The Noisy Cricket

Whilst trawling on the internet I came across the enticingly named "Beavis Audio Research". It's a website run by a couple of guys who like to mess around with electronics and design effects pedals and so on. One of their projects was a 1/2 watt transistor based guitar amplifier called "The Noisy Cricket" that runs off a 9v battery. It only had about 30 components in it and I could get all the parts from Radio Shack for about twenty pounds. So I thought I'd have a go. Electronics is not my strong suit but looking at the schematic for the design I could begin to get a feeling for what was going on. I like the idea of building something and learning at the same time. Because I'm so sure that I'll cock it up I have actually ordered twice as many of the super cheap components so I'll have spares to hand when I short things out or solder them to death.

If it does ever actually work I felt that I'd like to design some kind of enclosure for it. As it's a transistor amp that set me thinking about 1960s transistor radios and so I've been playing around with designs influence by that aesthetic. The amp has three knobs but other than that I felt I could do as I pleased. The casing will be small, i.e. about ten inches wide. These are my three designs. I think I like the last one best. I'm still waiting for the actual parts to arrive before I can begin the build but I'll try and post some pictures as I go. Wish me luck, I shall need it.