make an instrument

With a soldering gun, a screwdriver, and a pair of pliers, I’ve recently done minor repairs to fix three amps. Most of my troubleshooting has been simply to spot bad wiring. I think the next step is to get my hands on a book and learn how to interpret schematics.

Technical knowledge is a kind of code language, but it’s not intended to keep the circuitry hidden, it’s intended to make sure that the message maintains its original integrity.

It’s a kind of language that is so stringent, it forces creativity be in the realm of the ideas themselves and in their executions.

i priced kits to build class-a amplifiers and found that they cost more than a decent one already assembled would cost. it makes more sense to buy broken once and repair or gut them than to build from scratch.

at least our economies of scale are working.

so i bought 3. two of them ended up at my old home in florida, by no fault of my own, which is irritating. the other one has been fun to dissect and look at, but i’m going to need to do a lot more homework before ripping anything out.

on another front, i bought an extremely abused charvel guitar for $40, completely disassembled it, cleaned it, removed the custom paint, reassembled it, set up the action, intonation, and adjusted the truss rod. it’s the first time i’ve done that much for an instrument, and it now plays like a dream. i plan on keeping it.

such as a bass guitar body, a scaffold of chimes, assembling my own drums, building a class-A amplifier, or executing an original pedal design based off of existing pedals that don’t quite do all that i’d like them to do.

the latter two, i’m the closest to attempting. i would like a lower wattage amp for practicing at home. my 100 watt british tube amp is not cutting it for apartment use here in the city, and at approximately 4 stones, would be a royal pain to lug through the subway for practices.

an instrument is such an intimate object. i like to believe that through extensive use of an instrument, the very orientation of the material responds and weds itself to the player, the vibrations bending it ever so slightly towards the light of their will.