Guido Landry's DIY Audio

I have made my hobby my job as well as I am presently an Electronics Design Engineer at a major Electronics manufacturer here in Durban South Africa. During my career, I started working on valve equipment at Telcom and currently write imbedded software for small microprocessors. Quite a change in technology!

Is it still worthwhile to build rather than buy? Well yes and no, somethings like Digital effects you cannot make yourself. Other things like valve amplifiers you can. You save on labour cost - it's your time, it is fun and in the end you get great satisfaction in creating something that is unique and YOU made it.

On the other hand, building something for someone else is different. You simply cannot charge a realistic price to cover the amount of time it takes unless you get enough customers to buy professional tools to get the type of finish that some finicky customers demand. You may be happy with a scrapy box that sounds good - since it is yours, but they are paying good money and demand a professionally finished product.

Yes, I did try to make amps and other products commercially , but it did not work out. On some selected items I may offer kits or hardware in the future.

A am a keen Electric guitar player and some of the unique items I have made are in the following articles:

This is a classic Fuzz box using vintage Germanuim AC128 transistors for that 60's fuzz sound. This is not yet another Fuzz Face clone as it utilises a bais pot with a unique method of indicating the voltage setting. I found that a bias control was an essential requirement since the transistors drifted a lot while you were playing and varying the control, maintains the "Sweet spot" setting.

20W Valve Guitar Amp

This is an article on a 20W valve amp with a vintage class A, valve rectifier mode and a modern class AB, solid state rectifier mode. It also incorporates a clean rhythm channel utilising a EF86 pentode and a Lead channel that overdrives a triode. I have used this amp extensively over the last eight years (with the same power tubes) and am very pleased with the variety of sounds available. The reason for the long life span of the tubes is due to the seperate bias adjustment of each tube.

The uTube a 1W Guitar Valve Amp

The uTube Part 2 including schematic

These articles on my small amp have generated a huge amount of interest (and I know that a few people have build it) as it explains the "secret" for smooth sustain without gritty distortion at a civilised Sound Pressure Level (SPL) such as not to annoy the wife and neighbours.

100W RMS Transistor Bass Amp