Wolfe Amplification Stinger- Gimmie Ideas

[Wolfeman]

So I'm working on the schematic for my low wattage amp, the Stinger.

So far the power section is done. One single ended 6L6 for a chest pumping 10 watts lol. But you can use what ever you would like in it's place. I'm thinking with a KT-88 in it, it would be pushing a few more watts. I had a great idea to have it cathode biased and fixed bias, so you can switch between the two. Cathode bias would give you a loose feel with less attack(rock, blues, etc) and fixed bias would give you a tight response, like we are all used too with our amps for metal. Unfortunatly I'm going to ditch that idea, since most would strictly use fixed bias, and I wouldn't be able to implement my standby arrangement for silent recording, since if you would cut the cathode to ground while in cathode bias, it would cause a major issue that would be catastrophic. So fixed bias it is. Adjustable though, so you can use those different tubes.

It will have an FX loop. Flip it on standby and the FX send can be used as a direct to interface recording setup.

Here's where I'm running into issues. What to do for the preamp? My first idea was to use my 'hot rod' XTC layout, since it sounds so good on my Hellfire. But now I'm thinking something different might be nice. Any one like channel 3 on the 5150 III? It's pretty much just a pushed SLO circuit, and not much different from a 5150 II or 5150 or Recto.

So I'm all ears, what would you guys like in a 10 watt small amp? Hot-rodded Marshall or modern type preamp?

Also I'm limited as to what I can have for controls, since each pot adds one inch to the length of the amp. Right now it will have gain, bass, treb, mid, volume, and add in the input jack and standby/power switch, I'm up to 14 inches long. That's already pretty big for a 10 watt amp. I'm thinking about putting a depth and presence control on the back panel, since I really like having those controls. I'd love to have a mid sweep, but I dunno, 15 inches for a 10 watt amp might be a bit ridiculous. Any suggestions?

 

[ahjteam]

this

 

[Wolfeman]

Won't need it with this 10 watter

 

[ahjteam]

how about built-in but bypassable tubescreamer type thing like on the kerry king signature amp? should be just one small dipswitch on the userpanel. And if nothing else, atleast the filtering to tighten up the low end, which should be only like a few caps and resistors that increase the manufacturing costs maybe 30 cents if bought in bulks. the switch might be a bit more expensive, so make it a dollar for the whole thing.

 

[Wolfeman]

Not going to work for this small amp unfortunately. Space requirements have me limited on what I can add extra, and implementing a TS type circuit would almost certainly require me to go PCB. Believe me, I've already toyed with the idea, but that will be down the road when I have the income available to do PCB runs.

 

[Jarkko Mattheiszen]

Here are some things I would personally look for in a high-gain, 10-watt recording amp:

1) Less is more. I'd like an amp that does one thing, and does it pretty damn well. Dual Rectifier knob madness doesn't belong in small amps, IMHO. One channel and gain, bass, mid, treble, presence and master volume controls and I'm happy.
2) Ease of use. Simple, pure tube tone goodness. Also, please don't place any of the controls on the rear panel. Slightly larger dimensions wouldn't bother me at all, but having to reach to the back plate to adjust the presence control would bug the fuck out of me.
3) Silent recording. It's a great feature, don't drop it along the way!
4) Reasonable price. If I'm gonna spend $2500 on a tube amp to record some nasty metal tones, I might just as well get a Dual Recto. Or a used Dual Recto and a used 5150. They have multiple uses, they sound awesome and everyone know them. Maybe I'm just not enough of a gear nerd (who am I kidding, I'm a horrible gear wanker ), but I can't justify spending all that much on a 10-watt boutique amp. TBH I think those are more for the hobbyist jazz wankers who make enough money to support their wives and two and a half kids AND spend ridiculous cash on hobby equipment

 

[sprack]

V1 in parallel, but split the cathode and the bypass and bias one cold/one hot?

 

[El_Gato]

Optional input a built-in reamp box. Turn yourself rich for $50 more each.

