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.

Timbre Tones -microphones

I've been experimenting with Alice Condenser microphone, composed originally by Scott Helmke (check him out!). It's a fairly simple DIY circuitry, based on Schoeps microphone, and topped with Transsound TSB2555 21mm electret capsule for larger or 16.5mm capsule for smaller diaphragm.

Flamed koa is always nice, be it in a guitar or a mic!

This microphone circuitry is surprisingly transparent and open sounding. Complements acoustic guitars and vocals and is very easy to position and record.

Madagaskar Rosewood ain't bad either...
This first prototype has some fitting
deficiencies as you can tell

My approach to the build has been through wood. As a hobbyist luthier, I have piles of cut outs from very nice tone woods, too small for guitars, but perfect for lollipop-style microphone rings!

Rosewood & walnut veneer

Using wood veneer-topped 30mm steel table leg for the body and a nice, antique painted 60mm lamppost for the capsule enclosure ring and a frying pan splash guard to source the metal grille, I managed to build a mic with an old-timey vibe and sophisticated but organic looks. This looks like a mic I would like to – and definitely will – use as a singer and guitarist in studio!

Take a listen to the Large diaphragm mic in one-track at a time overdubbed session here!

And to a live recording with stereo pair of small diaphragm Alice on guitar and large diaphragm in vocals here!

Female voice with large capsule mic

Hardware store stuff for the bodies

I'm planning to do some small scale production runs if somebody is interested in a unique woody Tone Alice mic with a Vibe. Inquire for price & details though the Timbre Tones website. This is not my original design in terms of the circuitry, but you get a very nice looking mic for sure, that picks your sound sources faithfully too!

Simple perf board and point to point circuitry

Precision fit Finnish Birch plywood dowels keep it together

Walnut or rosewood for the body makeup.

ready to be put together

The electret capsule backside

Testing some shielding. Metal shielding really
does make a difference! This model didn't make it to
 production, though

The abalone dot reminds the singer which side to address.
The mesh has three layers: Brass, steel, brass.
It's fairly effective in reducing the plosives

This one is the earliest prototype with nice
 Madagaskar rosewood ring and palisander
 veneer body. Bolts are still oversize, wrong alloy
and the fit less than perfect.
But it works in a studio already!

Martin-haaste ja haaste Anssille / Martin D-45 cover song contest

Otin osaa Anssi Kelan Martin-haasteeseen livelooppausvetaisulla Kuolleen miehen kitarasta. Heitin Anssille oman haasteen: Jos voitan Anssin kitaran, rakennan puolestani Anssille akustisen niin, ettei tule Marttia ikävä. Käyhän siis kuuntelemassa versioni ja laita jakoon, kiitos!

I attended a cover song contest by great Finnish singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Anssi Kela. The task was to make a video of one of his songs from his latest album Nostalgiaa.

Being a guitar builder, I threw in my own challenge for Anssi: Should I win, I'll build a guitar for Anssi. Tempting, ha? Go check my version and please share!



The song was recorded with iPad mini 2 camera with stereo USB audio straight from TC Helicon Voicelive 3. "Live Drums" come from my Beat Buddy midi drum pedal in sync with VL3 looper.