Guitar Gear Forum

For my next project I was going to convert a busted Bugera 1960 into something using a spare OT and a pair of KT88s. That project is on ice for the time being while I take a more considered approach to the layout as squeezing a high gainer in will be a bit of a dick. This leads me to plan B: restart a rack pre that I started building for a friend a few years ago. This was supposed to be the preamp test bed for a run of amps but we couldn't be dicked with it in the end. We both had full time jobs so it wasn't the time for this particular endeavour.

Anyway, my plan here is to build two high gain pres in a 2 U chassis that I had already started the basic machining on. I have a custom wound toroidal PT (from toroidy.pl - check them out, great custom winds and super low prices) which is conservatively spec'd to run 6 preamp tubes and a whole bunch of relays without breaking a sweat. B+ at the filter will be around 400VDC so I can build some very modern sounding preamps, which is the plan.

Here is the chassis.



Preamp A is going to be loosely based on the VHT D60. The schem here doesn't show the less/more switch which bypasses the 3rd stage or the local NFB loop switch to change the mids/feel.



Preamp B is more or less a Splawn Nitro but with a post tonestack MV. I'll likely add options to switch the 2nd stage cathode resistor from 1k5 to 3k to also to reduce the gain a bit by adding an 82k//1n in parallel to the 220k in the 2nd stage attenuation network.




The above also shows an idea for a transparent high voltage MOSFET output buffer using an IRF820. This still needs a bit more work in LTSpice to get right. I'm not super confident designing with MOSFETs yet, but there is only one way to learn and if they they the magic smoke out then who cares? I may well go with a tube output buffer as below though.




Down the line when I'm happy with the circuits I may tap off the 12VDC regulated supply for the LED and relays to power a small solid state poweramp board so I can run into a cab. A 1W class D board is tiny, although I may opt to stick with a more conventional AB MOSFET power amp board depending on what sounds best.

After some dicking about in LTSpice I think this output buffer should work pretty well. It can handle 30Vpp in (which is more than it'll ever see) and scale the output swing down to 10's of millivolts to up to 5Vpp.

Neat!!

Check out Merlin's cathode follower section in his preamp book. I've simmed them with an IRF820, with his circuit protection, and it's almost identical.

Also, the bootstrapped variation can be placed on a switch for a mid-thickening effect. Just tailor the capacitor to whatever floor frequency you want to boost.

jgreenwd wrote:Check out Merlin's cathode follower section in his preamp book. I've simmed them with an IRF820, with his circuit protection, and it's almost identical.

Also, the bootstrapped variation can be placed on a switch for a mid-thickening effect. Just tailor the capacitor to whatever floor frequency you want to boost.

Yeah, I've simmed them to step in as cathode followers in circuits. Same additional sillicooties can make them behave more like the real thin too:
http://milas.spb.ru/~kmg/irf_en.html

That's bad to the bone Zozo. PM me how much you'd want for a 4 channel pre with tweed bassman, super lead, gh50 and bogner xtc. No channel switching.

Zozobra wrote:sillicooties

Ry Manchu wrote:That's bad to the bone Zozo. PM me how much you'd want for a 4 channel pre with tweed bassman, super lead, gh50 and bogner xtc. No channel switching.

Thanks I can't help with that really I'm afraid. I couldn't commit to anything being built in a half way reasonable time frame and shipping to the states would be a fairly daunting prospect!

Have you ever thought of building a preamp yourself? They're a lot less complicated than full amps and those little dev PCBs I'm using are great and easy to work with. I'm happy to help with that if you do.

Well I will be having some spare time available coming up. I can screw, solder and test, but I can't understand a circuit diagram. Are you sure I can do it?

Start small and simple. Maybe a 1 or 2 channel preamp. TBH, unless you're designing something yourself then everything you need is already out there in terms of layout and I can help you layout a circuit you're interested in.

Have a read of this to get your head around reading circuits:
http://ax84.com/p1/P1_Theory_Document.zip

This is a great resource too:
http://www.valvewizard.co.uk/

Thanks Zo. I'll check back in in half a week after I've better educated myself.

Did some more metal work today.

test fitting passed - checking out different knobs. I may actually leave it with different ones for each channel

Power supply all wired up. Cables will be cable tied to adhesive bases once everything is in.
I'm getting 430VDC on the main filter under no load so I'm set for around 400 under load.

Zozobra wrote:

test fitting passed - checking out different knobs. I may actually leave it with different ones for each channel

Damn man! Looks awesome!

Looks mean as heck.

Thanks guys. I think I'll probably leave the front unlabelled. I know what all the knobs and switches do anyway

I should have a few hours tonight to work on this. The initial test of the build will just be the 2nd channel and the output buffer. I'll be ordering the bits for the switching circuit and fresh pots for the 1st channel later.

There is part of me which is think that the big empty space in the top left could be filled with an ecc99 power amp to turn this into a full amp. I could also then also add a dummy load and run the whole thing into a big motherfucking solid state power amp for playing out

that looks awesome

Thanks. I started stripping the components from one of the boards that I built a butterslax pre with. It's slow work

Nitro channel input board populated.

Zozobra wrote:Nitro channel input board populated.

Sick!!! This is so damn cool!

I wanna hear the one based on the D60 Zo!

Thanks dudes. These boards are great and if anyone has ever wanted to try making a preamp then they do take a lot of the ballache out of it. That said they aren't too great to rework and stripping out one of the old boards if proving a bit of a nightmare, although that is largely because I need a new desoldering pump.

I will hopefully get the 2nd nitro board populated tonight. From there I need to design and populate the MOSFET output buffer and hook up all the wires. May be finished with all that by the weekend. Once that's done I'll start on the D60 boards

2nd board populated. This has the 3rd and 4th stages and the EQ on. I didn't have any silver micas for the treble cap in the tonestack so I've used a ceramic for now, which might have a slightly harsher top end if you believe everything you read on the internet.