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#1 I suppose you're wondering why I've gathered you all here today.

Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2016 2:57 pm
by Irene Idler
Hello all. I'm Thermionic Idler's wife Meredith. I decided to join up after spending yesterday at the DIY meetup in Owston, where I had an absolutely great time and was so inspired that by the time we got home, I had the beginnings of a project for myself in mind. This morning it took more coherent form, and now I guess I'm going to have to learn to solder.

The last time I did anything with electronics was as a teenager. My parents used to buy me Radio Shack electronics kits (I think they were sold by Tandy in the UK) to build all sorts of little projects, including a "programmable computer" that I never did figure out the point of. I've always remained *interested* because most of my friends have always been hardcore nerdgeeks and I like watching people tinker. My best friend and I used to dumpster-dive for discarded TVs and stereo gear, after which he'd fix it, I'd clean it up, and we'd sell it to our similarly broke friends or trade it for various goods and services.

It's a combination of my memories of that and a conversation with one of the several Steves I met yesterday that inspired my cunning plan. My friend and I once found a discarded blueprint machine in the dumpster behind his office, and naturally we took it home so we could pull it apart and see how it worked. We made a stunningly ugly (and terrible-sounding) set of wind chimes out of most of it (aluminum turns out to be sub-optimal in terms of resonant qualities), but there were a couple of bits that looked to me like they could house a miniature guitar amplifier, plus knobs of about the right size, and my friend thought that was a brilliant idea, so he built it. It also sounded terrible, but nobody *else* had a small turquoise amp built out of aluminum, so it had that going for it.

I spent some time chatting with Steve S yesterday and he mentioned he'd put together a PA for his daughter, who's a musician. It seemed obvious that if I were to build an audio device myself, it ought to be something that would be useful to me (I'm also a musician, though long-retired from that business), assuming I ever get off my ass (sorry, arse) and perform again.

And thus the idea of the Amp Thing -- a single-box mini-PA for solo guitar and vocals that doubles as a comfortable stool -- was born. I've already got a pretty good idea of size, shape, and features, so now I guess it's time to start looking at circuits and speakers and things. Fortunately I've got a great teacher to help me out.

PS: Steve, the artist I wanted to recommend to you is Pete Miser, and his website is http://www.petemiser.com/

#2 Re: I suppose you're wondering why I've gathered you all here today.

Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2016 3:13 pm
by Cressy Snr
Hi Meredith and welcome to Audio Talk. :)

Great to talk to yourself and Dave yesterday. I was the Steve with the Metronome speakers who went first with the dems.

Steve.

#3 Re: I suppose you're wondering why I've gathered you all here today.

Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2016 3:46 pm
by Paul Barker
I was the Steve with nothing, that talked about a lot of things.

#4 Re: I suppose you're wondering why I've gathered you all here today.

Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2016 4:01 pm
by Irene Idler
As far as I've been able to determine, all of you are named either David, Steve, or Nick.

#5 Re: I suppose you're wondering why I've gathered you all here today.

Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2016 4:18 pm
by Paul Barker
Is it a Stateside thing calling Meredith Irene? Took me a while to realise men called Jack spell it John. Very difficult when your dyslexic. In England Jack is spelt Jack.

We do spell Dick Richard though.

#6 Re: I suppose you're wondering why I've gathered you all here today.

Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2016 4:29 pm
by Irene Idler
It's a bit of a Sherlock Holmes reference. Holmes referred to Irene Adler as "The Woman." Since I was the only one yesterday, it seemed appropriate.

#7 Re: I suppose you're wondering why I've gathered you all here today.

Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2016 6:32 pm
by andrew Ivimey
That's really nice. Did you meet Mike (roft) Holmes at Owsters too!?

#8 Re: I suppose you're wondering why I've gathered you all here today.

Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2016 9:38 pm
by Mike H
Yes she did briefly. :D

I woz in the red T-shirt.

I like this topic! Image

Rescuing discarded electonics crap then seeing what use I could make of it or learn from it is what I used to do a bit of when I was a student.

#9 Re: I suppose you're wondering why I've gathered you all here today.

Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2016 10:12 pm
by Dave the bass
andrew Ivimey wrote:That's really nice. Did you meet Mike (roft) Holmes at Owsters too!?
Thats a good gag, we could do with Mor(iarty) of that calibre.

#10 Re: I suppose you're wondering why I've gathered you all here today.

Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2016 10:27 pm
by andrew Ivimey
What so n- ow you want to get literary!

Elementary.