master volume mods for vintage marshalls
A universal gain stage for fenders or marshalls, with info on how to tweak them for gain
output tube and transformer protection mods

...and that's just the ken fischer part! It's 30 pages of a 500 page book.

most of the rest of the book is dedicated to schematics, and tons of info on old fender amps.

Inside tube amps is torres' book - I think the big beef most 'real amp guys' have about it is that he gives shortcuts and charts and rounds stuff off - it's not as precise, but 'close enough'. For a newbie, it's an EXCELLENT book. By the end of the book, he has plans for a 5 watt single ended amp.

If you want the 'super fast track' - I'd read Torres' book, then buy a kit from gerhartamps.com - the Gilmore Jr. for $249 shipped, you get everything to build a useful little 1/2 watt guitar amp. It rocks. [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

There are a lot of neat little tips and tricks you can pull out of the Weber books too, imho.

Pete

[rstites]

Re: Pete - tube amp book qts again

Pete,

I understand that issue with the projects. I also understand what he was trying to do. I think the concept of splitting an amp into it's component parts (power section, preamp, and power amp) and dealing with each individually is a good idea. If I were to build his preamp or a complete amp, I would have just put everything on a single chassis. That's a small step to take IMO. I suppose it would have been nice if he'd added a section detailing how to do that, but he does skip a lot of additions that'd need to be done on a real amp (like remote swiching for the preamp).

Thanks for the detail. I have to find a copy of the first Weber book then. I figured it was basicly like the 2nd, which is ok but strictly a bunch of tips for modding, fixing, etc. old vintage amps. I like to read through it, but won't ever use it since all of those amps are too expensive for me to own. I'll check out Torres' book too. I haven't bought anything new (book-wise) in a while, and I need some additional reading material.

One other book asked about was Ritchie Flieger's Amp book. It's a good book, but doesn't offer anything technical: lots of pretty pictures of old amp and a summary of most of the amp companies out there. I think it's interesting because he talks about some old amps that aren't heard of anymore. It's not worth much for what we're talking about though.

Ross

[raymo]

Re: Pete - tube amp book qts again

Thank you all for your inputs, I have that londonpower website already in my links [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

Pete you offered that one project as a good first kit, what do you think of the ax84 kit?

All in all I wanna beable to build my own vintage marshalls or close to em [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img] with a few of my own stuff with a complete Marshall vibe to em. Im not going full on speed on this cause I got college, & fire acad. com'n up soon so It'll just be a summer / when i have time hobby, but its somefin Ive been wanting to do for about 3 years now. Im currently about half way done re-reading "A Desktop Guide to Hip Vintage Amps" by G. Weber.

[OklaStrat]

Re: Pete - tube amp book qts again

The kit at Gerhartamps.com is about 10 times nicer than any ax84 kit I've seen. You end up with a 1/2 watt amp, but the construction techniques are exactly the same as you'd need for any other tube amp. It comes with EVERYTHING you need except for basic hand tools.

Here's the really cool thing... Gary has some 30/45/50 watt plexi and AC30 complete kits in the works. Cross your fingers that he does this - his pricing is going to be great, and you'll get EVERYTHING you need for a head or combo.

Pete

[rstites]

Re: Pete - tube amp book qts again

If you want to build Marshall clones, you need to get a copy of Doyle's 'The History of Marshall'. It has a schematic for every Marshall ever made in the back and they're big enough you can actually read them. [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img] He also has appendices covering vintage Celestions, etc. The actual text is more of a history, which is very well done. The appendices are the meat though.

An old Marshall is about as simple of circuit as you'll ever find in an amp. If that's what you're after, you can probably just start with them. The only issue for a beginner amp is that they'll be a little expensive and a little more dangerous due to the size of transformers and power. A good first project would probably be a classic Marshall preamp into a lower power section (2 EL-84s). You can get good chassis through Weber, good transformers through Obsolete Electronics, and other parts through a variety of places. The big challenge over a kit here is assembling the parts yourself. (Beware that the add up fast once you get going!)

Good luck,

Ross

[OklaStrat]

Re: Pete - tube amp book qts again

I'd say build a single ended kit first... any of the 'bigger' marshalls are going to have a phase inverter stage, which adds to the complexity. Keep it simple with a champish thing to begin with. Otherwise you may end up with a VERY expensive pile o' parts.

pete

[rstites]

Re: Pete - tube amp book qts again

Good point. I was thinking of the preamp section rather than the power section. The Marshall non-master volume and early master volume preamps are very simple, though an extra stage or two than a Fender I suppose.

Ross

[raymo]

Re: Pete - tube amp book qts again

Ok Pete I'll surely start with Gary's Kit first after I read another book. Yep I'll definately keep my fingers crossed that he gets some Marshall kits going!!

Yep rstites I've had that Marshall book for awhile and have read it many a times [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] Yeah I plan on most likely using EL 84's in my own amps, just simply cause I wont need a super loud ass attomic amp and EL 84's still get nice and loud and pushed they sound sweet, Im sure I'll mess around with EL 34's since I wanna do quite a few Marshall clones [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img] .

Thanks you two, you're a tone of help.