 

[MarcusGHedwig]

Modern pre, front presence knob, no sweep, and a master 400 Hz cut pot (instead of depth) are my votes! Oh, and of course, a footswitchable FX loop

 

[Wolfeman]

Here are some things I would personally look for in a high-gain, 10-watt recording amp:

1) Less is more. I'd like an amp that does one thing, and does it pretty damn well. Dual Rectifier knob madness doesn't belong in small amps, IMHO. One channel and gain, bass, mid, treble, presence and master volume controls and I'm happy.
2) Ease of use. Simple, pure tube tone goodness. Also, please don't place any of the controls on the rear panel. Slightly larger dimensions wouldn't bother me at all, but having to reach to the back plate to adjust the presence control would bug the fuck out of me.
3) Silent recording. It's a great feature, don't drop it along the way!
4) Reasonable price. If I'm gonna spend $2500 on a tube amp to record some nasty metal tones, I might just as well get a Dual Recto. Or a used Dual Recto and a used 5150. They have multiple uses, they sound awesome and everyone know them. Maybe I'm just not enough of a gear nerd (who am I kidding, I'm a horrible gear wanker ), but I can't justify spending all that much on a 10-watt boutique amp. TBH I think those are more for the hobbyist jazz wankers who make enough money to support their wives and two and a half kids AND spend ridiculous cash on hobby equipment

I hear you on all accounts. I was going to have a clean channel, but I decided it's not the point of this amp. Just a high gain recording amp. I may just add a switch to drop some gain for more of a crunch, but it's definitely going to be a one channel amp.

I agree on the knobs on the back. I'm thinking of using the normal Alpha brand pots on this build, since they are smaller, and use smaller knobs than what I use on the Hellfire. this can save me a few more inches to keep the power amp controls on the front.

So far I've sourced ~ $850 in parts. Gotta understand how much all this stuff costs- $230 for the transformers and choke, $25 for the board material, $60 for turrets, $50 for the complete FX loop, $60 in tubes, $20 in pots, $20 in knobs, $60 for the front and rear face plate, $20 for the name plate, $30 for the chassis, $30 in jacks and switches, $25 in sockets, another $100 for all the resistors/diodes/caps/wire, about $100 for the wood/components/tolex for the headshell... Don't forget shipping for all these parts, a lot come from different places, and then wearable things like drill bits, table saw blades, circular saw plades, router bits, etc etc. So I don't know how cheap I can sell this one for. This is why hand built amps cost more, you get what you pay for. Looking like it would take me about 2 weeks to build one.

So I dunno, 2 weeks of my time, almost $900 in parts/shipping....

You guys be the judge. $1300 would only make me $400 for 2 weeks of a lot of work. Pretty shitty for me, but it would make it much cheaper than most boutique 10 watt amps, most of which only have 2 knobs

 

[Wolfeman]

Optional input a built-in reamp box. Turn yourself rich for $50 more each.

Great idea, but now you've got a reamp box stuck in the amp that can only be used for that amp. I'd rather build my own Reamp box and sell them as a separate product

 

[Wolfeman]

Modern pre, front presence knob, no sweep, and a master 400 Hz cut pot (instead of depth) are my votes! Oh, and of course, a footswitchable FX loop

Nah no footswitching! Too much extra parts for an amp that isn't designed to be gigged.

 

[Trevoire520]

Personally I'd say something high gain styled rather than a modded marshall type thing.

Sweepable mid isn't really necessary if the eq controls work well together imo.

Big focus should be on an amp that records easily 5150 style, though not necessarily something that sounds like a 5150 (mind you, a cheap 5150 would likely get alot of interest from the European/UK forum goers)

 

[Wolfeman]

Personally I'd say something high gain styled rather than a modded marshall type thing.

Sweepable mid isn't really necessary if the eq controls work well together imo.

Big focus should be on an amp that records easily 5150 style, though not necessarily something that sounds like a 5150 (mind you, a cheap 5150 would likely get alot of interest from the European/UK forum goers)

Yeah I'm thinking SLO/5150 with a little bit of my own voicing changes.

Although a modded XTC type amp does sound very modern, just different from what we call 'modern'.

 

[Wolfeman]

Ha I just thought of a great idea.

The amp will be available in 2 version- The Stinger (modern type preamp) and The Javelin (increased gain marshall type preamp).

Yippie. More options is always good for customers.

 

[El_Gato]

Great idea, but now you've got a reamp box stuck in the amp that can only be used for that amp. I'd rather build my own Reamp box and sell them as a separate product

Thanks. It would be optional (Stinger and Stinger Re/Amp -edit: well 3 of them-) for hobbyists who reamp in apartments. It seems they're more and more and they don't spend k's in different amps.

