never built anything before...

[tgrokz]

so i really need to keep myself occupied over the summer, and seeing as i've really wanted to get into electronics and always loved to build stuff, i'd love to learn how to make my own gear.

i know nothing at all about how to make anything audio gear related. i tried searching google and got no solid information. id like to start small by building cheap things out of things i might have in my home (if thats even possible), but i dont even know if thats a good place to start.

if anyone can help me out at all with any links or anything, that would be amazing. sorry if this has been posted before. i searched and didnt see a thread like this.

[rotation]

I don't think you can use things from home for usefull audio gear. If you want to start step by step i suggest you to make a simple class A microphone preamplifier based on this design.
It is very very easy and cheap because you can construct it on veroboard and it only need few parts. When it is done you have to make 30V DC power supply which is even easyer to make.
A friend asked me to help him in building it and he was very happy with the result. Later we add 1:1 mic transformer and sound improved a lot.
This preamp should only drive loads with 22k Ohm impedance or higher, but we tried to drive normal line inputs (DIGI 002) and it was ok. But if you add a buffer at the ouput it can normally drive all line inputs.

So, this is a very simple project for beginner and good thing about it is that you can improve it as your knowledge grows.

Let me know if you are interested. I can send you detailed instructions about building it. Basic version would cost you about 50$ and "ultimate" not more than 80. Btw, i'm not selling kit or something, just want to help.

Have a fun!

Miha

[vince @ speck]

Originally Posted by tgrokz

so i really need to keep myself occupied over the summer, and seeing as i've really wanted to get into electronics and always loved to build stuff, i'd love to learn how to make my own gear.

i know nothing at all about how to make anything audio gear related. i tried searching google and got no solid information. id like to start small by building cheap things out of things i might have in my home (if thats even possible), but i dont even know if thats a good place to start.

if anyone can help me out at all with any links or anything, that would be amazing. sorry if this has been posted before. i searched and didnt see a thread like this.

Why don't you look around here Prodigy Professional :: View Forum - The Lab

[octatonic]

There is an enormous guitar pedal DIY community- try building a RAT, TS808 or something similar.

[gevermil]

Go to the lab to research as vince said .
Do as much reading as you can before you post .
That place has the best amount of free knowledge you will ever get .
Very generous fellas over there
Start simple and build , Like anything
and give back

[twotracker]

Originally Posted by octatonic

There is an enormous guitar pedal DIY community- try building a RAT, TS808 or something similar.

That's how I taught myself electronics - a BYOC tremolo to a general guitar gadgets Univibe, very addictive hobby.

[Ethan Winer]

Originally Posted by tgrokz

if anyone can help me out at all with any links or anything

There are several simple (and not so simple) plans in the Technical section of my Articles page:

Ethan's Magazine Articles

--Ethan

[Minion]

Check out these Places if you want to learn about electronics and want to find some easy (Or not so easy) projects to do....

Electronics Projects

(Type a title for your page here)

RED Free Circuit Designs - Audio

RED Free Circuit Designs - Music related Circuits

Schematics_for_free

ESP Projects Pages - DIY Audio and Electronics

DIYstompboxes.com - Index


Also go on to e-bay and you should be able to find Electronics components for extremely cheap....
The project Linked by Rotation can probably be built for a couple Bucks.....

You can also find some usefull components inside old Busted stereos like Transformers and Transistors ect....

Cheers

[tgrokz]

ah, thank you all very much. very very helpful

looks like i have a great deal of reading to do! these schematics look like a completely foreign language right now, so hopefully i can learn how to pick them apart.

[sysexguy]

I'm going to add a vote for BYOC (build your own clone) pedals. Small Bear also has a couple of beginner projects.

Andy