Re: Guitar/amp electronics certification?

Don't forget military training...even in the late '70's the anti-aircraft
radar systems I repaired were largely tube-based, and not just the
transmitters.
We had a few digital computer boxes with IC's, a few chassis' had discrete
transistors, but lots of tube amps for driving servo computers, voltage
regulators, etc.


<electron@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1145405615.195815.260680@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

mullan.brian@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
Anyone know if there are any courses or schools that specialize in
guitar amplifier and guitar electronics repair or building? Or do you
just get into it by DIY, reading books, home projects, basic
electronics courses and stuff?

Seems most of us came to it through electronics of some kind by default
(i.e. Ham Radio, EE engineering tech, nuts and bolts computer
background) and it ends up getting mixed up with music somehow; either
being a player, or having enough friends that hammer long enough on ya
until you crack and start fixing their gear.

A few 'experts' appear to do OK coming from a consumer electronics
background, i.e. TV/VCR repair (basic DeVry graduates ~16 years ago),
but numerous degreed EE's fail miserably (although numerous EE's do
just fine too.) It appears to be more of an innate facility to make
things work, and not 'diagnosis things' past what's really going on.

AFA as tube amps, there's only so many ways to hook a tube up! It
really helps to be able to treat a tube crcuit for what it really is; a
simple but *very* high frequency gain stage, with instability
tendancies (read that short wave receiver/transmitter.) But tubes, per
se, really aren't rocket science.

DSP/Computer added constructs? Helps to have a comfortable feeling
around computers, really. They're not that complex, but admittedly
impossible to deal with with without manufacturers scematics and/or pc
board layout diagrams (and direct manufacturers help; although real
manufacturers help is a very rare thing.)

Gut, paying attention to cause and effect ("it worked fine till I did
this"), keeping your mind open to different failure modes (dont ever
get stuck in "if it does this then it's always that" mentality.) Most
gear failures have a simple, direct cause and failure history to
explain how it ended up in your lap (it's good to do some 'Quincy'
before getting too deep.)

Read all you can, destroy stacks of your own gear, shock yourself a few
times, get back up and do it again. Repeat. Most people get better at
things that they care to get good at.

Don't make promises you can't keep.

In no time, you'll more business than you can handle.

My 2c-
-Robert
QTS
http://www.Braught.com
real email addy : Robert@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (remove NoSpam to reply :
Duh!)



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