It’s a constant battle for musicians — how to practice your instrument without bothering those around you? Many of us live in apartments or shared accommodation, and having to wait until the apartment is empty or only being able to practice at certain times of day can be restrictive, especially if you need to practice for an upcoming gig or if the creative juices start flowing and it’s 3 AM! [Gavin] was having this issue and started developing Porter, a guitar/bass practice device which works with all effects pedals and is portable and rechargeable. So you can grind away your epic heavy metal solo no matter the time of day!
While there have been similar solutions, many musicians weren’t satisfied with the sound and often couldn’t support inputs from distortion pedals. They usually chewed through batteries and were just not a great solution to the problem. [Gavin] has spent the last two years fine-tuning the design. It’s a fully analog design, with built-in rechargeable batteries to boot. So it not only sounds great, but it can last as long as your practice session does with a 15-hour runtime when fully charged!
Initially, the project began as a headphone amplifier but morphed into a design specifically for guitar and bass, with preamp and power amp stages and adjustable input impedance – 500kΩ for guitars and 1MΩ for bass. The latest revision also changed to a different power amp that further reduced THD and led to an even better sound. The schematics are up on the Hackaday.io project page, but [Gavin] is also hoping to do a crowdfunding campaign to get these devices out into the hands of guitarists everywhere!
Good for him but since when does a headphone amp + buffer + flat inverting op amp stage = a design specifically for guitar and bass?!
Does he know about Vox Amplug etc.?
Oops, almost missed the single-pole LPF “cabinet simulator”. Yeah this ain’t gonna sound anything close to “amp-like” and cab-like.
I think he is not trying to emulate fully, just get a “good enough” practice sound that is similar to amps.
Probably will work fine for practice use for sure.
But why would anyone chose this primitive “good enough” product in a world where these exist?
– the aforementioned Amplug series
– Boss Katana GO
– NUX Mighty Plug
– Amphonix Sonicake
– Lekato/Ammoon/Cuvave DSP plug-in HP amps etc.,
most of which offer incomparably more options including convolution cabsim.
Maye being “all analog” is the key. Not that I understand why this matters to people but it does to many.
Because this is Hackaday not, Buyaday.
@Joseph Eoff If [Gavin] wants to “get these devices out into the hands of guitarists everywhere” the “it’s just a hack bro” excuse is not going to cut it.
Of course HE is free to use whatever he wants, but I think it would serve him well to take a deeper look at how ampsims and cabsims are usually implemented, be they analog or not. For his own tonal pursuits at least if not for product development.
It is the mark of a competent hacker to use maximum off the shelf components and minimize spend of time and money.
People that reinvent the wheel without studying the state of the art are something else.
Crank inventors.
Hi fiveseven, perhaps you missed it, but I mentioned in the project details that there are 6 revisions of the design, and my last post was about v5. I wasn’t satisfied with the sound of v5 and spent a lot of time learning how to make it better in v6. I’m hoping to get that post up soon.
To address your later comments, all of the products you suggested share the exact problem I’m trying to address: they don’t let me plug in to my own effects. I want to be able to play the effects I built, and toggle them with my feet like I’m used to. I’d also prefer a device that doesn’t have a plastic plug ready to snap off at any moment.
Finally, I never called anything a “cabinet simulator” or claimed “it’s just a hack bro”, so please don’t attribute such claims to me.
> you can grind away your epic heavy metal solo
Only… 2000s were 20 years ago. Guitar music is for losers.
Nowdays listening to Iron Maiden or KoRn is just as cringe as blasting Hastune Miku out of your VW Polo.
Sorry little kid, but heavy metal solos were from the 80’s. Cringe away.
I don’t denigrate the loops and samples on FLStudio, that’s the music you’re into. Leave the metal gods out of this, although I’ll give you Korn as cringe.
Yeah, heaven forbid that music that is played by actual people is enjoyed, vs. machine-made mumble crap with enough Autotune to completely remove any humanity from it.
Most kid’s music is just Disco.
Sure it sucks, but it always sucked. (Still have the T-shirt. One of the oldest things I own.)
70s too.
Maximum cringe.
I blame the drugs.
Disco was cocaine.
EDM is E, cocaine and a thousand different ‘test chems’. Still just Disco, but even worse, never ends, never changes (listeners aren’t putting down long term memory). House music plays in Hell.
Best reason not to do street drugs these days? They might make you like EDM. (Puked in mouth a little.)
Sad thing is, you probably make sense to yourself.
I don’t have any briny opinions about what music people must play or what hardware they’re morally obliged to use. My question is about the premise that your neighbors / roommates won’t hear your guitar practice just because you’re not using an amp. It might not be loud enough to bother them, but is it quiet enough to not embarrass you?
Hello closet my old friend, I’ve come to practice rock in you again…. :D
+1000 🤣
My neighbors listen to very loud rock music….
Whether THEY..WANT..TO..OR..NOT…🤣
Turn the amp to 25 (out of teneleven) to make them bang their heads until dandruffs gone.
Nice! The increased functionality would be enough to sell me, but I wonder how the cost will compare to the existing bluetooth solutions on the market.
Homegrown solutions are a great avenue for musicians to explore if they want an style that cannot be copied easily. My math based toolset for audio and music composition is far more useful than any lifestyle-brand options available from Roland or Yamaha. Always hack where sound is concerned, the standard tools here are meant to be broken, misused and explored. By the book for audio is more career than hobby.