I'm finally ready with my first production amp!
Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2012 10:56 pm
I've been working for about 4 years now on designing my own amp and bringing it to market and I'm finally there. Since I shared my entire prototype build process, schematics and layouts here in an earlier thread, I figured it would be ok to share some info, pics and clips below. I'm about to launch the company with this first amp, the Henning Cherry Bomb. It has many refinements from my prototypes, including the fact that it is now PCB. Amp is now completely repeatable and I've used the highest quality components, powder-coated, silk-screened chassis, 1/8" thick PCBs for durability. The thing is built like a tank and ready for production. It has been a long road, but I'm thrilled with the result and it sounds even better than it looks. Here are some pictures:
Here are a couple of clips (just click on 'em to play):
Cherry Bomb Clip 1 (Intro is with guitar volume rolled down 60%
Cherry Bomb Clip 2
Here is description from my upcoming website:
"The Cherry Bomb is an explosion of tube tone! Don’t let the good looks fool you, this amp delivers the goods and is a veritable “kitchen sink” of tone tools for gigging and recording musicians. The Cherry Bomb is a 100 watt amp that features two completely independent, footswitchable channels, each of which has switchable gain modes and master volumes.
Specifications:
The PLEX channel is just what you might expect from the name and a lot more. With the channel’s saturation switch in the center “off” position, you can get everything from sweet cleans to 60s/70s classic rock tones. Set the gain up full in this channel and roll down your guitar’s volume and you’ll be blown away by how the amp cleans up, even with higher output humbuckers. Another feature of the amp is the channel jump switch, which simulates the external channel jumping commonly done with a certain late 60s English guitar amp. Now play with the saturation switch. Moving it to the right adds a bit more gain and compression putting you squarely in “Brown Sound” territory. Move the switch to the left and add even more gain and compression. Now you’re in 80s hard rock/hair metal territory.
The ROD channel picks up where the PLEX channel leaves off adding another tube gain stage to get mean! 80s metal tones to more modern high gain metal tones are on tap here. Of course, you also get the same 3-way saturation mode switch found on the PLEX channel, allowing tremendous flexibility in sculpting YOUR ultimate tone. Singing lead tones and massive power chords can be dialed in the ROD channel. No matter how you set the saturation mode, you’ll hear every note of ringing chords. The Cherry Bomb also features a footswitchable solo master volume in the ROD channel. You can set it to provide a volume boost for live soloing and switch to that mode from either channel master. Cool feature that comes in handy for live playing!
The Cherry bomb also features presence and density controls. Most guitarists are familiar with what a presence control does, but the density control may be something they haven’t seen on an amp before. In simplest terms, it adds back low end when the amp is played at low volumes. Turn up the Density control and you can still get the low end “feel” of the amp at even “bedroom” volumes. Pretty cool, huh?
Of course, we didn’t stop there. The Cherry Bomb also features a footswitchable, tube-buffered effects loop so you can add your time-based effects after the gain stages of the amp where they belong. You can choose either series or parallel mode for the effects loop, affording you the ultimate flexibility in how you want to use pedal or rack mount effects. For folks who run their effects in stereo or wet/dry/wet with additional power amps and cabs, the Cherry Bomb also has adjustable line out. Yup… we thought of everything!
Finally, the amp also features another, overall master volume. We’re going to get a little techy on you here, but bear with us, because this is one of the coolest features of the Cherry Bomb. This master volume is actually a post-phase inverter master volume design (PPIMV). We feel that this design provides the best tones you can get for lower volume playing. You’ll get great sounding tones with this master all the way down to “bedroom volumes’. Crank the channel masters up and turn the overall master down to the volume level you’d like to play at and you’ll see that the overall master also adds some perceived gain and compression to the tone. Experiment with balancing different settings of the channel masters and overall master to get the tone you’d like at the right volume for the room you’re playing in. Of course, cranking the overall master up full takes it completely out of the circuit and you can just adjust the channel masters to the appropriate volume."
Enjoy!
Steve
Here are a couple of clips (just click on 'em to play):
Cherry Bomb Clip 1 (Intro is with guitar volume rolled down 60%
Cherry Bomb Clip 2
Here is description from my upcoming website:
"The Cherry Bomb is an explosion of tube tone! Don’t let the good looks fool you, this amp delivers the goods and is a veritable “kitchen sink” of tone tools for gigging and recording musicians. The Cherry Bomb is a 100 watt amp that features two completely independent, footswitchable channels, each of which has switchable gain modes and master volumes.
Specifications:
The PLEX channel is just what you might expect from the name and a lot more. With the channel’s saturation switch in the center “off” position, you can get everything from sweet cleans to 60s/70s classic rock tones. Set the gain up full in this channel and roll down your guitar’s volume and you’ll be blown away by how the amp cleans up, even with higher output humbuckers. Another feature of the amp is the channel jump switch, which simulates the external channel jumping commonly done with a certain late 60s English guitar amp. Now play with the saturation switch. Moving it to the right adds a bit more gain and compression putting you squarely in “Brown Sound” territory. Move the switch to the left and add even more gain and compression. Now you’re in 80s hard rock/hair metal territory.
The ROD channel picks up where the PLEX channel leaves off adding another tube gain stage to get mean! 80s metal tones to more modern high gain metal tones are on tap here. Of course, you also get the same 3-way saturation mode switch found on the PLEX channel, allowing tremendous flexibility in sculpting YOUR ultimate tone. Singing lead tones and massive power chords can be dialed in the ROD channel. No matter how you set the saturation mode, you’ll hear every note of ringing chords. The Cherry Bomb also features a footswitchable solo master volume in the ROD channel. You can set it to provide a volume boost for live soloing and switch to that mode from either channel master. Cool feature that comes in handy for live playing!
The Cherry bomb also features presence and density controls. Most guitarists are familiar with what a presence control does, but the density control may be something they haven’t seen on an amp before. In simplest terms, it adds back low end when the amp is played at low volumes. Turn up the Density control and you can still get the low end “feel” of the amp at even “bedroom” volumes. Pretty cool, huh?
Of course, we didn’t stop there. The Cherry Bomb also features a footswitchable, tube-buffered effects loop so you can add your time-based effects after the gain stages of the amp where they belong. You can choose either series or parallel mode for the effects loop, affording you the ultimate flexibility in how you want to use pedal or rack mount effects. For folks who run their effects in stereo or wet/dry/wet with additional power amps and cabs, the Cherry Bomb also has adjustable line out. Yup… we thought of everything!
Finally, the amp also features another, overall master volume. We’re going to get a little techy on you here, but bear with us, because this is one of the coolest features of the Cherry Bomb. This master volume is actually a post-phase inverter master volume design (PPIMV). We feel that this design provides the best tones you can get for lower volume playing. You’ll get great sounding tones with this master all the way down to “bedroom volumes’. Crank the channel masters up and turn the overall master down to the volume level you’d like to play at and you’ll see that the overall master also adds some perceived gain and compression to the tone. Experiment with balancing different settings of the channel masters and overall master to get the tone you’d like at the right volume for the room you’re playing in. Of course, cranking the overall master up full takes it completely out of the circuit and you can just adjust the channel masters to the appropriate volume."
Enjoy!
Steve
