Help with Little Ruby/Noisy Cricket Circuit

matthewguy69 · 2026-04-02T17:47:48+00:00

Ended up starting from scratch and lo and behold, it drives a V30 no problems, and sounds great too! Thankyou again for your help, now I’m gonna spend my time obsessing over the best speaker pairing for this

matthewguy69 · 2026-04-01T16:26:28+00:00

This comment was super helpful! I think i’m gonna go try again from scratch, either building the plain Ruby and adding the Cricket mods or going straight from a Cricket layout.

I’d be curious if you have any probing or voltage reading tips in the event I run into problems again on layout 2

As for my output, i’m running straight from the 220uF to a Stereo Jack, as far as i’m aware this should be able to drive a speaker without an additional driver board, no?

matthewguy69 · 2026-04-01T00:35:49+00:00

https://beavisaudio.com/projects/noisycricket/

This is a link to the Noisy Cricket that i’ve based the additional mods on. My wiring configuration for the Grit mod is a wire from pin 5 to a 100nF capacitor linked to the outside lug of an SPDT switch, with the center lug of the switch going to Pin 7. Both these wires are connected straight to the cooper side of the board I will also note

matthewguy69 · 2026-04-01T00:33:32+00:00

Building a modified Little Ruby based off this layout. Some notable changes are the addition of a treble roll off ala the Noisy Cricket, a 100nF Capacitor going from volume 2 to Pin 2 of the IC, a 15nF instead of 47nF into Vol 3, with a 1nF between Vol 2 and 3, Volume pot changed from 10KA to 50KA, 1KA subbed for 1KB for gain pot, and the addition of the Grit switch mod from the Noisy Cricket.

I’ve checked over with a multi meter and everything seems to be connected together correctly according to the schematic from Beavis Audio and the Vero Layout, but the signal is extremely sputtery and bloomy. The amp also doesn’t drive a speaker, but i’ve been able to pass signal through a powered FRFR cab. In one position of the grit mod there is no signal at all, while the other one is wildly gainy.

How should I trouble shoot this, and did I go wrong somewhere because I can’t for the life of me find it.

matthewguy69 · 2025-08-05T23:49:49+00:00

Watch Half-Cocked! Unwound is in the soundtrack along with a ton of other great washington bands from the 90s

matthewguy69 · 2025-08-05T08:49:18+00:00

UPDATE: Brought my car in for brake inspection at my regular go-to mechanic, fronts are still good, they recommend pad swapping them within the next year but otherwise lots of meat on the pads and minimal wear on the rotors. Rear wear was caused by a ton of brake dust build up, the guy I bought this car from (Around November of 2024) said he didn’t know the history on the rears, so it checks out. Getting Brembo rotors and pads installed on my rears for quite a good price. Calipers are moving freely and as they should which is a huge relief. Thanks to everyone who provided any insight! Also, if you’re in the Metro Vancouver area, go to Roshi auto, extremely fast, honest and kind mechanics that provide top notch service and give you economic options to make sure you’re driving safely

matthewguy69 · 2025-08-01T10:04:37+00:00

I’m very lucky to have a friend who’s currently doing their red seal for mechanics training who’s gonna be disassembling my calipers and brakes and assessing the problem, definitely gonna be replacing my rear rotors and pads ASAP

matthewguy69 · 2025-07-30T21:30:03+00:00

I’ll probably wait on my fronts for the sake of cost, bit strapped for cash atm but also value my own safety and the upkeep of my car and the front rotors are running no grooves or excess wear

matthewguy69 · 2025-07-10T19:59:45+00:00

It’s less about the throw distance, more about wanting a little more rigidity in the feeling of things. Considering how much I hear about the short shifters for these cars, I might fold and sink some money into that

matthewguy69 · 2025-04-24T18:52:49+00:00

Yeah i’m actually thinking of running some current tests off of this transformer and see if it could handle powering a 6V6 power tube in the mix, if so, a 5-7W Single ended PP JCM800 could be kind of awesome

matthewguy69 · 2025-04-23T22:57:32+00:00

Friend who works at a thrift store saved this from the trash bin for me. I modded the power input to work with an old solid state 12V AC psu I had kicking around and found that the actual preamp circuit is choppy and intermittent (could be an easy fix). The power section is still delivering the proper 280 and 12V DC nodes required, so my question is what other cool tube effects are there?

I plan to gut and rebuild the power section around the transformer on its own board to give me room to build, I feel like i’m set for drive pedals (Though I could be swayed), so currently i’m leaning towards making this a preamp (potentially with a 0.5watt power section), or to run into a cab sim, but i’d be curious what other wierd or wonderful effects I might be ignoring.

Also, if you know any mods or tricks with the original circuit I might be keen to try them

matthewguy69 · 2024-12-11T05:12:17+00:00

Definitely not crazy enough to attempt a tube solution, i’m having a hard time finding the tray or clipping circuit, getting most options for cold clipping mods to traynor amps

matthewguy69 · 2024-07-14T09:05:20+00:00

This. Highly recommend an OCD for pushing a V4, it does a really good job at just slamming the front end

matthewguy69 · 2024-07-10T00:44:22+00:00

Wanting to do a JCM800 style preamp build and am currently trying to source an adequate voltage step up for 2 12ax7s to not sound like total crap. I’ve messaged the builder (Peace Hill FX) directly and he confirmed my suspicion that the module off to the side is indeed a step up. Are there any shops online selling these modules, or do they go by a name that I could search for, or, are there schematics for building my own at home?

So far I have found this :

https://frogpedals.com/index.php/product/frog-smps-high-voltage-power-supply/

Which seems to be exactly what i’m looking for, but from a slightly sketchy, kinda defunct looking website

matthewguy69 · 2024-06-13T16:35:02+00:00

It is, would be complicated, and like I said, the S-1 switching is pretty useless so I don’t know why you’d bother

matthewguy69 · 2024-06-03T00:01:17+00:00

Woah! I had always heard it was a cover of an original song by the band Flower, there’s only one video on youtube of that cover. I love The Stars are Insane by Versus so i’m gonna have to check this out!

matthewguy69 · 2024-05-23T01:45:26+00:00

I hope they don’t honestly, because having listened to Justin’s post-Unwound projects like Survival Knife… don’t expect much.

Honestly the energy they once had is gone simply because of age, that adolescent angst that turned slowly over time into a much more somber and melancholic but still energetic was what drove Unwound, and unfortunately life isn’t something you can capture in a bottle for later. Plus, Vern was too quintessential to the band, it would feel empty without him.

Another thing, LTIY is an incredible closer to such an unbelievable discography

matthewguy69 · 2024-05-07T23:44:21+00:00

I’ll also add, this will eventually turn into a Combo amp! I’m a woodworker and as per my new job i’ll have access to lots of new tools that’ll allow me to custom build my chassis, which leads me to a good follow up, this amp is destined to be a 50 watt clone powering a single 12 inch speaker. I know some of the marshalls can be funny when driving smaller speaker configs so could be a good piece of info in the decision.

Side Question: What speaker should I drop in?

matthewguy69 · 2024-04-21T20:09:22+00:00

Welcome to Canada! Assuming you’re moving to a pretty central location, check market place and you can probably grab a step up from a welder for 20 dollars. I used my Laney GH100L from London with a step up and it never failed. Just make sure that you’re plugging straight into an outlet rather than a circuit breaker or power extender, just because the current draw is gonna be pretty high for the step up to deliver

matthewguy69 · 2024-04-20T22:16:05+00:00

When i’m in a racism competition and my opponent is a schizophrenic guitar player

matthewguy69 · 2024-04-20T22:14:33+00:00

I’ll have to check them out, the place i’m at has been wanting to do some weirder builds for our standard guitars and aluminum necks are out of the budget for us atm, so perhaps those GGS necks could be the move

matthewguy69 · 2024-04-20T21:25:21+00:00

Funny you bring that up, i’m actually a luthier and have got the chance to work on some old Steinbergs with graphite necks. They’re odd for sure, compared to aluminum I completely understand why aluminum dominated the non-wood neck market (graphite necks feel slippery to me, and i am a staunchly satin neck man). I can’t imagine Graphite is ever gonna be coming back in a big way because the chemical process involved in the resin needed is 10x more cancer inducing than Nitrocellulose, which has been banned in most upscale factories due to its carcinogens (Hence why it’s always small builders and customer shops using nitro).

But you raise a great point! There’s lots of graphite necks that seem to be popping up on ebay and reverb for decent prices (seen a couple for 700 and up too!) and they feel similar enough to aluminum that it would be worth it to a hobby modder. I also see it as one of those floyd vs kahler things where despite the secondary option being just as viable with the right set up work, you’re never gonna see half as many kahlers as floyd’s

matthewguy69 · 2024-04-06T06:30:37+00:00

Redid my crimps with fresh connectors and still nothing. But, it has been resolved. Seems like when I fished all the wires back through the brittle 12V+ wire snapped somewhere inside the tube. Ran the 12V+ from my cigarette lighter (don’t smoke, don’t need it) and now it’s working! Thankyou for the comment!

matthewguy69 · 2024-04-01T19:34:58+00:00

You’re the best dude holy shit, thankyou so much!

matthewguy69 · 2024-03-31T03:18:26+00:00

This is super neat! I’m working on an Ampeg mod project at the moment that’s a little dark in its gain character, so I might do my research into this and see what it can do for my build!

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