Re:Guitar amps and stuff
Friday, April 13 2012 @ 02:03 PM CDT

Quote by: J.A.Stewart Quote by: Tiny_Man_Inside Another teaser.... A stratocaster I'm in the process of building: That is one Beautiful-looking body, Mason. Is that its natural grain pattern — or something you created? What sort of pickups are you going to use? Are you looking for a *hot* Strat sound or the *original* Strat sound? Your electronic creations continue to amaze me... really attractive work. --- Joe

Thanks Joe.

This body has a quilt maple top laminate. The pattern is the natural figure of the wood, that I have dyed very carefully to bring out the differences in pore density. It looks quite dull right now, but will begin to take on a more three-dimensional look once I start to lacquer it. It will end up looking sort of like a Paul Reed Smith finish.

I've spent a lot of time over the last 2 years working on dying techniques for different varieties of maple. This is the first time I've used quilt maple, but I use curly (flame) maple on almost all of my guitar amp builds, so the technique is quite similar.

Regarding the sound of the guitar - I'm going to use a Pearly gates Humbucker in the bridge position, wired for either humbucker or single-coil sound, based on a push-pull volume pot. The single coils are probably going to a pair of Kinman noiseless pickups from the Woodstock collection. So I'm going for a tad bit hotter sound than a traditional strat, but not over the top (my next guitar build is going to be a shredder). I'm basically building this because I want a lower output strat style guitar to showcase my amps' versatility - all my other guitars are Gibsons with humbuckers.

I'm doing some interesting things with the neck as well - all custom inlays in 4 different colors, and one of mechanical engineering friends is going to machine the neck (from flame maple!). I'll post pictures as things come together. I already have all of the inlay bits and pieces cut, along with the fretboard.

Anyway, thanks for the support! I really appreciate it.

Mason

Re:Guitar amps and stuff
Friday, April 13 2012 @ 02:17 PM CDT

Quote by: I.G.M. Wow, the amp is looking awesome. Is it possible to hear an example of how it`s sounding??

Here are some songs that use some of the different amps I've built (all three of these are pretty heavy songs featuring a highly overdriven amp sound. The distortion is all from the amp, no pedals were used):


From my recording group Tiny Man Inside:
Left to Swing - featuring the TMI Cyclotron Mk 1

From a prior collaboration called No Secret Revealed:
The Complex Alive - featuring the TMI Cyclotron Mk 1

A solo song:
Tiny Man Inside (Read Between the Lines) featuring the TMI Atom Smasher

Some additional different sound bites and demonstrations (includes some cleaner amps as well as the heavy stuff):

Cyclotron Mk 1 - clean settings

Atom Smasher demo - very high gain

UberSEL demo - very high gain

Lucky Devil demo - clean/moderate dirt

Little Devil demo - clean/moderate dirt {this is the amp pictured in the first post of this thread}

Cyclotron Mk 2 - very high gain

My favorites so far are the Atom Smasher and Cyclotron Mk2 for very high gain/ heavy distortion. I like the Lucky 7 for intermediate gain and/or cleaner playing. I've developed several other amps that I don't have soundbites for. Most of these amps are my own original designs, although obviously I've had a ton of help along the way - getting advice from several more experienced homebuilders, and also reading as much about electronics theory as possible.

Mason

Re:Guitar amps and stuff
Wednesday, May 30 2012 @ 10:18 AM CDT

Here's a link to a dual channel recording EQ that I made for my home studio:



The picture shows the second channel. Above that is a dual 12AV7 tube mic preamp that I built for tracking vocals and guitars.

Mason

Re:Guitar amps and stuff
Wednesday, May 30 2012 @ 04:41 PM CDT

Quote by: Tiny_Man_Inside Here's a link to a dual channel recording EQ that I made for my home studio: The picture shows the second channel. Above that is a dual 12AV7 tube mic preamp that I built for tracking vocals and guitars. Mason

That is awesome.

Re:Guitar amps and stuff
Thursday, May 31 2012 @ 08:17 AM CDT

Thanks Aemyn!

Re:Guitar amps and stuff
Thursday, July 12 2012 @ 09:34 AM CDT

Here is an album of photos of one of my recently completed amps - the TMI Cyclotron.

And here's a teaser photo:

Re:Guitar amps and stuff
Thursday, July 12 2012 @ 10:14 AM CDT

both look great

Re:Guitar amps and stuff
Thursday, July 12 2012 @ 10:14 AM CDT

both look great

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Thursday, July 12 2012 @ 02:16 PM CDT

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Re:Guitar amps and stuff
Thursday, July 12 2012 @ 03:24 PM CDT

Thanks guys, I appreciate you taking the time to look over the pictures.

mason