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I got bored so I decided to hack up some scrap wood and shove a 12w speaker and guitar parts into it. I was aware from the outset that all I'm likely to achieve is a feedback generator that I can take camping. So far I'm pretty close to that achievement.
So anyway I've gone with a diamond shaped hollow-body design that's 6cm deep (i'm at the mercy of the wood that I have lying around) and a cheap 13cm rectangular 12/24w max driver that sounds half decent. Testing that driver out with a regular guitar, I've already noticed how easily it feeds back from even about 2 feet away. How am I going to get this stupid thing to work when it's barely an inch away from the strings? It must be doable, because there are some fairly loud 'travel' guitars out there. I'm thinking pignose or nomad, which have their speakers directly under the strings (In this case I'm putting it parallel to the strings). There's a kickstarter guitar out there that has two 8w speakers mounted on it - but I can't speak for how well that works out.
At present I'm planning on seating it underneath the top face, but would placing it higher make any difference? Should I put a few barriers in place? Should I try using 25k pots instead of 500 or 250k? (50k pots - is THIS your time to shine?)
Also, is there anything I can do to prolong battery life? Stick something in the circuit somewhere maybe? The pre-amp is going to be a small 5-100w mono chip I found off ebay (that's 100 "Chinese" watts) running off 16850 batteries. I'm also intending on putting a delay pedal and distortion knob into it (through a step-down).
And another thing - I don't have any spare middle pick-ups lying around - can I just reverse the polarity of a neck pickup with a stronger magnet? Or maybe even magnetically shield it by running a piece of meccano out from the bottom of it?
Any advice is greatly appreciated!
So anyway I've gone with a diamond shaped hollow-body design that's 6cm deep (i'm at the mercy of the wood that I have lying around) and a cheap 13cm rectangular 12/24w max driver that sounds half decent. Testing that driver out with a regular guitar, I've already noticed how easily it feeds back from even about 2 feet away. How am I going to get this stupid thing to work when it's barely an inch away from the strings? It must be doable, because there are some fairly loud 'travel' guitars out there. I'm thinking pignose or nomad, which have their speakers directly under the strings (In this case I'm putting it parallel to the strings). There's a kickstarter guitar out there that has two 8w speakers mounted on it - but I can't speak for how well that works out.
At present I'm planning on seating it underneath the top face, but would placing it higher make any difference? Should I put a few barriers in place? Should I try using 25k pots instead of 500 or 250k? (50k pots - is THIS your time to shine?)
Also, is there anything I can do to prolong battery life? Stick something in the circuit somewhere maybe? The pre-amp is going to be a small 5-100w mono chip I found off ebay (that's 100 "Chinese" watts) running off 16850 batteries. I'm also intending on putting a delay pedal and distortion knob into it (through a step-down).
And another thing - I don't have any spare middle pick-ups lying around - can I just reverse the polarity of a neck pickup with a stronger magnet? Or maybe even magnetically shield it by running a piece of meccano out from the bottom of it?
Any advice is greatly appreciated!
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