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Dirty-South Blues Harp forum: wail on! >
The Noisy Cricket
The Noisy Cricket
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Gwood420
252 posts
Oct 20, 2010
10:12 PM
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Let begin by thanking Isaac for all of his help again! You made this much easier than it otherwise would have been:) Thank you.
Ok, so I carry my harps and mics around in a backpack. A really nice laptop backpack, that I have begun to alter so it is more harp friendly. The center section of the pack is about 1.5" wide, and unzips all the way ( picture 2). I sewed elastic into this section to hold my harps in place.
So, I wanted a small amp that I could either carry in or build into my pack. I was going to by one of the many 9v amps that were out there, but I just kept putting it off. glad i did!
my buddy started building cigar box guitars a few weeks back and wanted to build an amp to go along with it. So I searched around on instructables, found one, and desided it was exactly what I wanted for my amp. So I contacted Isaac and asked him what his thought were on it, as many of you know, he knows his stuff :) and he liked it, but directed me to:
Noisy Cricket
he also directed me to small bear for all the parts, and he was right. They have everything you need. I may have been able to find it cheaper if I shopped around but having it all in one place sure made it easier.
Small Bear
It really wasn't that hard to build, and I like the final turn out. It has a real distorted sound when the mic is cupped. sounds great! My friend played guitar through it, and he loved it too. All I have for the speaker for now (due to not finding the right deal on the one I want) is a small 2"x4" sony surround sound speaker for my home theater.
Now, what I'm thinking about doing, is actually mounting it into the pack along with a build in speaker. Essentially turning the backpack itself into a 9v practice combo. I like to tinker!
Here are some picks of the finnished product:
I got lucky, that it all fit in just perfect.
The bar covering the switches is a handle for a kitchen door from Home Dumpo
I added a plug so I can plug in an AC adapter
This showes the speaker im using for now, and some of you may notice that that is Isaac's DIY mic sitting there...
Another note: I got the LM386 N4 from Small Bear which is supposed to be able to handle 16v. I have thought about trying to up the voltage to see how the setup sounds then.. Isaac, will that make a differance?
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Last Edited by on Oct 20, 2010 10:32 PM
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isaacullah
1204 posts
Oct 20, 2010
10:39 PM
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Gwood! That sure looks great man! I GOTTA hear some sound clips! Rockin the DIY bullet into a Noisy Cricket has got to sound AWESOME! Super job brother!
As for the up voltage: It'll handle it fine, but it will sound CLEANER. Upping the voltage effectively raises the headroom before clipping. You might notice a slight increase in volume (especially CLEAN volume, or volume before clipping), but you will then need a booster to up the signal from your mic into the range where the circuit will distort. You'll also need to reset the bias on the buffer (the J-201 FET transistor), or else it may go into oscillation and/or have low output to the LM386. IMO, while you COULD make it a higher voltage circuit, there's no real benefit from doing it. The gain in output wattage will be minimal in output decibels because decibels increases logarithmically such that 10 watts is only twice as loud as 1 watt. That means 2 watts is only 1.0001 times louder than 1 watt (or something like that). So you will have a more complex rig for negligible increase in output.
She looks good my man!!!
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Last Edited by on Oct 20, 2010 10:42 PM
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