Metroamp "How amps work" videos, a possiblity?

[slashsound]

I'll add a +1 for the Richard Kuehnel books and say that Dave Hunter's The Guitar Amp Handbook is a must read. As is everything on Randall Aiken's technical articles pages. However, there's no easy win and there's no substitute for getting your soldering iron hot. Reference books tell much, but experience tells more.

Oh, and of course a big +1 for Larry's recommendation.

Thanks, in fact Im waiting for that Guitar Amp Handbook to come through the mail hopefully by monday.

[itsonlyadam]

I'm 30 years old and I'm an Aerospace Engineering student at Auburn Univerity. I have a limited knowledge of basic electricity and cirquits, the kind you learn in College Physics with Calculus. Since you asked. BTW I have been obsessed with slash since I was about 8 years old

Auburn Tigers! Gnarly! That's cool, man! Gotta have respect for the college "Sir" Charles Barkley came out of. But like I said, just disregard the whole life lesson thing. Yeah, I highly recommend The Art of Electronics then, man. That should give you a decent background. How's the whole Aerospace thing going? I had some friends that were doing that and they seemed swamped all the time. 8 years old!!! Dude, that's intense. It's good to see it's still going strong, dude!

[slashsound]

I'm 30 years old and I'm an Aerospace Engineering student at Auburn Univerity. I have a limited knowledge of basic electricity and cirquits, the kind you learn in College Physics with Calculus. Since you asked. BTW I have been obsessed with slash since I was about 8 years old

Auburn Tigers! Gnarly! That's cool, man! Gotta have respect for the college "Sir" Charles Barkley came out of. But like I said, just disregard the whole life lesson thing. Yeah, I highly recommend The Art of Electronics then, man. That should give you a decent background. How's the whole Aerospace thing going? I had some friends that were doing that and they seemed swamped all the time. 8 years old!!! Dude, that's intense. It's good to see it's still going strong, dude!

I had to take a break for a few years from Aerospace since it was so intense. It was getting in the way of my partying I'm registering back for it again in the summer or fall, I only have about 3 semesters left. Besides music, planes, space and rockets are my other obsessions.
Thanks for the book recomendation, Ill go buy it immediatley.

[itsonlyadam]

Oh, slashsound, I almost forgot. Before you go out and buy The Art of Electronics, you might want to shop around for the best price or maybe even hold off on buying it for now, as I hear they'll be releasing an updated version soon. Also, I figured I would link you someone's blog about tube amps and such. I highly recommend the Kevin O'Connor books, as well as the Richard Kuehnel books. Here are some links about these books:

http://tubenexus.com/2008/04/11/diy-gui ... est-books/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://tubenexus.com/2008/04/02/nerdy-t ... ign-books/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Check those out, they're rad! But in all honesty (and to support paulster's remarks), there really is no substitute for just firing up the soldering iron and getting to work on an amplifier circuit. You may even want to get like one of those little Blackheart amps and just take it apart to study its innards. But yeah, on a similar note, my buddies and I ride fixed gear bikes and we always say, "You don't really own your bike until you fall off of it in a bad way." So, just try and get your feet wet anyway you can and expect errors. Reading is cool, but working with your hands is 10 times funner and it's the best way to progress.

Good luck man!

[slashsound]

Thanks alot man, I really appreciate you helping me out and making me feel good about asking

[itsonlyadam]

Thanks alot man, I really appreciate you helping me out and making me feel good about asking

Hey, no prob man! This stuff is really addicting and it only gets even more addicting... you'll see. Don't say I didn't warn you.

[dtdionne]

DUDE, you goto Auburn?? Are you from this area? I work for NASA on Redstone in Huntsville...shoot me a PM.