 

[Jarkko Mattheiszen]

So far I've sourced ~ $850 in parts. Gotta understand how much all this stuff costs- $230 for the transformers and choke, $25 for the board material, $60 for turrets, $50 for the complete FX loop, $60 in tubes, $20 in pots, $20 in knobs, $60 for the front and rear face plate, $20 for the name plate, $30 for the chassis, $30 in jacks and switches, $25 in sockets, another $100 for all the resistors/diodes/caps/wire, about $100 for the wood/components/tolex for the headshell... Don't forget shipping for all these parts, a lot come from different places, and then wearable things like drill bits, table saw blades, circular saw plades, router bits, etc etc. So I don't know how cheap I can sell this one for. This is why hand built amps cost more, you get what you pay for. Looking like it would take me about 2 weeks to build one.

So I dunno, 2 weeks of my time, almost $900 in parts/shipping....

You guys be the judge. $1300 would only make me $400 for 2 weeks of a lot of work. Pretty shitty for me, but it would make it much cheaper than most boutique 10 watt amps, most of which only have 2 knobs

I understand completely, and I definitely don't think it's a good idea to underprice your work, but I think it could be a bit hard to find enough of a market for the amp unless the price is one of it's strong points instead of a factor that rules most of the semi-pro and even pro AE's out as potential customers.

Did you count the amount of work so that one amp takes 2 weeks worth of full 8-hour days or is it possible to fit in the building of several identical amps at the same time, which in my experience is always faster than doing just one a time (though my experience is only valid with other DIY stuff, not guitar amps)? If you could work on, say, two amps at once and finish them in three weeks, the profit would be already a lot more realistic if you charged something like $1400 for an amp.

I guess the biggest challenge in this (after actually coming up with a good product, of course) is to find the market and then find the workflow that allows you to get properly compensated for your work.

 

[Wolfeman]

I understand completely, and I definitely don't think it's a good idea to underprice your work, but I think it could be a bit hard to find enough of a market for the amp unless the price is one of it's strong points instead of a factor that rules most of the semi-pro and even pro AE's out as potential customers.

Did you count the amount of work so that one amp takes 2 weeks worth of full 8-hour days or is it possible to fit in the building of several identical amps at the same time, which in my experience is always faster than doing just one a time (though my experience is only valid with other DIY stuff, not guitar amps)? If you could work on, say, two amps at once and finish them in three weeks, the profit would be already a lot more realistic if you charged something like $1400 for an amp.

I guess the biggest challenge in this (after actually coming up with a good product, of course) is to find the market and then find the workflow that allows you to get properly compensated for your work.

Oh yeah I'd be able to do about 3 at a time in the 2 week period.

That's the thing about making amps designed for metal. Most metal players just figure they can buy a 5150 or Krank or recto and be done with it. Which is perfectly fine. They really have no interest in hand built boutique and the benefits that come with it. Rock and blue players on the other hand are always looking for something hand built and different, and paying boutique prices usually doesn't bother them.

So I'm kinda in a tough market here. Will my amp sound better than a Krank rev Jr for doing metal? Probably. But would someone want to spend $700 more for my amp that sounds better when they can go get the Krank for $700? Probably not.

Meh. We will see what happens.

 

[Jarkko Mattheiszen]

That's the thing about making amps designed for metal. Most metal players just figure they can buy a 5150 or Krank or recto and be done with it. Which is perfectly fine. They really have no interest in hand built boutique and the benefits that come with it. Rock and blue players on the other hand are always looking for something hand built and different, and paying boutique prices usually doesn't bother them.

Yeah, that's a kind of a catch 22. Then again, lots and lots of metal guitarists and AE's paying big money for the Axe FX, so I guess it's just a matter of making a good name for your product

 

[Sloan]

I think it would be good to keep the low watt similar to the high wattage, to establish your brand's 'tone'. For example we know what Mesa, Peavey, Marshall, etc sound like. Wolfe needs to establish it's own recognizable 'sound'. I feel a lot of amp makers fail to do this by cloning the shit out of things and trying to be all over the place with sounds. It just doesn't make sense when your trying to build your brand - start with one thing that you do better than anyone else, then introduce other things later when you've got recognition.

Also, don't put a shit ton of controls on this 'small' amp. I think it might make more business sense to make a spacious chassis, have maybe one tone control that goes 'dark-bright' and leave room for people to mod it. Sell it cheap and get it known as one of those small amps that you can mod the fuck out of. People are crazy about that shit right now.

Controls:
Gain, Tone, Master

Experiment with the tone stack to maximize range for that one tone control. Personally, if i can't get a useable sound from an amp with everything at 12:00, then i plug into a different amp.

FX loop/line out is a great idea that is lacking in most low-watt amps i've seen. DO IT.

10w is plenty loud for most anything at home, and allows you to get power tube saturation quickly, so there doesn't need to be a lot of junk in the circuit.