I love this idea. I’ve often thought of cramming my favorite preamp pedals into the spacious cavity under the pickguard, but now seeing the UA inside seems awesome.
maybe furthermore next?
maybe furthermore next?
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Geeze, not another one of these things...
- Thread starter Sushi Box FX
- Start date
Sloppy design and shoddy refinish not withstanding, that thing at least looks super cool. Ditto the idea of a tube pre IN the bass!!!
Stoked to see how this guy turns out!
Good luck convincing one of the light crew to keep a follow spot on the bass.Solar panels on the face of the body and if it's an indoor show, the follow spot is on the bass and reeeeeally bright.
I would love to see that tube through some sort of a transparent pickguard
Fascinating stuff! I have to ask, how much heat does the tube put out? Ive only ever owned one tube amp, and i seem to recall them getting really hot. Hot enough to slow!y cook the wood?
Roasted woods are certainly "in" these days...
Ya gotta re-do that battery cover! If the scraps I have are big enough, I would donate some Limba to you!
Power tubes certainly would, but preamp tubes don't put out much heat. I could probably even get away without putting vent slots in the pickguard, but I want to be able to see the tube
I wouldn't say no to that
It would need to be at least 4.5" x 6" and around 1/8" thick. I still have extra stain and clearcoat left over if I were to come across a good looking scrap.Have you thought about running power to it though a special type of cable, maybe use the 3rd conductor in a TRS cable? Have a break-out near your amp to connect the power. I guess there's a chance you'll pick up noise in your audio signal, but a signal out of preamp should be less susceptible to noise.
Just an idea for getting rid of the battery.
Just an idea for getting rid of the battery.
Are you sure, you will need an hazmat suit to play this thing when completed...I volunteer to be a beta tester
I absolutely have, but my opinion is that at that point, why bother with an onboard preamp? I could put the whole preamp on the floor and use a nice shielded cable and get the same results. I like the idea of an all-in-one setup in case, for example, I want to use a wireless system, which I frequently do on the admittedly rare occasions I play live. All things considered, 6+ hours feels like a pretty good amount of charge and I'm happy with it, and I don't want to force the player (even if it's just me because I'm never planning to build these commercially) to be tethered to a proprietary box.
I am very familiar with lipo batts as my other hobby is flying tiny little helicopters.
The packs are very convenient and easy to swap out. When I go “flying” it isn’t uncommon to bring 10-15 of them as you only get a single 5-8 minute flight out of each.
Bringing two or three to a show wouldn’t be any less convenient than switching a cable.
Note, it’s never happened to me personally, but these batteries do have a reputation for instability self-igniting and then burning like a road flare… so be careful.
Question for Sushi-Box, why aren’t you winding some custom pickups to go with this build???
Seems like you could take advantage of the close proximity of the preamp and match some very low impedance pu’s.
The packs are very convenient and easy to swap out. When I go “flying” it isn’t uncommon to bring 10-15 of them as you only get a single 5-8 minute flight out of each.
Bringing two or three to a show wouldn’t be any less convenient than switching a cable.
Note, it’s never happened to me personally, but these batteries do have a reputation for instability self-igniting and then burning like a road flare… so be careful.
Question for Sushi-Box, why aren’t you winding some custom pickups to go with this build???
Seems like you could take advantage of the close proximity of the preamp and match some very low impedance pu’s.
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Well, you'll still have the cool on-board preamp shining through the pickguard. Just changes the location of the power source. But anyway, cool project - I plan to see stick around see how it turns out!
wintremute
mediocrity at its finest
- Oct 16, 2014
- 6,942
- 29,551
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- Endorsing Artist: Langstrom Carrot Farms
Why do I have a feeling that certain NAMM conversations influenced this desire to revisit and update this project?
D
It looks very cool and I'm very positively surprised to see it's not just some kind of starved plate "toob" distortion generator but the battery is the dealbreaker for me unfortunately. I hardly find the time to even charge my PHONE when I'm on tour so another thing that needs charging (and can't be plugged into a wall outlet in a pinch...) is a no go for me. The potential stress of suddenly realizing the battery is flat 30 seconds before showtime is another one. I guess it should work for a more organized person than myself though (or if I was a huge rock star with "people" to take care of charging).
I guess it's not for me but I bet it will SOUND great and I love reading about stuff like this so thanks for doing it anyway!
I guess it's not for me but I bet it will SOUND great and I love reading about stuff like this so thanks for doing it anyway!
This is so much awesome! I have been lurking on your threads in the past, and absolutely love your work!
The real reason I own three of these batteries instead of just one
with the magnetic cover, a battery swap takes me 10-15 seconds, and a spare battery costs $16.
Are you going to include the slots in the pickguard to show the tube glow like on the other build?
Of course I was planning to cut the pickguard out last night, but my body convinced me to go to bed early. Hoping to get to it tonight.
