The Blue Bomber

A couple of months ago I leveled up and worked enough hours for Normandy Guitars to earn my own. I chose a Blue Anodized Hardtail. The blue finish has been discontinued due to its difficulty to consistently apply, so mine is one of only 4 blue Normandy archtops out there. It's a great axe, with a booming voice with a wide range-- it sounds like a bassy Les Paul at the neck pickup, and has a drawling twang like a Tele at the bridge. Maple neck with rosewood top, with a profile that's slightly on the heavy side of average thickness. It feels fast and comfortable. I'm thrilled with this thing, and decided to continue billing Normandy for credit-- Jim's working on another design that I'm really excited about, and he has a V that's beautiful and balanced. Here are some pictures.

The guitars come with a custom case made by TKL. They're very well made.


That's my 30W Peavey Windsor. I love this amp.


My guitar teacher calls the badge on the headstock a "belt buckle."

Pure Voodoo: Normandy Guitars

Guitarists are a notoriously conservative lot. Innovative ideas in guitar design generally don't meet a warm reception. The most popular guitars are styled after 40-year old designs, and materials haven't changed much. So a new company like Normandy Guitars has an uphill battle. Normandy's necks are still wood, but the bodies are made from aircraft-grade aluminum. That's kind of a big deal in the guitar market. But so far, Normandy Guitars is doing well, selling around the world, and online at Amazon and Musician's Friend. Their guitars sound great in their own right, a very classic well rounded warm sound, nothing as outlandish as one might expect given the materials. And they are absolutely gorgeous. You can see that they're going with classic styling, in part to keep their foot in the door with the conservative majority of the guitar-buying market.

Jim Normandy, the founder, lives in my town, and I managed to talk my way into helping out with some of the company's design needs. I've done some ads for them, and a poster, which I'm quite proud of.

You can download a high quality pdf from Normandy here. Mine's the one on the right.

GIMP

I've been working with graphics software for a while now. In prepress, I get files created by all sorts of people, in all sorts of ways, from all sorts of packages. Lots of people choose software packages and defend their choices vigorously, much like folks defend their politics. They have all sorts of reasons for why theirs is the best, but in the end it's simply the package that they are familiar with, and have shelled out for. But it really doesn't matter. I've seen people create amazing things with the worst software, and absolute crap with the best. It's a tool, not a lifestyle.

That's why I became interested in the GIMP, and Inkscape. These are free, open source graphics software packages. GIMP handles raster graphics, Inkscape works with vector. I simply do not want to shell out for Creative Suite, or the machine I would need to run it. I run Ubuntu on an old single core P4. I dislike Microsoft's products and practices, and dislike Apple's prices and practices (I hate Wacom's patent b.s. too, but have had trouble getting competing products to work under linux, and I hate having heavy batteries in my stylus).

Both GIMP and Inkscape have met my needs so far. I haven't pushed them too hard yet, but I'm getting there. The biggest problem is unfamiliarity with the interface. But this is a problem with switching software regardless of the price you paid for it. It's a bit like trying to find a spoon in an unfamiliar kitchen. Lots of drawers, which one do they keep them in? A little determination, time and a helpfile and you can get past that.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

This one I made last spring, for my sister's birthday. She's been cultivating a garden that has become quite impressive. I'm considering the same, we've got some space here in the yard that might be useful for vegetable production. This is a pencil drawing colored in the GIMP, which I've been experimenting with quite a bit lately. So far it's met all of my needs. I'm using a Wacom Bamboo tablet, which is the sort of econo-model that wacom offers. It doesn't have tilt functionality, but it's sensitivity and resolution are just fine.

Anagrams are fun

Where have I been? Right here. Too busy to update the site, obviously. Well, not all that busy. Most of my free time's spent playing Team Fortress 2. Maybe my priorities are a little outta whack. I have been working, though, and will have a couple of updates about that soon. For now, have a look at this quick illustration I did this morning. Inked in real life, colored hastily in the GIMP, and about one of the oldest cliches in horror movies.

