Solid Wood Amp Cabinet

It's been a while since I last posted here. But here we go again!

I bought some top/body wood for future acoustic builds, and received a nice billet of Padauk as extra. It was just a tad too short to be cut into guitar back & sides, and thus I finally figured a use for it. It was resawn into 13mm panels to make a new, flashy looking cabinet for my Fishman Loudbox Artist acoustic guitar combo amp.

Here are some pictures of the build process with short explanations attached!

The start. Rough cut 50mm thick mystery plank showed
some nice red texture with distinct rosewood-like scent

After initial planing it showed its true beauty!

Then it popped to my mind. Would the plank be enough
to make a new cabinet for my combo amp?

After taking the measures, time to take
the old cabinet apart 

New side panels: Solid wood
in stead of particle board

Loudbox Artist has a tilted cabinet, and most
of the angles were something else than 90°.
I glued the back to the bottom plate on top
of the old cabinet to get support for the seam 

The front plate and top plate under the amp head were made of 12mm plywood

Testing the fit before final glue down

Box together, short of front grille only.
On the floor you can see the old MDF cabinet. A future birdhouse perhaps? 

Done! I decided to discard the plastic corner protectors. I promise to be careful!

Looking unique!

The sides the audience will never get to see

How does it sound? As good as always!
ToneDexter and Voicelive Play Acoustic bring nice
spice to the already gig worthy sound.

Padauk cabinet matches nicely my
cedar-cocobolo Terz guitar.

DIY internal microphone

Amplifying an acoustic instrument is not an easy task. Picking just the strings isn't enough, because the body resonances are the ones that make the sound "acoustic". My take on the subject is going dual source. The guitars are equipped with a triple soundboard transducer (K&K Pure and JJB Electronics Elite). I like them, because they are pretty inexpensive and offer quite natural response through the frequency range. The dreaded "piezo quack", unnatural high frequency, usual in under saddle piezo transducers, is not so dominant in these soundboard/contact transducers.

Anyway, to add some "air", "naturalness" "whateveryouwannacallitthatsoundsbetter", I use an internal miniature electret condenser microphone. The two passive signals are routed out with a stereo 1/4" cable and into a Presonus Acousti-Q preamp/blender. It's got volume controls for both signals and very nice eq.

I thought I'd report an easy way to make a "gooseneck" condenser mic. This model works only with a preamp feeding 2-12V phantom power to the mic, thou. For a standalone version you'd need a condenser,  a resistor, a 9 volt battery and few inches more wire in addition.

A little sound clip: Dual Source -> Acousti-Q -> Firebox -> Garageband with a hint of EQ and reverb. The delay effect comes from Zoom A2 hooked in the Acousti-Q's efx loop

Gooseneck peeking through the soundhole

Here's the stuff needed to make a mic

Panasonic capsule and shielded cable...

...soldered together

The capsule's got two terminals, one for hot, one for ground. 

They provide a handy silicon sleeve for the capsule.

Heat shrinking tube...

...and some wire...

...shrunk together...

And attached to a metal paper clip...

...and we're ready! The clip attaches to a back brace nicely and is easy to place to an optimal spot because of the bendable shaft.

This unit provides the phantom power the capsule needs, mixes the two signals and more. It's got a vacuum tube too!