you plug it in, and nothing…

I’ve been working on a small tube amplifier for my upcoming world tour, something that would give me vintage tone at a manageable volume level.  The project has been a great learning experience.  My buddy Doug has been tremendously helpful, teaching me the fine art of soldering tiny electronic parts together.  My goal is to build something that resembles a 1957 Fender Champ, a little sonic beauty that drips tone.

I ordered all the parts, spent several evenings tinkering in the garage/bedroom (to be), and ran into a few difficulties.  Some of the parts didn’t match what I thought I ordered, and some of the parts were just plain wrong.  After a call to the good people at TubeDepot, I finally got what I thought was the last of the missing pieces.  I wired them into place this afternoon, ran a few tests, then had to set things aside to go eat supper with the fam.  It was all I could do to keep from running back down to the garage!

I slipped the tubes into place, plugged the little beast in to the juice, and noticed that I wasn’t hearing the “tube amp hum” that I was led to expect.  I thought, “Man, I must be a tremendous fabricator of tube ampage.  There’s no hum!”

Turns out that there’s no hum because something is amiss in the guts of the amp.  Talk about disappointment.

Lots of anticipation, lots of build-up to the reveal, lots of expectation.  Sometimes all the hype leads to frustration and disappointment.

So I unplugged the newly finished (but obviously not really finished) amp and grabbed another tube amp that I knew would work.  Plugged her in, fired her up…nothing.  It turns out that I have troubles on more than one front.  Not only does the amplifier not work, there’s something whacky with the speaker as well.

I’ll have to get some help in diagnosing the problems, as I am out of my league.

But I guess that’s how it goes, isn’t it?  When you reach the end of your expertise, when all your efforts leave you short of the goal, it’s a good idea to get some help.  That applies to every area of life–spiritual growth, financial planning, parenting, schoolwork, hitting the curveball, losing the weight…

Anybody know anything about tube amps?  I’m looking for a teacher.  I can’t pay you much, but Lilly makes some awesome peanut butter cookies.