Ham

Generally speaking, I don't like small dogs. But there are more exceptions to this rule than situations where it applies. Like my misanthropism. In general, it's easy to hate humans, but I am usually able to find something likeable about every person I meet. Usually.

Ham is the shop dog. He belongs to the manager of the place where I work. He's a pug, supposedly purebred, but doesn't really look it. He's pretty leggy, and just plain bigger than purebred pugs seem to be. Of course, there's more than one type of pug, and I am far from an expert. It doesn't matter. Drawing him is difficult. The shapes that make up that squished up face are just a little baffling. But he's so much fun to look at. So ugly! It's hard not to laugh when looking at him. His walleye is just the cherry on top. He's just over a year old, occasionally misbehaves, but is just so childlike and cheery. Add to that his goblin face and he's just a pleasure to have around. And to draw.

Little Gem part 5: Ruby

If I seem to be leaving info you want to know out, see if I've mentioned it already in the previous Little Gem posts, below. Or, ask away in the comments section.

The Ruby is a slight variation of the Little Gem design. The biggest difference is that it has a transister added to the circuit, placed to preserve the higher frequency signals, so the amp won't sound as dark as the Little Gem. I built the previous Little Gems in order to gain enough experience to do the Ruby right; I had decided I would probably like the Ruby best, based on the write-ups and sound samples at www.runoffgroove.com.

For this build I splurged and bought a few cobalt drill bits, so that I would be able to drill a metal enclosure. I picked up a metal project box at the local electronics store. But I did not grab a punch, which is used to make an indentation to guide the drill bit when it starts to bore. This means that my holes were off center, or generally just not quite where I wanted them. I'll have to get one for next time.

I also wanted to try to get the whole dc adapter + battery power situation to work this time. The only info I could find on how to do this was the stompbox wiring guide at Beavis Audio. I wasn't making a stompbox, but I figured it couldn't be too far from what I needed. And it wasn't, except it took for granted that I would know which lugs was which on my dc adapter jack. It turns out I didn't. But I'll get to that. The stompbox layout also includes a led to let me know when it's on, which means I didn't need the little labeled washers, and can tell from far away if I've left it on.

The build went smoothly until it was time for me to connect the dc adapter jack. It has 3 lugs, 2 of which are connected to each other while nothing is plugged into the jack, but disconnected when your cable is plugged in.

Here's where I got into trouble. I assumed that the center pin of the jack would be the positive pole, and the sleeve would be negative. After all, that's how the mono plugs on our guitar cables work. Besides, wouldn't it be a bad idea to have hot part of the plug exposed and therefore easiest to accidently ground, causing a short, or perhaps shocking someone?

This assumption is incorrect. It seems the most common way to wire dc plugs & jacks is called "center negative." The pin in the center of the jack is negative, and the sleeve is positive. The reason for this is that the 'switch' that disconnects the 2 lugs I mentioned earlier when a plug is inserted into the jack is 'thrown' by being forced aside by the sleeve of the plug. This way the battery's positive terminal is connected to the lug that is disconnected by the plug, and the plug's sleeve provides power in its place. This way the battery won't provide power when the wall-wart connected (which is what fried the first chip I had in my last Little Gem build).

Not knowing this, I connected the dc plug to the amplifier circuit with the center positive. When I plugged the amp into the wall, I ran 9 volts through the circuit backwards, which killed something in there. I couldn't find exactly what I had destroyed-- most likely the polarized capacitors, but perhaps also the transistor and chip. I had to toss the first build I made of the Ruby, as I had quite swiftly converted it to junk. I then struck out into the internets to discover what I have related above. I also realized I might have connected my transistor incorrectly as well, and ended up using the photo of a build Ruby on Runoffgroove combined with their board layout and schematics to get it right the second time.



