Welcome to Captain Jake’s Steamy Boats!
This blog is about the custom tube guitar amps I build, who I build them for, why I build them the way I do, and what kind of inspiration I draw from when I come up with a new design to satisfy the requests of the customer. The name of my company is Steamboat Ampworks and we’ve had our doors open for repairs and custom builds since January of 2009.
I’ll often use different build techniques but all of my amplifiers are handmade and point-to-point. When I design a custom amplifier I reference dozens of classic schematics, so there will be ample discussion on vintage gear and the influence on new designs. In addition to the custom offerings I build a few amps that are new, original designs which I will be detailing on the blog as I unveil them. The first up are the Steamboat Classic 18 and Classic 50 amps which we’ve been building for a few years already. At Steamboat Ampworks we also build excellent custom speaker cabinets which I will write about in the future, including an entry about detuned cabinets and the benefits of this design.
As we enter the post-digital age in the musical instrument business we’ve been experiencing a wonderful renaissance. The availability of knowledge and abundance of parts has never been greater and the design pool from which we draw our inspiration is ever-growing. With all of the tinkerers and message board aficionados there has never been more competition to produce new and original analog circuits. This has led us to treat the trade very artistically, breaking convention where economy used to dictate the construction of these electronics. It is absolutely fascinating to follow the trends and fads in the guitar amp’s history. So many of our guitar heroes built their legendary sounds on fairly simple devices, and it has been the goal of builders since to recreate those classic tones. Some copy the copies of copies and some are churning out truly original, modern classics. By examining what makes the classics just so classic we can strip back our expectations and rebuild these iconic sounds with new and useful features to supplement our building blocks.
I hope to add a piece to the pie with this blog and I think it should be entertaining for those interested in tube guitar amps. It will also give me an opportunity to stretch my writing muscle, which I’ve sorely missed.
I will try to point readers to extended subject matter when relevant. There are tons of great resources online and in print. www.Aikenamps.com and www.freewebs.com/valvewizard are great places to start online, and Kevin O’Connors series of books are a must-have in print (available at www.londonpower.com and www.tubesandmore.com).
Cheers!
Captain Jake
steamboatampworks@gmail.com
