How to Make a Mini Guitar Amplifier
- 1). Obtain portable speakers and put in the batteries. In choosing your speakers, it's fine to go with the cheapest option; a practice amp need not have perfect bass or high-end response. All you need are some battery-powered speakers that can throw decent midrange tones.
Many portable speakers come in a "stereo" configuration where you get two separate speakers connected by a wire. If you have speakers like this, you may fasten them together with duct tape to keep your mini amp a single unit. - 2). Obtain the correct adapters. Your speakers will either have a 1/8-inch female input (like the headphone jack on an MP3 player), or a lead wire with a 1/8-inch male plug (like a pair of headphones.)
If you have a female jack, you'll need a 1/8-inch plug to 1/4-inch jack adapter. The 1/8-inch plug fits into the input on your speakers and ends in a 1/4-inch jack in which you can plug your guitar cable.
If your speakers have a 1/8-inch lead, you'll need two parts: a 1/4-inch plug to 1/8-inch jack adapter and a 1/4-inch coupler. The plug coming from the speakers goes into the 1/8-inch jack on the adapter. Then you stick the 1/4-inch coupler on the 1/4-inch plug end of the adapter. You're left with a 1/4-inch jack in which you can plug a standard guitar cable.
See References to find Radio Shack part numbers for the required adapters. - 3). Plug your guitar cable into the 1/4-inch jack on the adapter. Plug the other end of the cable into your guitar.
- 4). Power on the speakers. Crank the volume on the guitar all the way up, but start with a low volume setting on the speakers themselves. Increase the volume on the speakers until you achieve the desired loudness, then adjust your guitar knobs as needed for tone.
- 5). The heavy-duty guitar cable and pro-quality adapters may create stress on the 1/8-inch jack. You can reinforce your project by simply duct taping all of the joints together so the components are not flexing or straining against one another.
- 6). Optionally, you can add a distortion effect by buying a cheap distortion pedal (Danelectro makes decent ones) and patching it in to your homemade mini amp unit between the guitar and the speakers. This will, of course, require another battery to power the distortion unit. If you want to make the distortion feature "permanent" for the mini amp, just break out the duct tape again and affix the distortion pedal to the speaker unit. It's not pretty, but it's pretty awesome.
If distortion isn't your thing, Danelectro also makes cheap chorus, tremolo and phaser pedals you can use to "customize" your mini-amp's features.
