Complete noob amp modding questions

[Serratus]

Hi,
Firstly, any help or info gratefully received.

I am completely new to modding amps, although its something I've always thought about doing. I know very little about amps and electronics in general, although I have built guitars for a living in the past so I'm ok with a soldering iron!
So I have an idea for what I would like to do as my first project, but before I start really researching it, I would like some advice on whether what I want to do is a) possible b) easy or c) hard.

I want to buy a Harley Benton GA5H 5W valve head, then buy a couple of mod kits from ebay that I have seen to upgrade it a bit (which will all have instructions, so thats not a problem).

But I also have this idea that I would like to build in a boost pedal (like say an ibanez tube screamer). So I would take the insides out of the pedal, mount the board inside the amp, and move the controls of the pedal to the front panel of the amp. I guess I would need to supply 9V to the pedal electronics, so would I need an extra transformer in there to supply 9V?
I would like the boost to be switchable via a switch on the front of the amp and a footswitch, so would need a jack socket for a footswitch on the rear of the amp.
I also thought about doing the same thing with a reverb pedal aswell, although that would have to be later in the signal chain.

Anyway, if anyone has any ideas/advice (on a newbie level!) I'm all ears!!!

Rich

[hasserl]

I believe this is the way Top Hat got into the amp building business, I remember an interview with the guy where he said his first product was a Marshall type amp with a TS9 type pedal wired into the input of the amp. So your idea is not crazy.

I would use a 9v transformer for a power supply. You could simply buy an inexpensive wall wart and open it up and "salvage" the parts from it for your power supply. Or purchase all the parts seperately and build it on a small board. But I believe a wall wart will have a little board with all the components mounted inside the case, making things possibly a bit easier.

Weber VST has channel switching boards you could use to switch the effect in/out. https://taweber.powweb.com/store/chansw.htm

[Serratus]

Cool, thanks for the info.
I wondered if I might need a better quality transformer for it not to cause noise, bit if I can just use a normal fx pedal supply and open it up to mount inside, thats even better!

[skynyrd]

you could remove the guts from the pedal and wire the amp input into the pedal input and output of pedal to the amp board, then remove the mini pots and mount them in the front of the amp and then wire each pot to the board. You could even run a toglle switch from the pedal board to the front of the amp to turn it on or off. You could tap into the 120V power chord and use a 9V ext power supply wired in with the amps power supply to power the board, then mount it the pedal board out of the way inside the chassis of the amp. Would be time consuming but could be done, there are a couple of pedal modders out that you can get different mods for different pedals to tailor the sound to your liking.

[tyru007]

Ibanez does have a tube amp with built in tube screamer, but don't let this deter you from making your own.

Ibanez.com | Electronics, Tuners, Pedals, Accessories | TSA15H

[Gibsonman63]

The guys at "build your own clone" have all the TS9 stuff you need, plus all the tweaking parts. At one time, you could buy the circuit boards without the housings. I am not sure if you can still do that or not.

FWIW, I like my TS9 on the floor. I put some of those big knobs on it with the rubber grippers like the phase 90 so I can adjust with my foot as I go. ...ooops, my secret is out!