“Silver & Light” with Ian Ruhter

Ian Ruhter makes some remarkable tin-type wet plate photography. I found a great interview by Jonah Samson of http://www.coolhunting.com and happened to find his Vimeo page then was off to Ians website.

Here is a photo sample of some of his work which is simply astounding and hauntingly beautiful and he does it all with “Silver & Light”! See below to catch his really cool video on how he makes these natural beauties.

Ian Ruhter Portrait

As promised here is Ians “Silver & Light” video!

555 Contest Winners Announced!

Last night @ChrisGammell and @JeriEllsworth announced the 555 contest winners… Somehow I missed the live announcements but HERE is the link to the contests homepage where the recorded video announcement and the prize winners list may be found.

My congrats to all the winners but especially to everyone involved. There were lots of great entries. The judges were:

• Jeri Ellsworth
• Chris Gammel
• Adafruit Industries
• Phil Torrone
• Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories
• Windell Oskay
• Forrest Mims III
  and finally as if that lineup is not exciting enough included the inventor of the 555 chip
• Hans Camenzind

The top prize “The Mims/Camenzind Prize” is a painting of a 555 chip donated by artist GnomeNCandle and it went to:

Tom Jenner for his – 555 Servo Controller

I personally did not have an entry due to month-long chinese parts shipment schedules combined with having to move 30 miles and a broken wrist. I was planning on entering a replica of the 1937 Hammond Novachord made completely and accurately out of 555 timer chips. I still am going to build this but at a much more leasurely pace than the month-long time limit of the contest. I will not profess that it will have near the depth and beauty of sounds and tones as the original but it should approximate it fairly closely with all of the same features. You may find details of this glorious instrument and its tale of reconstruction here!

100 Watt Custom Amplifier!

Marshall DSL 2000 gutted and rebuilt into a fiery ground shaking monster of an amplifier by Doug of Duo.Glassix. This amp combines charachteristics and circuts of a couple different well known amps. The resulting sound is that of Neal Youngs amplifier meets Zakk Wyldes amp and when the master volume is unleashed does not just thump your chest but rips your heart out and stomps on it! It has been called the meanest sounding amplifier on the face of the planet! I constructed an A/B/Y footpedal to take advantage of the parallel interactive channels (why is this feature not utilized more often). When channel 1 turned up all the way you get this sweet natural amp distortion while channel 2 if turned up 2/3rds of the way yeilds a deliciously warm woody clean jazzy sound that is to die for! The volume difference between the 2 channels is perfect for hitting that stinging solo tone while backing off the guitars volume cleans it up very nicely indeed. Some one asked for the schematics so here ya go! Enjoy!

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From Marshall DSL 2000 ripped out by the guts!

This is the rectifier and power filtering circuitry.
It is pretty standard faire.
It uses a typical bridge rectifier with a 10H choke.
There are a pair of totem pole filters and a pair of Pi filters.
Also a negative bias supply circuit.
Also a 6.3 VAC heater circuit rated at 7 amps.

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From Marshall DSL 2000 ripped out by the guts!

This is the power amplifier and phase splitter.
The output stage includes a pair of parallel speaker jacks.
There is a 4,8,16 ohm impedance selector swith.
Also a line out jack to connect straight to the board.
The Presence knob attenuates the high end sizzle.
This is a long tailed pair phase splitter.
It drives this quad of EL34’s into fire-breat​hing mode!

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From Marshall DSL 2000 ripped out by the guts!

Here is where the magic is made.
This preamp has a pair of parallel triodes.
There is a bridge switch on the cathodes.
It induces interactiv​e vvolume controls on the channels.
Next is a cathode follower tone drive stage.
It and the tone stack are the same circuit used it a JTM45.
The master volume circuit is that of a typical JCM800 2203.
These two circuits together provide for some really amazing tones.

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Marshall DSL 2000 ripped out by the guts!

BC Rich

I owned this beautiful guitar for 8 days last summer. It was a very dark sounding guitar which does not suit my ears well. It was beautiful however and had 7 laminations of different exotic tonewoods for a beautiful sustaining tone. The electronics however left a lot to be desired. Definitely a heavy thrash metal guitar!

BC Rich

Danelectro BLT Slap Delay Possibilities Unlocked!

 I heavily modded this $25.00 pedal to add features available on much more expensive pedals. I increased the range of the mix knob only slightly to allow more clean iinto the mix to acheive a whole new color pallette. I brightened the tone of the delayed feed into the mix. I replaced an infernal little SMD resistor with a potetiometer to change the delay time. This BLT pedal provides a stock fixed delay to produce a slapback reverb effect. I can now manually sweep the delay time for some outrageously cool echoplex like effects with the delay knob being played with. This pedal is really cool and is cheap to mod. Most bang for the buck project I have done. May get a wah pedal housing in the future! Jimmy Page in a pedal anyone?

Danelectro BLT Slap Delay Possibilities Unlocked!

Marshall DSL 2000 gutted and turned into a firebreathing dragon!

Marshall DSL 2000 gutted and rebuilt into a fiery ground shaking monster of an amplifier by Doug of Duo.Glassix. This amp combines charachteristics and circuts of a couple different well known amps. The resulting sound is that of Neal Youngs amplifier meets Zakk Wyldes amp and when the master volume is unleashed does not just thump your chest but rips your heart out and stomps on it! It has been called the meanest sounding amplifier on the face of the planet! I constructed an A/B/Y footpedal to take advantage of the parallel interactive channels (why is this feature not utilized more often). When channel 1 turned up all the way you get this sweet natural amp distortion while channel 2 if turned up 2/3rds of the way yeilds a deliciously warm woody clean jazzy sound tat is to die for! The volume difference between the 2 channels is perfect for hitting that stinging solo tone while backing off the guitars volume cleans it up very nicely indeed.

 

Marshall DSL 2000 ripped out by the guts!

1959 Fender Tweed Deluxe 5E3 Build Gallery!

From 1959 Tweed Fender Deluxe 5E3

1959 Fender Tweed Deluxe 5E3 Head Clone I completed in February of 2008. Sounded Amazing. Created a custom A/B/Y footpedal for it and released the magic of interactive channels.