Conference napalm::guitar

2701.0. "Use A Walkman As Headphone Amp" by TECRUS::ROST (Better living through chemicals) Thu Apr 01 1993 08:16

    Form USENET, a DIY article about modifying a cheap Walkman to be a
    headphone amp for your guitar.  I think this looks a little too
    simplistic to work quite right, but FWIW.
    
    							Brian
    
From: [email protected] (Norman Lin)
Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1993 01:57:46 GMT
    
I missed the start of this thread, but the cheapest possible guitar amp
(IMHO) is to feed the output of your guitar into the input of a simple
Walkman-type cassette player.  Simply take the Walkman apart, locate the
leads going from the cassette head to the circuit board, and attach
the output from the electric guitar to the casette head leads.  See
diagram:
 
 
  Roller     Head       Guide                      Head
+--------------------------------+    +--------------------------------+
|  \_/        |__|        ||     |    |             |__|               |
|                                |    |            /|\                 |
|                                |    |           / | \  3 wires coming|
|       O             O          |    |          /  |  \     off head  |
|                                |    |      left gnd  right           |
|                                |    |                                |
|                                |    |      Connect to electric       |
|                                |    |      guitar output             |
+--------------------------------+    +--------------------------------+
 
Front view of walkman                  Back (circuit board side) view
 
 
There will be 3 wires coming off of the tape head connecting somewhere
on the circuit board.  The 3 wires are, of course, left channel, right
channel, and ground.  Simple poking around with a pair of headphones on
will tell you which line is which.  Just tie the ground from your
guitar output to the ground, and the signal to both left and right
channel inputs.
 
Then, just press PLAY with no tape in the unit, and whatever output
from the guitar will go through the cassette head leads and get
amplified to the headphones.  Simple and real cheap; you might need an
attenuating resistor to limit the strength of the signal coming into
the Walkman, but I doubt it with the low levels that an electric guitar
will put out.
 
Plus, if you pop in a cassette and press play, you will be able to hear
BOTH your electric guitar AND the cassette through your headphones.
Jam along with your favorite tape!
 
This technique can be used whenever you want an amp out of a cheap
Walkman.
 
Norman
-- 
 _____        __     __   _____    Norman Lin
      |         |      |       |   [email protected] (preferred)
   |  |  _      |__    |    |  |   [email protected]  (alt. 1)
   |  |   |        |   |    |  |   [email protected]           (alt. 2)

    I think the posting date of .0 is appropriate. You have a choice:
    either short the left & right together, in which case the tape will
    sound just swell, I'm sure; put in a switch for TAPE/GUITAR, which gets
    messy with something the size of a Walkman; or how about using a couple
    resistors as a compromise. I haven't actually tried this one, but I
    know that I don't want to do microsurgery on a Walkman unless it's
    absolutely necessary, & besides, running my DiMarzio SDHP directly into
    the playback head would *have* to sound like 'mulch', whether or not
    you're (gasp !) playing a tape at the same time.
    	This would be a disappointing "first project."     
    Paul