Amp on the cheap- possible solution!

Going Forward

Anyone thinking of forking out a couple of hundred on a first amp could do worse than check this link out:

http://radio-guitar-amps.blogspot.ie/

Basically it gives info on converting radios etc for use as guitar amps.

I did it years ago with a cd radio cassette player, just snip the wires from the playing head and connect to guitar jack socket and plug in your guitar.

Better sound than most of the small micro amps, particularly when using effects!

Grolschevik

Back in the day (so I read), of course, you could plug guitars into almost anything, TVs included apparently.

martinedwards

be careful. I hearly fried myself doing exactly this when I was about 16.

and it sounded crap anyway.

Going Forward

martinedwards wrote: »

be careful. I hearly fried myself doing exactly this when I was about 16.

and it sounded crap anyway.

Care is needed not to meddle with any high voltage areas such as fuses, transformers etc. A tape head cannot fry you though!

An alternative you could use is one of these Cassette Adaptors,.

Its basically the same as using an auxilliary input or line input on the back of a hi fi to play an mp3 player through it.

When I did it years ago yeah the sound was a bit shi* when used without any effects, but dug out the stereo recently and plugged my Pocket Pod into the socket I fitted and the sound was brilliant.

Ravelleman

With so many good amps available for less than €150 these days, it hardly seems worth it.

CianRyan

Ravelleman wrote: »

With so many good amps available for less than €150 these days, it hardly seems worth it.

As much love as there is for the likes of the Roland Cube, they not actually that great and the little Fischer Price amp sounds far nicer.

They also have about 20,000,000 more cool points.

Going Forward

Ravelleman wrote: »

With so many good amps available for less than €150 these days, it hardly seems worth it.

I agree, this certainly wont take the place of a dedicated amp, but could be a stop gap if on a budget, or for low volume practice with something you might already have at your disposal- particularly for a beginner.

And it can be good to experiment:)

BTW you can use something like this fellow plugged into your effects unit to hear yourself on the kitchen radio:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/LUPO-Portable-Transmitter-Modulator-Channels/dp/B000S0XBE4/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

rcaz

Ravelleman wrote: »

With so many good amps available for less than €150 these days, it hardly seems worth it.

But this is waaaaay more fun!

johnROSS

The cassette adapter option is really cool. For me though, it only works with a pedal of some sort. I guess you need to have a power source. great vintage tone, and unbelievably cool tape hiss.

Ravelleman

rcaz wrote: »

But this is waaaaay more fun!

If having an inferior product is fun, then yes, yes indeed. But such is the world we live in. The ironic veneration of crapiness has gone too far.

It wouldn't be for me but if someone gives it a try then power to them!

CianRyan

Ravelleman wrote: »

If having an inferior product is fun, then yes, yes indeed. But such is the world we live in. The ironic veneration of crapiness has gone too far.

It wouldn't be for me but if someone gives it a try then power to them!

Sounding better and costing less than a similar Pig Nose, I wouldn't call it inferior.

Grolschevik

CianRyan wrote: »

Sounding better and costing less than a similar Pig Nose, I wouldn't call it inferior.

Don't dis the Pig! Great amps (albeit that the newer ones are bit "stiffer" sounding than my now dead 22-year-old one...)

partyatmygaff

Just get a 1/4" to 3.5mm adapter and connect it to your computer/laptop and get one of the many free VST modelling amplifiers. Much, much better (But probably not as fun).

Going Forward

johnROSS wrote: »

The cassette adapter option is really cool. For me though, it only works with a pedal of some sort. I guess you need to have a power source. great vintage tone, and unbelievably cool tape hiss.

Yeah, thats the way it works- the same way that you cant just plug a pair of headphones into your guitar and hear anything, the sound has to be amplified by something like a pedal first.

CianRyan

Grolschevik wrote: »

Don't dis the Pig! Great amps (albeit that the newer ones are bit "stiffer" sounding than my now dead 22-year-old one...)

Ah the old Piggies are great but the new ones, like most new "vintage" items, are nothing like the originals.

Grolschevik

CianRyan wrote: »

Ah the old Piggies are great but the new ones, like most new "vintage" items, are nothing like the originals.

Similar enough, I reckon. Construction-wise, looks internally identical. I probably just used to blast the bejaysus out of that wee speaker when I was a young lad, stretched it out...

rcaz

Ravelleman wrote: »

If having an inferior product is fun, then yes, yes indeed. But such is the world we live in. The ironic veneration of crapiness has gone too far.

It wouldn't be for me but if someone gives it a try then power to them!

Nothing about 'having' any kind of 'product' is fun. That's just owning something. What happened to having creativity and inventiveness as the focus of being a musician? If you derive fun from having the 'best' available amplifier, then great, but you're being a consumer more than you're being a musician.

Tinkering with things and building yokes is fun, it's creative, it's cheap, it's original and it leads to an individual sound... Anyone can buy a 'good' amplifier with minimal effort, it takes a bit of thought and some creativity to hack together some workaround to figure out a way of getting your **** loud without just buying an amp off the shelf.

Think of the musicians who really made a difference to contemporary guitar playing... Link Wray piercing his speaker cones to make distortion, Jimi Hendrix pioneering 'fake' distortion boxes, Glenn Branca, Sonic Youth et al completely rejecting typical guitar playing (with respect to tuning, effects chains, textures, even the approach to physically playing the instrument [drills, baseball bats, drum sticks...]). With real musicianship, the choice of equipment doesn't matter at all anymore, it's the ideas that count.

So no, there isn't any 'fun' inherent in having a ****ty hacked-together amp, but there isn't any fun inherent in having a great amp either. The fun is in playing the damn thing. We all forget that too much.

Going Forward

rcaz wrote: »

Nothing about 'having' any kind of 'product' is fun. That's just owning something. What happened to having creativity and inventiveness as the focus of being a musician? If you derive fun from having the 'best' available amplifier, then great, but you're being a consumer more than you're being a musician.

Tinkering with things and building yokes is fun, it's creative, it's cheap, it's original and it leads to an individual sound... Anyone can buy a 'good' amplifier with minimal effort, it takes a bit of thought and some creativity to hack together some workaround to figure out a way of getting your **** loud without just buying an amp off the shelf.

Think of the musicians who really made a difference to contemporary guitar playing... Link Wray piercing his speaker cones to make distortion, Jimi Hendrix pioneering 'fake' distortion boxes, Glenn Branca, Sonic Youth et al completely rejecting typical guitar playing (with respect to tuning, effects chains, textures, even the approach to physically playing the instrument [drills, baseball bats, drum sticks...]). With real musicianship, the choice of equipment doesn't matter at all anymore, it's the ideas that count.

So no, there isn't any 'fun' inherent in having a ****ty hacked-together amp, but there isn't any fun inherent in having a great amp either. The fun is in playing the damn thing. We all forget that too much.

Well said, we sometimes do forget that true artists can still make a crap guitar sound great.

The point of the thread is to show that you don't need expensive branded gear to have some fun!

Ravelleman

That's something I don't deny!