DIY Guitar Tube Preamp Build and Demo (Super EASY!) 

"You keep an eye out and you can get it from the side of the road for free" is the type of thing I like to hear

That Hendrix homage at the end was uncanny.. The tone and your vibrato are spot on..

‘Good enough for rock ‘n’ roll’ is my new fucking motto and I want that on a sticker or a T-shirt or a hat… Hell I might get it as a tattoo! You are my hero

Dude, I’m not sure if it’s your delivery or if you actually were slightly drunk, but I was laughing my ass off the whole time. Brilliant!

Man , I love your style. Thanks for the help. Your video is exactly the kind of tech support I'm looking for. I'm building a distortion/overdrive using a liberated Telefunken ECC 83 out of an old Grundig stereo console and what leftover parts I've got lying around from working on guitars and junking TVs and DVD players. I have little or no cash and no way of obtaining much in way of parts so the tips like , "you can put in a piece of cardboard" is the shit I'm looking for in DIY video's. Again , thanks and keep on keeping on.

I came for the tube preamp how to and ended up learning pedal building principles! I love this video! This is the 2nd video I've watched by you and this is just the diy content I want to see. Definitely subscribing

This is hands down the most informative channel on here it's just what I was looking for

Thanks! Been sitting on an amp build for a minute and this helped me understand so much more. Look forward to more from this channel.

i’ve been at building for a few years jsut copying schematics , this is the Best video i’ve seen ! it’s makes things makes sense simply and effectively , thank you 👍👍👍👍

This is a really cool project. I found it because I decided to build a Valvecaster this evening, but now I'll be building this in the near future, too. The rest of your channel has interesting and useful videos and I really like your presentation style. I'm now subscribed.

This is golden. Your content is criminally underviewed my dude.

My dream amp was tube vintage one but I'm from a country which bottlecaps value more than the currency. Now I've got a 10$ diy tubeamp kit from ebay!! Thank you Tube Hero!! SAVIOUR!

Excellent, educational, and lots of fun to watch. Thanks for sharing the project Clementine!

Cheers from spain, mate! Your videos are amazing and I'm really inspired into building my own gear thanks to you. Keep up the great job you're doing!

Excellent guide! Love the humour and diy-to-the-max approach. Thanks for sharing!

I love the smell of valves in the morning, brilliant outline explanation!

Dude this is the first video of yours I have watched and you have told me more about tubes that I can understand and I have been trying to do just what I want to do thank you so much

Brilliant, so glad I watched your video! I've learnt a lot and so inspiring, I'm going to have to order one of those Tube preamps (being a Limey, a valve preamp). Cheers and thanks for your helpful info!

Wow didn't expect to see a Pete Twofinger invention here. He's a very underrated channel

Cool project! Great presentation, sir. I love YT for this type of content. Love your humor, too. I'm glad your Epi LP Jr. vid. popped up in my feed. Subbed. We all need to share your vids so that you can get the subs that you deserve!

Wow. What a lovely guide... Perfectly explains everything.

Man, this video is fun! Got me thinking about diy preamp/color boxes for studio recording and mixing. Subscribed!

You just made me want to go back to school. If I would have had a professor like you I wouldn't have dropped out. You brought me back in bro. Thanks. Gonna go find some old Craig Anderton GP Best.

Nice work with the Cliff notes explanation. It did help make sense. I think this would be fun. Very inspiring..

Great stuff! Pedals and tube circuits are so much fun. I mostly use plugins these days but want to get back into hardware and perhaps some DIY. Love the enthusiasm. cheers!

This sounds fantastic. I wanna build one.

Light bulb moment circuit overloaded!!!! Wow.. enjoy your videos.

Hey thanks for this video It actually answered some questions for me but also I really like the way that you explained everything helped me out a lot you definitely got to new subscriber.. 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

Thank you, bI have been building electronic components for decades, and this is by far the easiest and best explanation I have ever seen. KISS-Keep It Simple Stupid! Semper Fi

How do u not have a million views my guy i love ur enthusiasm so much

Man l love your demos. You are hilarious😂. Great show heaveymetalatc

What a genius. Thanks for the vid, mate. The explanation is absolutely a know how to teach.

That was awesome!!! I’m gonna do it man!! That was killer Clementine

You REALLY know your stuff, really amazing

I enjoyed every bit of this video. Thank you!

Awesome video man! I just ordered one of those thanks for sharing your knowledge.

Sounds great! I'll have to try this. Thanks for the instruction!

Very cool project! I need to grab one of these preamps and tinker with it as well!

Dude your hilarious and informative at the same time. Subbed.

hell i love this mc gyver kind of stuff you´re doin ! first the tape video and now a tube amp video ! :D

Thanks man. This is some kick ass guitarist diy shit. Will definitely give making one of these a shot. Thanks for the education.

