The Benefits of Learning How Things Work

My Journey Into the World of Hand Made Guitar Amplifiers

About ten years ago, I became obsessed with handwired guitar amplifiers.  Amplifiers made the way they were made in the 1950’s and 1960’s by Fender, Marshall, Gibson, Vox, Magnatone, and every other amplifier manufacturer.  Printed circuit boards (PCB’s), the green plastic sheets covered with copper traces like you’d see inside of a PC, weren’t yet used in musical amplifiers.  At least not as far as I’m aware, and they certainly weren’t the norm if they were.  And the hand built creations sounded extremely good.  They responded to a player’s touch and were very expressive.  They didn’t require a lot of bells and whistles to create a multitude of different tones.  And they were part of the sonic landscape of every classic old recording.

In recent years a number of companies have begun to make amplifiers by hand as well, soldering components to one another directly or via a length of quality wire.  But most amplifiers at a typical big box guitar store are made on PCB’s because they’re cheaper to make that way via automation.  The process is similar to any other mass-produced electronic gizmo.  But to my ears the PCB amps I learned to play electric guitar on never sounded quite right.  And they’re less durable as well.  Some people swear they’re good amps, and I’m not saying they’re bad, but the Stevie Ray Vaughan setting from the manual of my Fender Hot Rod Deville didn’t sound anything like Stevie Ray Vaughan to me.  Of course, I couldn’t play like Stevie Ray Vaughan and I wasn’t playing a top of the line Stratocaster at that time either.  But even so, the amplifier sounded uninspiring.

So I decided I wanted a hand wired amp like an old Marshall or Fender that I heard Jimi Hendrix and Mark Knopfler playing.  Thing is, I wasn’t making much money at the time and anything hand made or vintage was out of my price range.  It costs a manufacturer a lot more to pay an amp builder to wire a circuit from scratch.  Given my monetary constraints and adventurous nature, I decided I was going to figure out how to make a hand wired amplifier for myself.

Fortunately for me, I knew an engineer friend of a friend who made vacuum tube hifi amplifier creations that he designed, and he made them in the hand-made fashion I was interested in learning.  He agreed to help me gut my old PCB amp that had stopped working and rewire it with higher quality parts from a kit, salvaging the cabinet, chassis, speakers and transformers from the old amp.  The circuit design of the upgrade kit was loosely based on a 50’s era tweed Fender Bassman with a few tweaks from a Marshall JTM45 circuit.

We spent a couple of long Saturday afternoons tinkering, and he made me do the soldering work myself while overseeing the process and answering my questions.  I enjoyed watching the solder melt and flow as the parts were connected to one another.

After finishing up the last solder joint, my friend did a few safety checks I now know how to do myself, and we plugged a guitar into this one-of-a-kind Frankenstein amp.  It sounded incredible, and I was both amazed and completely and totally satisfied to hear such wonderful guitar tone flowing through all those electrical connections I’d soldered.  Suddenly my playing sounded a lot more like the electric guitars I’d heard on records my whole life.  Not that I sounded like SRV but my sound was really good and the amp responded to my playing.  It was a huge revelation and was also a boost to my playing ability because not only did the amp stop clouding my better playing, but it no longer hid my mistakes to the same degree.  Greater clarity and articulation works both ways.  But mostly, when an amp can make  player sound good, a player will dig deeper to find the tone in their fingers.  Anyhow, I was hooked and knew I wanted to build more amplifiers of various styles as soon as possible.

I ended up building myself a few hand wired amps from scratch that were based on classic circuit designs of yesteryear, and since I was providing the labor myself I could afford to invest in some premium parts and still not spend that much.  I’ve sold some of those amplifiers to friends, but still own and play some of them regularly.

I also started a side business restoring and modding vintage amps for a handful of clients who had the time and money to collect them.  They were often found in pawn shops or at garage sales out of working order.  So I learned how to troubleshoot various issues amplifiers develop, and found that fixing a broken amp taught me even more about how they work than building one new.  I also read many books on how vintage tube amps work, such as Dave Hunter’s Tube Amp Handbook.  Before long I was able to explain what every part in an amplifier does.

And Now, The Point of The Story

And that brings me to the reason for telling this story.  That reason is that learning how amplifiers work was a very helpful step in my development as a man.  And here is why.  In this world, many people live in a world of disconnect, oblivious to reality and full of contradiction.  All one has to do is watch Antifa protesters try to battle perceived fascism with their own fascism and it becomes pretty clear that people are perfectly capable of believing two things that don’t go together at all.  But when dealing with an electronic circuit, one is subject to the constraints of objective reality.  An amplifier won’t work just because someone “feels like it should”.  It has to be assembled properly.  And if not respected while performing maintenance an open, live amplifier circuit will kill a person indiscriminately, regardless of gender, race, religion, sexual preference, or political affiliation.  400 volts is 400 volts, and that will never change no matter how emotional someone gets about it.

So the beauty of learning amplifier circuits is that the pursuit further grounded me in objective reality.  There is some gray area in the realm of circuit design and deciding what parts sound best together.  Hence a Marshall amplifier sounds different than a Fender amplifier.  But if a design doesn’t function within the limits of physics, the amplifier will melt down, blow up, or not even start.  The realities of the physical world can’t be denied or wished away.

My dad’s best friend was a bit of an old curmudgeon who was a master woodworker and who could explain how just about anything works.  He had a very logical and patient approach to the world.  This is something I’ve always appreciated about people who work in skilled trades.  There is a measured patience to them, and they accept reality with a simple nod.  Things just are what they are and no sense in getting too excited or upset about it.

And taking on a bit of that objective way of looking at things has further developed and changed the ways I see many things, from politics, to culture, to human nature and biology.  When dealing in objective reality, it’s easier to remain sane when things feel insane.  And navigating interpersonal dynamics, dealing with corporate office scheming, or crafting political arguments is much easier when you can see the real truth behind things.  It leads to better success and outcomes, and results in less frustration.  It helps temper the ego that often feeds on emotion and that is subject to being led astray by lies and conditioning that sound nice.

So to wrap this up, I’d definitely suggest any person make a point of learning how something works.  It can be something mechanical, something electronic, or even something like computer coding languages.  It’s very rewarding, it develops the mind, and it’s possible to learn to make things that can be used for personal enjoyment.  The knowledge might even turn into a marketable skill.  One can simply pick something, or look to their passions for possibilities.  For all of the guitar players out there, consider building an amplifier.  There are a lot of kits available online that guide a new builder step by step.  Your tone will sound great and you’ll look forward to playing even more than you would otherwise when you know you built one of the instruments you’re playing.