JapanAxe

Stood in with a blues band for a 45-minute support slot at a blues club. I don’t normally get nervous about performing but I was conscious this would be a more discerning audience than the usual gaggle of pub punters, plus the headlining band would probably be listening from the wings. As it was, I felt I acquitted myself pretty well, and we got good feedback from the audience. It was quite amusing when one of the sound techs offered me a hand onto the stage with my Barefaced cab, and I lifted it with one finger! I was surprised how many women there were in the audience. I expected a blues club audience to consist of 98% gentlemen of a certain age, but most of them seemed to have brought along their significant others.

@Sean that band sound like proper gaslighters!

Ooh I forgot to mention - when I was making my final mods I added another filter cap in the bias supply and the 100Hz hum disappeared.

Tonight I'm standing in with Last Train Smokin' at Long Street Blues Club, Devizes. We're supporting the Ian Parker Band.

Well it didn’t happen overnight! I got interested in electronics when I spotted Hobby Electronics magazine in the newsagent that I did a paper round for, built my first overdrive pedal in my gap year, and have enjoyed building and modding music-related stuff ever since. I did my first valve amp build from a kit in maybe 2017 and caught the bug.

It's actually quie manageable with the top handle but I think I'm going to have to spring for a decent cover.

Thanks everyone for your patience. The amp is now finished and working, and it sounds bloody great. The Bright switch on the normal channel didn't do much with a 120pF cap so I put in a 3-way switch to choose between off, 250pF, and 500pF. All the legends are on and I have made a fairly quick-release rear grille. I measured the output and with a 1kHz sine wave it is just starting to break up at 100W. I am kind of tempted to gig the amp tonight (45 min support slot at a blues club) but I should really give it a more extended test at a rehearsal before I take any chances. Following the Imgur debacle I have gathered together most of my build pics here:

I assumed an iPad would have Core Audio already and wouldn’t need a specific driver.

Apple stuff is pretty good at seeing audio sources but if you’re not using an (overpriced) Apple cable then there’s a good chance it just won’t play.

Bought a DI pedal from Nick. He was off to the Post Office like a shot, and it arrived in double-quick time!

I don't think anybody's going to be moving this around when I'm not there, so I can't see two side handles giving an advantage over one top handle. Plus I can carry something else in the other hand. It doesn't feel any heavier than my Fender TB600 head (although I haven't weighed it).

Well that was fun! It is in fact a working amp, with a huge range of tones on tap. As ever when I'm trying out my builds at volume, I get a lot of buzzes and rattles in the room that make it difficult to hear whether there is distortion from the amp, so a blast in a hall or something would be an advantage. Background noise is acceptable with just a little 100Hz hum. I can hear no effect from the bright switch on the normal channel because I have the channel volume up a fair way, so I might turn that into a channel selector instead. There's now way too much negative voltage available on the bias circuit so I'll experiment with component values and maybe add another filter cap in there - who knows, that might reduce that hum a little. For now I think I'll work out the best place to fit the top handle and get it installed, although I think it may be a challenging one-handed lift!