What's everyone up to right now?

[Little lunch]

Just came back from ten pin bowling with a client.
Before that I went to a RAAF memorial service with another client.
Before that I had to hoist a client out of bed, shower, clothe and feed him, and then take him for a walk to the park.
He's waiting on a part for his electric wheelchair so it's manual at the moment and the park is on another hill from his.

It's four o'clock in the arvy and I'm ready for bed.
In two hours I'm taking a client to a disability disco for four hours.
Thank fuck I've got tomorrow off.

[*Deidre*]

Bought some autumn decorations today, and enjoying a glass of merlot right now.

[Rev. Rye]

A while back, I made this post:

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In addition to the basement work, Dad decided to get these old precision instrument boxes (roughly cigar-box like), and while we're not sure about the three smaller ones, the biggest one (about 13x9.5x5.5") he thinks could potentially be turned into an amp.

And now, I have this idea, springing from two beloved pieces of gear of mine: a Joyo AC-Tone preamp/amp simulator/drive pedal and a Pignose 7-100 amp. The AC-Tone does a damn good job of simulating the famed Vox AC-30 amp. The Pignose is a good, portable amp, even if it's low power (about 5 watts) and prone to distorting if you have it above just audible (especially if you're the sort of guitarist who doesn't really touch the volume knob if you can help it).

So, here's my idea: take the preamp circuit to one of those AC-Tones (they cost between $30 and $40), fuse it with a (fairly low power) power amp circuit, add a speaker (or two) and a line out jack (to plug it into a PA board for larger gigs; the speaker emulation circuit in the AC-tone will serve it well here). We don't know exactly how to pull it off, but I see no reason this can't happen, and if it works, it could potentially be amazing.

Simply put:

This (specifically the big one):


Plus This:




Plus This:




Could become something amazing. And, if we figure out how this works, there's also versions of the AC-Tone that tackle Fender, Marshall, and Mesa-Boogie tones, for fans of those amps. If Dad and I can make it work, we'll share the instructions and, odds are, other people will be able to do the same thing.

---

And now, we've finally decided to make some headway in this plan, having gone to our local Instrument store and asked for advice. The same day, it turns out American Science and Surplus had its Warehouse sale and had a removable stereo for sale for $15. Here's the old catalogue for more information, apparently it was built into luggage in a past life. We were intrigued by it, and then, it turned out that it had two amplifiers: one for the two smaller speakers, one for the subwoofer (such as it is), with a total combined wattage of 18 watts. We're not sure it still works, but if it does, and we can fuse the circuit with the Joyo AC-Tone preamp pedal and eventually add a speaker (6.5" appears to be the best size for this box) and a line-out (and maybe a "Vaux" logo that looks like the old Vox logo), this amp may very well become a reality.

[Little lunch]

Should probably be doing something but I'm just doing nothing.

[brewer]

We took the dogs sheep herding earlier this week. Both have giardia now. 

No barefoot in the back yard for awhile.

[Angrboda]

Messing around setting up a second monitor for my computer. I had an unused 26" TV and a spare port on my graphics card, so I thought I'd test with the goal of hooking a 25' HDMI cable up between my computer and my main TV. Unfortunately, I didn't anticipate that the sound wouldn't be carried by the HDMI from my graphics card. I do have things set up so I can play the sound from my computer on my main TV, but it requires messing with cables every time I do it. Not a big deal, but perhaps enough to turn me off the idea. But having a second monitor so that I can watch out of market football games while working on the computer is a nice plus.

[Joods]

Sank to a new low. I've been binge watching, no thanks to Rob, this cartoon called Trollhunters: Tales of Arcadia

[The Grand Nudger]

Bought some autumn decorations today, and enjoying a glass of merlot right now.

Dat red.  Pro.

[Rev. Rye]

Tried plugging into the Boom Bag stereo I got yesterday and here are my findings:

• It turns on, but it only works when the light indicator is off.
  
• I tried playing some Kendrick Lamar through the auxiliary input, and it worked properly.
  
• There are two inputs, and it only works as a guitar amp if we use the mic input.
  
• When it turns on, it defaults to minimum volume; it seems that it works best for my purposes if I do exactly one click in the mic volume after I turn it on.
  
• Plugging my electric guitar into it at full blast, it sounds like a wicked fuzz box. Plugging my acoustic guitar into it with the AC-Tone pedal I'm planning to merge it with while the amp volume is at full blast distorts it beyond any recognition (not that it's grungy or a raging ball of feedback, but that it's impossible to tell the pitch of each note; a full 12-fret chromatic rundown on one string becomes unpredictable as to what pitch will actually sound or its relationship to the previous note.) The "one click of the mic volume" trick seems to fix it.
  
• So far, it seems like it does not like my TC Electronic pedals, neither my Skysurfer Reverb nor my Cinders Overdrive; the moment I turn then on, the signal dies. Further inspection reveals that the problem may actually be that the batteries are running down. At the moment, we're out of 9v batteries, so we can't test it again yet. This may or may not be a good reason to buy an external power supply.
  
• It is not battery powered, although it may be possible to link it with a battery, even if it's just with an external battery like Brian May's Deacy Amp.
  
• The ideal solution would be to bypass the control panel entirely when rebuilding the amps in the box, but we're not sure it can work.
  

[Rev. Rye]

And I forgot that I took a picture of the three side by side, the Joyo AC-Tone Preamp, the Boom Bags stereo I’m planning to cannibalise for the power amp, And the big box I’ll use to House it.



And the PCB on the Boom Bag is visible (for airport security reasons), so here’s a good look for anyone who actually knows about electronics: