Noisy Cricket Production Run

Saturday, July 8, 2006

The final version of the Noisy Cricket is a 1/2 watt guitar amplifier that puts out half a watt of power with a 9 volt battery. It has controls for on/off, volume, tone, a grit mod (more crunch at lower gain levels) and a gain control). It has a 1/4" jack to plug your guitar into, a 1/4" inch jack for a 4-8 ohm speaker, and the standard Boss-style AC adaptor. Just about any speaker will do, but the Noisy Cricket really likes 1/2x10 or 1/2x12 cabinets.

You can run the Noisy Cricket off a 9 volt battery, or an AC adaptor. The AC adaptor can be up to 12vDC. At 12 volts, the amp puts out about .8 watts and offers a bit more clean headroom.

Note: this is an amplifier, not a pedal. Don't plug it into another amplifier. Plug it into a speaker.

Many Thanks to

runoffgroove.com for their Little Gem and Ruby amps. Without their designs, I probably wouldn't have been able to end up with the Noisy Cricket. Also super props to JD Sleep at GeneralGuitarGadgets.com for the awesome build articles for the Ruby amp and the PCBS. All my small amps to date have been built using JD's boards and he does very nice work. All the folks at DIYStompboxes for their advice and ideas. The HCEF circus of cool dudes for their compliments, humor, naked pictures of their moms (ok, maybe not that). A few local guys who wanted to by one!

Here is the current batch of ten production Noisy Crickets:

Note: I've spent a lot of time working on the innards of the amp to make sure it will be reliable, work well, and not give you any grief. I'm fairly good at that part. But I am not a painting pro. If you would like to buy a Noisy Cricket, don't do it if you expect a flawless paint job. I worked to get the paint jobs as clean as possible with my limited paint skills, but each unit has its own unique little dimples or bubbles. Nothing onerous but its definitely not a new-car-finish :)

Here's the current batch:

First off, knob colors. I can do either machined aluminum knobs or black fluted: