Mini amp to drive talk box

[Neal]

I've been using a small SS practice amp to drive my talk box horn, but it creates a fair amount of clutter around my mike stand. I'd like to find a micro amp that I can mount in an enclosure along with my horn driver and a footswitch, along the lines of the Rocktron Banshee. Is there a mini amp out there with enough power to push my driver loud enough to match my vocals? Something from Radio Shack I can modify? I've thought about just getting a Banshee, but I already own everything except the amp portion, so I'd like to just build one instead.
I'm thinking of something along the lines of the MXR Micro-amp, but I've never messed with one. Has anyone tried something like this?
By the way, I blame this board.... since you helped me fix my old Electric Mistress, now I'm rethinking my entire pedalboard! This place is great!
Thanks!
Neal

[Regis]

How about one of these. The lil gem MkII has about one watt of power.

You could also buy one of those little bitty SS amps that look like a marshall or fender and cannibalize the amp out of it. I have one of each of them and they crank pretty hard. They run on nine volts so you could power it from your pedalboard ps. The are only about a watt in power as well, not sure that would be enough though.

Is your talkbox a commercial one or did you build it? I've been wanting to fool around with building one but not sure what kind of driver to use.

[Neal]

Yup, home-built

Thanks for the reply, Regis... that link you provided might be just the thing!
My talk box is homebuilt.... I'm a pack rat, and somewhere along the line I ended up with 2 or three midrange drivers. I ran my guitar through all of them, and picked the one with the warmest sound. I think it's a Kustom, of all things. Got some tubing from the hardware store, stuffed it in the throat of the driver, and off I went. For a long time I used my guitar amp to power it, with a footswitch to go between my guitar speaker and the horn driver. This setup is limiting, though... you can't run stereo, for example, or run an extension speaker from your amp: you'd get your talkbox PLUS your regular guitar sound from the extension speaker. I started using a little solid state practice amp to drive the horn, but now I have the practice amp, the footswitch, and the driver all just sitting there connected by a rat's nest of cables. I'm trying to tidy it all up a little.
Neal

[Neal]

Follow-up....

This'll get me banned from the board, I'm sure, but my wife dragged me through Wal-mart last week. They had a display of cheapie guitars and amps, and the smallest amp was 4 watts and had a 4" speaker. I picked it up for less than 30 bucks, took out the speaker and baffle board, mounted my horn driver in a new baffle board, and used it last weekend to power my talk box. Worked great. The whole thing is about 6" square, and is powered by a wall wart.
I saved the little plastic nameplate, and I'm thinking about putting it on a boutique tube amp to confuse the tone snobs.
Neal

[Regis]

That's cool neal, with all those soccer moms and rednecks at walmart nobody probably recognized you anyway!!

What kind of driver are you using? I know that's the secret.

[Neal]

What kind of driver are you using? I know that's the secret.

I'm using an old Kustom midrange driver with about a 1" throat. I had about 3 mid drivers lying around that had been pulled from PA's for one reason or another, and the Kustom was the warmest and fattest, so that's what I've been using.
For switching, I have an A/B box that I use for a tuner switch. When I need the talk box, I just unplug the tuner and plug it into the little amp. When I'm done, I just plug the tuner back in. Pretty simple, and leaves more room onstage for beer bottles!
Neal

[ozgur]

Theres something I really wonder...4 or up to 10 Watts seems a little weak to drive midrange speakers...I have a 35 Watt speaker which seems to blow my mouth out...I used it with a 10 W amp and the sound vanished...Some kind of faint dying sound...also just in 5 min.s the output transistors gave up...Termal shutdown...So i'm thinking of building a ~30W amp to drive it and to put it in a box...So i will be able to use my amp with a tiny preamp for the mic...

[Neal]

Theres something I really wonder...4 or up to 10 Watts seems a little weak to drive midrange speakers...I have a 35 Watt speaker which seems to blow my mouth out...I used it with a 10 W amp and the sound vanished...Some kind of faint dying sound...also just in 5 min.s the output transistors gave up...Termal shutdown...So i'm thinking of building a ~30W amp to drive it and to put it in a box...So i will be able to use my amp with a tiny preamp for the mic...

Sounds like your amp may have been sick to begin with....So far, the little 4 watt amp has worked fine, and that's with an impedance mismatch (the internal speaker was 4 ohms, my talkbox driver is 8 ohms). The Rocktron Banshee is only listed as 5 watts. Don't forget, the talkbox only has to be as loud as your singing voice. I used to use my regular guitar amp (45 watts or so) as my driver amp, and when I used the talkbox, the other band guys would shut my monitor off. I'm sure the soundguy did some scrambling also. Now, with my talkbox set to about the same volume as my vocal, nobody has to touch a knob when I use it.
Neal

[swt]

i've used an lm386n1 circuit...but it's too low if you don't use a separate mic for voices. if it's only for talk box use, or home, it's alright to go with that. if you need more power, i suggest a TDA 2030, that will give you 6 to 10 watts.