It took two weeks for me to get over the disappointment and embarrassment of having wired my first attempt so wrongly, but after reading a great essay in Make magazine about the benefits of failure, I gave it another shot. And got it right on the second try. I still have to find some knobs for the box, but might just let that go-- I'm considering all these mini-amps to be prototypes until I build one that I think is perfect enough, when I'll build one to be pretty as well as great-sounding.




Here again are a couple of .ogg files demonstrating my poor skills and the amp's sound:
Double Game - Kinda clean and quiet, as usual.
Woke Up Down - Gain way up. Nice and crunchy.



The Ruby does sound good. Certainly better than the Little Gem, which as I've said before, isn't bad for 9 volts. The Ruby has just barely a bit more headroom, and a brighter sound than the Little Gem. I like it a lot, but am wondering about the Little Gem v.2, which uses 2 amplifier chips, splitting the signal load between themselves. The next amp I build will be that, but before I do, I have plans for some effects pedals...

Little Gem part 4: Head Building

So I had a cab all set; time to build a head version of the Little Gem and hook it up. Capacitors, resistors & the amplifier chip come several to a package, so I didn't have to buy the whole parts list again, just a pot, rheostat, the polarized resistors, prototype board, knobs, switch and a box to put them all in. I picked up an inexpensive plastic 'project box' at the local electronics parts store. It's about 5" wide, 3" deep and 3" tall. I went with plastic because I didn't have drill bits* capable of drilling through metal in any short amount of time. I also bought a dc plug, thinking I could run this head on an old 9 volt adapter I have left over from an effects pedal.

The build went smoothly, up to a point. It tested fine on the battery I'd installed, but when I plugged in the wall wart, I got nothing. Zilch. No sound, no nothing. I unplugged the wall wart, and went back to the battery. Still nothing.


See the gaping hole where I had to remove the DC plug?

Now, remember a few posts ago I mentioned another benefit of using sockets for your amplifier chip rather than soldering the chip directly? Here it is. Since I had a hunch I'd damaged my chip, and I had an extra chip (they come in packages of 3), I quickly swapped the chip out by prying it out of its socket with my thumbnail. Had I skimped on the socket, I would have had to desolder the whole thing (8 connections) running the risk of burning up the chip if it was ok on each joint, and then have to solder in a whole new chip.

With a fresh chip in place I tested the head with the battery, and it sounded out nice and loud. So obviously I'd burnt the chip when I plugged the amp into the wall. After a little research, it became obvious what I'd done. I'd bought a 2-lug dc plug. If you look at the stompbox wiring page at Beavis Audio, you'll see that his dc plug has 3 lugs. This kind of plug doubles as a switch-- when the wall wart plugs into this socket, it automatically switches off the flow of current from the battery. My 2-lug plug did not do this, and was in fact wired in series with the battery. So when I plugged it into the wall, I was running adapter current PLUS battery current, about 18 volts, through a chip rated for only 9. So, yeah, I burnt the chip. Luckily, they're cheap.




These switches come with these little labeled washers. Useful for when you don't want to wire a led to let you know when it's on.



It's a bit crowded inside, but only because I've been pretty sloppy with the wiring so far. Got to work on that.

Here are two samples of the Little Gem's sound, in .ogg format. The cabinet is sounding great, nice and warm. Both are played on my partscaster, with the neck and bridge pickups mixed together.
Middle of the Road-ish - about as clean as it gets
Sunshine of Your Wub - Gain up about 3/4 of the way

* Actually, according to my old shop teacher, a 'drill bit' is the clamping part of the tool that holds the actual boring device, which should be called the 'drill.' The motor that turns the bit and drill assembly is, surprisingly enough, the 'drill motor'. I grew up calling the drill a bit, the bit a chuck (the chuck is actually a specific part of the bit), and a drill motor a drill. Thats as may be, but everytime I go the hardware store and ask for 'drills,' they take me to the 'drill motors.' Really, most of the time it doesn't pay to be pedantic.