I think I learned more starting at 17:40 than I have in the past ten years of tinkering with DIY pedals! 🤣🤘🤘🤘

That last part sounded cool!!!

Dude! Fantastic video, really helped me make sense of things, and it made me laugh as well! Il let you know how I go with the build, cheers bruv!

This is perfect to plug into my "power amp in" on my boss katana. I really want a twin reverb style tone stack

Love the experimentation. And if you dont know how to solder but want to try this out, take the time to learn to solder. It's really not that hard for the basics and there is tons ir info on RU-vid. Ita a very handy skill to have fo a lot of things.

thank you.youve opened up my understaning.th very basics and i am greatful

Loved this video, especially the bit about ice cream. It's frustrating to go on guitar forums and see 90% of people chasing a sound from 50-60 years ago. Not that there's anything wrong with those sounds--like you said, vanilla is good--but there's much more out there than Hendrix and Led Zeppelin. We need to reference the past without being stuck in it.

Good to know I ain't the only one ripping parts out of old TV and Radios at the junk-yard/re-cycling centre, I always have a screw driver and snippers handy, watch yourself though as old Cathode ray tube TV still have surprises for you like implosions and glass. Bring gloves. Great video and commentary , the box sounds amazing for "Hendrix Woodstock" time**!!

Tell it like it is man ! The best you can do for your tube amp other than using tubes in your pedals is probably JFETS in Fetzer valve configuration. Nice to see someone that knows what he's talking about at last . I use a similar circuit in JFET style in the cavity of a Strat after junking the useless whammy set up and hardtailing it using trim pots. In UK its 'Hendrix at The Isle of White '.

'Lets see what it do!' Instantly subscribed 😂 👌🏻

Super video. Clementine. Awesome playing. Build the same last year. Now working on a ef86 preamp. Greetings from Holland. Paul.

Just found your channel. I subbed and am watching this video. Super informative and entertaining!!!

Very very helpful instructions sir.

Thank you for inspiring me again and again!

Gotta try this. As usual great video man

I only did Primary School and had 5 dance lessons but this is real education my friend.

Earned a sub with this one great work. Humorous and informative FTW.

I ordered the parts, and have an old radio im raiding for the extra parts I needed. I’ll post a reply video when I git r dun!! I appreciate the idea and the video!

Awesome video thanks bro I'm so building one of these 🤘

FANTASTIC PLAYING! LOVE IT!!!

Hi Heavy, nicely done.

avocado black bean swiss killed me. awesome video, i'm coming from pedal circuit world so this connected some important dots.

There's a lot of good info in here that I wished I'd heard many years ago

new favorite channel

This is awesome!!!! At about @19:00 bro starts channeling the spirit of Domble!!!! Saweett!! :D

Awesome Video .... makes me wanna do tha dang thang!

Great project. Subscribing too ! Supporting the DIY and yours is very interesting. At first I'm searching for this in stereo, trying to emulate the hotness of the old Korg Electribes !

Very helpful info. Much obliged sir. Proper filthy licks at the end too.

Boost + reverb sounded excellent. Great job explaining things, dig the DIY fuck it approach 🎸🎸🎸

Incredible video

Great video bud.

Great vid for us noob want to be pedal modders!

Instant subscription from me- high-value advice for those with wallets as perennially bare as mine.

I've got a fender champ 25se that's hybrid, as preamp, tube power section and I've been wanting to find a good tube preamp option to mess about with and this is pretty inspiring man

Extremely informative with just the right amount of cheeky bastard. Sub'd!

Hello there! Thank you for sharing this! You inspired me, I'll start this project soon. I have some questions tho: 1) I've got a DV Mark jazz 12 amplifier, which is great for clean sounds, but it doesn't seem to eat distortion pedal quite well (as the name suggests, it is not intended for that use). Which tone stack do you think can do the trick? The flatter one as you did? 2) how did you achieve the Hendrix sound? It was great! 3) do you think there's a way to insert send / return in this circuit? Would it be of some use? 4) I'd like to make a spring reverb unit, but the driver circuit is quite unclear to me. If you could make a video about that i think it would be great for the whole DIYers community You earned my like and subscription, by the way 😉

The detail you go into is absolutely incredible. Would it be possible to be able to change the order of the gain stages by building a patch bay in it?

Awsome video & explanation!

This video is a gateway drug to the rest of your stuff and (bass) guitar effects in general. Everything here is just at a level I can understand but I'm inching towards the deep end to do so. Is there a good book or 'site to flesh out the ideas you mention in this video? I bought that preamp off eBay and I'm going to have fun following the ideas you present here but I'd like to understand what I'm doing. I'm also going to make a bass P90 following one of your other videos. Great content!

