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“I have a lot of smallish string instruments collected from all over the world that Im interested in recording with this.”
K.M., Toronto Canada“I’m curious to see a pre-amp version [of a piezo pickup], and test it out to see how it works. I’m always looking for low cost ways of achieving interesting and/or quality sounds.”
S.G., Huntsville AL“I’m an audio engineer, producer, musician. Always thought piezos would be much more useful if they didn’t sound so tinny, and this circuit and everything makes that quest a whole lot simpler. I’m interested in seeing what they can add to a recording. Should be interesting..
C.D., Brooklyn NYNo! The Tin Can Mic is something you make yourself, incorporating the Cortado kit. Here’s what’s in the kit (notice, No can, styro cup, embroidery hoop, rubber bands or old stockings):
you can make the following contact mic; OR, if you order Ready-to-Play, this is what we send you:
Or, from the kit, you can make an internal instrument pickup:
Or, with the kit plus a bunch of trash which you provide and which is not included in the kit, you can make this awesome tin can mic:
Our Cortado Instructable clearly lists all the odds and ends you will need to build a Tin Can Mic using a Cortado kit. Sorry, but we do not offer the Tin Can Mic pre-built. These things are pretty fragile and would not ship well.Here is a recording one of our customers made (recorded with his iPhone) using some pedals and a cigar-box guitar:
Thanks, Bernard! We will take a look at the Product Configuration screen and try to make it more intuitive. Thanks for the feedback — and the order!
Fantastic. We’ll include a scrap of wood, sanded the same as the cabinet, for you to test on. Very dark stains are more prone to streaking and blotching than light stains, so you’ll want to practice first. And move quickly: soak the whole cabinet inside and out as fast as you can, then start wiping before it dries. Use a big rag, like a whole tee shirt, to be sure you are able to capture all the free stain. Send photos!
Absolutely YES! HOWEVER — This usually means waiting until the next time we fabricate a batch of cabinets; I would simply leave one of them unstained. Assuming you do not want to deal with the little grille panel, we would assemble that too. The price would be $309. It will be at least a couple of weeks before we run another batch of Percolators. If you place an order now, that will be a major inducement for us to go ahead and schedule the production run!
Here is what another customer did with a prebuilt / unfinished cabinet.
What is your finishing idea? Post it in the Finishing Tips / Tricks forum; I’m a former cabinet maker, and I’d love to hear your plans.Chuck sent us this recording he made of Led Zeppelin’s “Rain Song”. He played his 4-string cigar box guitar through some pedals and his Percolator amp and 1×8 cab, and recorded it with his iPhone. We were impressed with the clear tone he achieved. We also appreciate the song selection and the Zeppelin tie-in!
Sorry to hear this, Simon. A photo could be helpful. Hold the camera/phone reeeeeel steady. The designer of the Percolator is, even as we write, at his brother’s wedding reception, out-of-state. It will be tomorrow night at the earliest that I can put him in front of a PCB and, hopefully, your photo, and we’ll trouble shoot with you. In the meantime, LEAVING THE AMP SAFELY UNPLUGGED, you could carefully check continuity from each of the switch contacts to ground (the chassis). Note which ones appear to be continuous to ground, with the switch both on and off. This will help us get started.
UPDATE:Given our spidery connections throughout the music manufacturing industry, and our awesome buying prowess, we recently learned that we here atZDL can obtain the Jenssen P8R for about the same cost as the Weber Signature 8. If you wanted US to perform the upgrade, we could install either speaker into either the 1×8 cab or Combo for an upcharge of about $70.
Here are some excerpts from Brach’s response:
It is true that (most of the time) transistors, technically speaking, have much lower distortion characteristics than tubes, but from an audio perspective having less distortion doesn’t necessarily sound better….the type of distortion is what matters. You’ve probably heard that tubes produce even order harmonics, which when added up make octaves of the original signal, and when applied to audio give a much richer, fuller sound. Transistors have a tendency to impart odd order harmonics which add up to be square waves, and when applied to audio sound harsh and buzzy.
So everyone agrees that tubes “sound” better than transistors for most practical audio applications. But why acoustic type tube amps aren’t being produced has nothing to do with sound quality, it is mostly of a practical nature, coupled with demand. There’s probably not enough potential customers in the world who would be willing to lug a very expensive twin reverb sized amp to their gigs and practices just for acoustic guitar.
But just because this might be unfeasible as a business idea (mass produced), it does intrigue me as a hobbyist. In fact, a couple of years ago in my spare time, i was working on a tube driven preamp for use with bass or acoustic guitar. I was designing it just for my use with no intention to market it. i was planning on using it with a PA power amp. I personally prefer acoustic instruments to be run through tube preamps into solid state power amps. To me, it’s the best of both worlds because the tube preamp helps impart some nice harmonic overtones while the solid state power amp has so much head room that you never hear the ugly sounding harmonic distortion.And here’s the response from Percolator designer Brach Seimens:
“Yes, your meter should read continuity across the output jack terminals when the transformer is connected. It’s actually not making a short, but your meter will tell you that it is (when it’s on the continuity setting) because the resistance of the secondary of the output transformer is so low. On the resistance setting you should see a few ohms across the output jack terminals.
I’m glad you are enjoying the build!
-BrachNo! Sorry. We laid our hands on a warehouseful of these peculiar tubes and designed the amp around the tube. If the tube ever fails, replacements are not hard to find; and of course you can always get one from us. But you must use the same Compactron 6AF11.
Thanks Triumph.
I was testing a batch of speaker cabs prior to packaging, but I am no guitarist at all. Triumph works in the adjacent sheet metal shop (see About Us) and was attracted by the ghastly caterwauling emanating from the Lab. I am grateful he hung around to play through the last few cabs; I was giving myself a headache.
