ampage Tube Amps / Music Electronics	For current discussions, please visit Music Electronics Forum.

ampage archive

Vintage threads from the first ten years

how did you guys learn electronics?

:

10/12/2004 11:22 PM
nathan hiltz	how did you guys learn electronics? Im just wondering how all you pro amp guys (Bruce, Chris, Carl etc...) came to have all the knowledge you have about electronics. You werent born amp gurus were you? THanks!

10/13/2004 2:33 AM

Nathan, I grew up in the country. The nearest girl was 2 miles away and she was kinda bitchy. So I wound up spending hours in the basement tearing apart old radios and tvs given to me by relatives. Since the gear was free it was a cheap education - nothing lost if I blew it up! My parents kept fuses on the grocery list, though.

I did visit the girl once in a while but not that often, for reasons already said!

10/13/2004 3:36 AM

In the later 70's, when the economy was going bad, and making a career at music was difficult, I went back to school to get an electronics degree.

Later, I got a job as an electronic designer. At that job, there was a six month period where there was no work. So I surfed the internet for EVERYTHING I could find on tube amps. From there I taught myself.

BTW, How long has this site been around?

Pete

10/13/2004 6:01 PM

I'm no amp guru. Several people here do this for a living, but it's just a hobby for me. I learned electronic basics from a book I guess. What a resistor, capacitor, and inductor do, what a transformer does, ohms law etc. When I got into tube amps I got Kevin O'Connor's books, asked lots of questions here, bugged my grandpa for tubes and answers and read all the old tube articles I could find on the web like Norman Crowhurst.

Then I do a lot of experimenting. I've got a lot of trimmers and switch boxes, a prototyping amp that's just for experimenting with rows of copper posts to tack components across without much board material or mechanical connections slowing me down. I have access to good test equipment at work but the spectrum analyzer doesn't do most of the audio band (RF design place) so I set up an old computer as a scope and spectrum analyzer in my shop. It works okay.

After I knew the basics I read more technical books, got what I could from the hifi guys like TubeCad journal, AudioAsylum, Steve bench's pages, DIY audio sites where people are building recording gear etc.

I'd say once you have the basics down experimenting is the most important thing. You get facts that way, not opinions. You get a lot of questions you would have never noticed before too.

-Carl

10/13/2004 9:16 PM

Chris @ CMW amps

Hi Nathan

Not a guru but just a mix of passion, energy and some knowledge*

( ! *: just kidding! )

Before joining electronics-classes and getting my 1st TubeAmpBook I did get an old French 6V6 pp-amp from my late grandfather after getting my 1st electric guitar. Did get my some basic ( but dutch

) elcetronics-books to learn about parts and measuring and did start building my 1st guitaramp.

Did do some courses and did work as computer-tech and a couple of other elctrics-related jobs. Did also do some commercial and communication related jobs ( hey, it's not only tubes and amps, ha ha ) before starting my own company...

Ampage and a visit to Trace from VoodooAmps did make me start doing the thing I love full-time... amps!

Guitar-amps is all about tone ( altough it does make the small guitar-signal "bigger" it's the most important sound-creator in the chain imho ) and I think the most fun/time is tweaking and listening.

I still do learn new things/tricks/knowledge every day. In a few words: Ohms- and Kirchoff-laws are the basics for about all electronics, then the basic tube-circuits ( datasheets and all old Fenders/Voxes/Ampegs/Gibsons/Marshalls/Hiwatts ) and your ears!

Hope this wasn't too vague,

Chris

10/13/2004 9:22 PM

quote:
"Im just wondering how all you pro amp guys (Bruce, Chris, Carl etc...) came to have all the knowledge you have about electronics. You werent born amp gurus were you? THanks!"

It's 'cause there's a secret engineer/math gene...(alas, I didn't come with one, lol)

10/13/2004 9:23 PM
Chris @ CMW amps	ha ha ha ha LOL Have a good day Dai !!! Chris

Page 1 of 2