Brilliant video.

So good. Thank you!

mad hatter guitars makes some really cool solderless guitar wiring harnesses, their parts come in handy for people who don't like soldering. I bet their stuff would work well with a build like this. I used their products to wire up a Dark Glass tone capsule preamp into a pedal enclosure, sounds great, and I didn't need to solder at all. Now I can use this preamp with any bass I like.

Hey, I watched this video a couple years ago and sourced what I think is the same tube preamp back then. I futzed with it for awhile but never got it to do anything useful. Ultimately, It got put in a box and forgotten about until I came across it the other day. I figured I'd revisit it because maybe I was just doing something dumb 2 years ago that caused my experience to suck. The only difference that I can tell between the one you used in this video and the one I have it that yours has '90 degree' tube sockets where your tubes are laying down and mine has them upright. It uses 6J1 tubes which I've not encountered in any other scenario. I'm hoping you can answer a couple questions and give me the benefit of your experience. I wired it up with the simplest version you start with in this video. My guitar plugs into a 1/4" jack which is wired to the right-most input. The output is connected directly to the second input with a short jumper wire then the second output goes to another 1/4" jack that plugs into a Yamaha powered monitor speaker that is 10 watts with a 4" speaker. This speaker has a power button, a high & low tone knob and 1/4" input for line on the back and a 1/4" input for mic on the front. I'm plugging into the line input on the back. In your video you have too much gain and utilize a pot to mitigate that. I have like zero gain. I see the red led and the tube filaments light up and it passes audio but imparts no gain, no grit, no tube character. The power brick I am using is a 12V 2.5A with the output cable & barrel hardwired to it and it takes a standard IEC power cable for the AC supply, For regular tube guitar preamps, I know the tube type like 12AX7 vs 12AT7 affects the gain. That's the first thing I thought could be why I get no gain: Questionable Chinese tubes. I have an extra set of these tubes but when I swapped them in I get the result it the same. I tried a 250k pot as the link between the 2 gain stages and I can turn down the volume but the gain never increases. I can try other power supplies if this one is somehow not supplying enough juice. I've had trouble finding ones that work with it at all. I'm kinda confused on the power supply end because I've heard I need an 'AC adapter', any anything you plug into a wall outlet (AC) adapts AC and usually provides DC. The markings appear to indicate it puts out 12V DC 2.5 Amps and some dashed lines. I haven't looked at the pinouts for the 691 tubes but I was considering trying a different tube that would fit the 9pin socket. I suspect a 12AX7 is not directly compatible or that's what would be used since they are 'standard' guitar amp tubes. I suppose there could be a trace broken on my lil preamp board. or bad components. I was curious about the tubes actually contributing to the circuit so I tried with no tubes but I get nada. Any ideas why i'm getting zero gain? Any clarifications you'd like, additional info, pics, things for me to try out and send results... just let me know

Could you suggest some good resource material for learning the in and outs of amp circuitry? I have an elementary knowledge of basic circuits from my time spent long ago in electrical apprenticeship program, but would like to learn more for my tinkering habits. Love your content, keep up the good work!

Really enjoy your video :D... thanks so much.

You rule. Thanks for the education

That was bad ass. Im building one.

I really liked your video, so much that I am building the project now. My question is , where did you get the wall-Jack from? I see some on Amazon but its turned out to be ac to dc not ac to ac. Having the issue finding that part. Thank you.

Love your videos, and your teaching style. What if this preamp could be switched between the tubes (or triodes, whatever) being parallel or series?

Late to the party but thanks for the great video and info! I've been building pedals for a few years but I had no idea these pre made pre amp boards were out there so cheap. Just ordered one and looking forward to experimenting with it. I really like your channel!

Thanks for this one man😊

Great video!

This sound sweet, cool projet. Now I need to learn and understand better schematic 👌 thanks for the video

I gots a Qui Jack in stereo installed on my guitar 😊 I bet I can wire this to work with that.

The end result was good. Can you explain what this 2 channel tube boost circuit was designed for. Can it be used as a clean line level boost? This may be idea for an old Webcor amplifier I have.

This is really great, and there are so many options to customize this module... I just ordererd one ;-) Really thanks for sharing ! Oh and if you're looking for new post subjects, I'm interested in every analog guitar effect, and even more if they run on vacuum tubes ;-) Thanks again.

hey ... thats ME !

Pretty good Hendrix impression

6j1 (6ж1, 6ж1п) is soviet tube copy. I had similar mock up with same tube (different AliExpress board) with bass guitar preamp in between the tubes. Didn't had a case, so it was noisy. For example engl e530 has two tubes as well, is very similar device.