As well, I'm not sure if you've realized it yet but Kevin O'Connor wrote 11 of the best DIY guitar books including the TUT series and sells them from his company in Canada called London Press. Some of the most successfull boutique (and now more commercial mainstream) shops got their start from the TUT series. I say this cause i've seen many reccommend these books using either his name or his company or the name of the book or an acronym for the name of the books (TUT = The Ultimate Tone). His books are prolly the next best thing to building a kit. My first kit was Georges 100w kit that comes with step-by-step instructions and I wouldn't trade that experience (or the amp) for anything. It was UNREAL, I obsessed about it all day long, worked on it every night and all weekend long and while I'm throughly enjoying playing it, I miss the whole "building the amp" thing...it was like a continuous orgazimic multi-ephiphony schmorgesborge of knowledge and understanding, everything I had been reading on this forum (fizz cap, dual bias feeder resistors, NFB resistor, gain stages, one wire mod, class AB, push-pull, cross-over distortion or notch distortion and on and on) that made NO sense to me suddenly came to life before my eyes over the course of a week.

In case you haven't seen Georges instructions for the 100w kit, they're on the wiki...here's a link, check em out, they still give me goose bumps:

http://www.metroamp.com/downloads/100_W ... MP_KIT.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[slashsound]

A second DVD would have the "Bonus Features" showing George trying to kill his emplyees with hot sauce!!!! (I take no responsibility, even if I do send a lot of the sauce.......)

RANT MODE ON:

The third DVD would show George fumbling around with Adobe After Effects and pulling out his hair, trying to animate resistors and capacitors flying into a PTP board in all the right places and simulating electricity running through them and into the finger of the poor guy pointing out how electricity flows from each component. Then the camera man would cut to the same guy FRYING from touching a filter cap without draining it first. Suddenly the video ends and the paramedics come flying into view...fade to black...

Slashsound...come on, sir! What you're asking for is a huge undertaking that would cost tens of thousands of dollars to do right, in terms of George's time/money spent/camera crew and post production. I know you're eager to learn all this stuff by next week, but unless you've got some real deep pockets/wallet to finance this, you'd better buy some books and start reading, as well as reverse engineering cabs and stuff while you're at it.

I don't know why you think everyone who paid for their knowledge should give it to you for free (via video and DVD no less!), but that's just NOT the way it works.

RANT MODE OFF (for now):

I obviously meant a video that you can buy, friend

[Big Mike]

But do you wanna pay 10 grand?

[slashsound]

But do you wanna pay 10 grand?

LOL, come on, if 200 people buy the video, it will pay for it self. Also... bro.. you dont need 10 grand to make a video. Look at the Kendrick " tube amp service video " or what not....all you need is a cam corder and somebody to hold it...oh and maybe a big chalkboard...lol

[Big Mike]

And time, and editing, and overhead, and, and and.

10 grand's easy to spend on that sort of thing.

200 guys at 50 bucks apiece to break even IMO.
Not very cost effective. Just study man...everyone's giving you the same information. study, study, study.

[Scumback Speakers]

There's so much more to doing a video than slashsound is realizing. Shot lighting, content, storyboard the video, parts arrangement, common mistakes, camera man, yada yada yada.

Then there's liability... "Dude I followed your video and shocked the crap out of myself! The only thing I can remember is that you told me to put a multi-meter tip "here" and I flew across the room! Now I'm gonna sue you, you video tutorial bastid!"

Slashsound, think of the big picture, and not just yourself, would ya? Sheesh. There's so much more to this than your accelerated learning curve.

[slashsound]

Slashsound, think of the big picture, and not just yourself, would ya? Sheesh. There's so much more to this than your accelerated learning curve.

LoL, I dont think I would be the only one that would benefit from this. Be nice bro.

[Big Mike]

Nothing's going to be a substitute for practical knowledge.

Pick a kit, build it, study it, mod it, much will become clear.

[slashsound]

Nothing's going to be a substitute for practical knowledge.

Pick a kit, build it, study it, mod it, much will become clear.

I agree, but there are people here who have told me that they didnt understand what the heck was going on until their 6th kit. So being able to visualize what is going on kinda helps, but thats just me.