#preamp

Weed BePee

It's been a while since we had a Spaceman Effects pedal in the shop, but I'm excited to bring you all their new Atlas IV: Preamp Booster!! This one will find a spot on ANY pedalboard instantly - check out our demo and review!!

Recently my son has gotten more interested in music. A month or two ago, I helped him research and buy a small headphone amplifier for his desktop PC setup.

However, in addition to the amp, he wanted a vacuum tube preamp since he's seen the one I have for my PC (you can see part of it in the last pic) and wanted a similar configuration. :)

So I set about gathering some parts I had on hand to put one together for him. He selected the wood for the case from my stash, and the white aesthetic to match the rest of his PC setup. I used 2 6C4 tubes because I had them and they seemed like a fun choice for this.

Most of the work came in constructing the enclosure. I used my chop saw to cut pieces to length, then resawed them on my bandsaw so they were thinner. I then glued up the wooden box with some support blocks to increase the strength and give me somewhere to mount the metal plate that will hold the parts.

I'd recently scored a bunch of aluminum and steel sheet, so I used one of the aluminum plates to mount all the parts. The thicker plate was really nice to work and drill and allowed me to chamfor the holes so the wires won't scrape. Then I painted it up and mounted in the components.

This project involved a lot of 3D printing as well, all the transformer covers and the capacitor brackets were printed on my FlashForge 3. Boiled Linseed Oil was used on the wood for a natural finish, and the power light enclosure is an old glass bottle that I 3D printed a diffusion cap for.

Overall I'm really happy with this project, and so is my son who's been using it constantly over the Thanksgiving break. :)

Garnet - Randy Bachman’s Herzog Model G12-H, 1972

Tube Preamp Amp Distortion Unit & Amplifier Head

"... tube overdrive effect, serial number 7616, ... This is the first version, which is the predecessor the slightly later H-Zog. Both The Herzog and it’s successor have a single 12AX7 and a 6V6. This small head is an amazing sounding preamp, but will also function as a 3w amplifier. Randy Bachman was blowing up Tweed Champs by using them as a preamp, so Garnet effectively reconfigured a Tweed Champ schematic with line out, for proper use as a preamp ...

Developed by Thomas “Gar” Gillies, founder of the Garnet Amplifier Company, the Herzog was built in collaboration with The Guess Who and Bachman-Turner Overdrive guitarist, Randy Bachman. A former violin player, Bachman loved the effect of a sustained hum sound, and often tried to mimic it on his guitar by plugging a small amp into a bigger amp, and cranking the volume. After repairing countless blown amps for Bachman, Gillies built him the tube pre-amp seen here. The creamy overdrive and sustained guitar tone produced by the Garnet Herzog went on to become the signature “Winnipeg sound” heard on tracks such as “American Woman” and “No Time”"