electronics

My growing musical interest revived another part of my life that had been slumbering a number of years, electronics. Earlier in my life, I was interested in amateur radio and built some things with tubes. What a coincidence, tubes are the holy grail of guitar sound!

software

Software can be very useful in this area. After some evaluation I found b2spice to be an excellent simulation software for circuits. It is interesting and rewarding to build, measure and at the same time simulate circuits. Your learn a lot. You can simulate a circuit and theoretically measure frequency characteristics and more. I also use TinyCad for drawing schematics. Dssf3 from YMEC software is a killer app which turns your laptop into an oscilloscope. You can measure harmonic distorision and do spectral analysis.

recent projects

In one of my projects I wanted to measure and listen to the difference between preamplifier distortion and powertube distortion, so I built a 5 W, two-tube amplifier with variable plate voltage. I used a MOSFET to control the voltage to the power tube (6L6). I monitored the wave on oscilloscope and listened closely. And yes, there was a visible and an audible difference. The power tube distortion both looks and sounds smoother than preamp distortion. At least when you are a bass player, if you want distortion, power tube distortion sounds better. You do not loose your low end that much.

science and hype

There is a lot of opinions and even hype, concerning tube versus transistor, types of cables, etc. Being curious by nature I have set out to learn more about the and electronics and accoustics part of sound. I would like to combine the quest for a killer tone with a little bit of science.

tips

I buy my components from Elfa (they have everything, but are expensive), Tube Town (everything related to tube amps), Benkler Electronic (cabinets, trafos), Lundahl Transformers (trafos, especially for tubes).

If you know swedish, you can have a look at gmf (”tipsplanket”). They have a great forum where they discuss things related to tube amps.

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