# Bdale's First Tube Guitar Amplifier #

Once I started working on my [first guitar](../bdale-1), I started to think
about what I wanted as an amp to plug it in to.  Of course, my son already
has a couple amplifiers he's happy to let me use:

* Silvertone "Smart II S" that came with his beginner's guitar kit
* Fender "[Mustang III](http://www.fender.com/search?q=mustang%20iii)
  that some friends bought him after 
  [the fire](http://gag.com/blackforestfire.html)

Both of these are fine amps, particularly for just starting out.  The 
Silvertone is very small, with simple controls.  The Fender is far more
complicated because it's a "modeling amp", which means it has DSP innards 
that allow it to "fake" a bunch of different amplifier tone profiles.  But 
both are solid-state amps...  and Robert and I both felt that adding a real
tube amplifer to the mix would be great fun!

After a lot of reading and listening to various video clips and audio files,
I started to narrow in on building a clone of the Fender "Tweed Deluxe", which
was an early very simple amplifier with two 12AX7 tubes for the preamp and
tone stack, and a pair of 6V6 power tubes in push-pull configuration for
about 12-15 watts output into a single 12" driver in a combo cabinet.  The
schematics for this amplifier are on the web, and all the parts are widely 
available at modest cost.  A good page describing more about this amp is
available on [fenderguru.com](http://fenderguru.com/amps/deluxe-5e3).  And
in my searching, the 
[full kit from Tube Depot](https://tubedepot.com/products/tweed-5e3-vacuum-tube-amp-kit)
seems like a great starting point.

Then I stumbled over a reference to the book "Guitar Amplifer Handbook" by
Dave Hunter.  For me, at least, it did a great job of explaining how
tube amps work and what makes the different vintage tube amp designs 
interesting.  The conclusion of the first part of the book is a chapter 
showing the design and construction of a simple but versatile amp called 
the "Two Stroke" that instantly appealed to me.

The things that appeal to me about this amplifier are:

* It's a very simple design with lots of potential for experimentation
* It can use any of several final output tubes down to about 4W, which
  means it should be possible to get good tones at volume levels low
  enough to be compatible with our basement rec room for practice, yet
  with a single tube swap be able to make enough power for gigging in 
  a larger venue.
* The tones I heard on demo videos with a strat clone into it direct with no 
  pedals are pretty cool, and please my ear.
* The somewhat novel combination of one each inexpensive ceramic magnet
  10" and 8" drivers seem to yield a lot of flexibility at very low cost.
* The kit price for everything except a cabinet is reasonable, and using the
  custom build of a cabinet as an excuse to go buy more woodworking tools
  appeals to me...

Robert points out that he thinks the lack of reverb, in fact the lack even of
an effects send/return circuit means he thinks we'll want a reverb pedal to
put in front of it pretty soon.  But to be honest, the tones available out of
the box sound good, so I'm not sure how big a deal that will be to me.  I've
also found many opinions posted in forums about the 5e3 and similar vintage
simple tube amp designs suggesting they really aren't the right amps to put
lots of effects in front of... might be better to think in terms of something
like a blackface amp clone with internal spring reverb for a follow-on project?

If Robert is right, the
[Reverb 2](http://buildyourownclone.com/products/reverb2) 
looks like it could be a completely plausible addition to the mix at some
point.

## References ##

A very cool "do it all from scratch" build is [
doumented here](http://twostrokeamplifierbuild.blogspot.com/)

## Progress ##

Not sure exactly when I'll start this project .. stay tuned!