No really, I have always wanted to build a guitar amp, from scratch, it's actually the reason I went and studied Electronics at university all those years ago (last century, if you really must know, albeit right at the tail end of it). Dissapointingly at the time they'd stopped teaching anything regarding vacuum tubes, so it was pretty dissapointing in that respect.
The I did my dissertation on vacuum tube modelling using orthogonal polynomials so as to get fast converging equations for use in modelling. The interest has always been there, but I've failed to do anything about for many many years.
But I have always wanted to, and have meant well, collecting a raft of textbooks on vacuum tube amplifiers circuits and design along the way, with the intention of one day knuckling down and getting on with it, actually just building one.
Along the way I've fixed or modded the odd amp here and there, starting with bias modding my Peavey 5150, then doing a few friends and going from fixing bad solder joints, to recently fixing up a JCM800 that had a fair few cooked components inside it. It was this last little foray that kind of set me off on this journey. I loved it, even though I had to ask a lot of questions, finally getting that amp to turn on and make sound felt like an awesome accomplishment. A new interest bloomed, a new addiction born.
So, back to the present day, and I find myself slowly collecting the parts to build my first amp from scratch. I could have gone for an amplifier kit, and tested the waters, but it felt pointless building an amp I wouldn't want to play, that'd gather dust after a few hours of glee playing through something just because I'd built it.
Hence deciding I wanted to build one of the amps I've never ever played, but always wanted to. And hence the quest to build a clone of the legendary Soldano 100w Super Lead Overdrive.
This blog I'll post updates as I go through this process, and some background posts as well as to the little things I've started with, where I got the parts from, challenges I end up facing, as well as both triumphs and mistakes made. Hopefully at the end of it, there'll be some soundclips and videos of it working and getting played through, and then probably posts on modding it.
Anyway, hope anyone reading this enjoys the ride, and I hope it ends up as both something to inspire other people to build an amp, as well as serve as a historical reference for myself
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