Hi Nick, Do you want to make an amplifier from scratch or are you interested in making the amp from other pieces of equipment? If you are looking for something that is fairly low power you might use an amplifier that comes with auxiliary speakers for a computer. I have found that there are lots of these little amplifier systems sitting around and unused. You will have to get a small preamplifier so that you can raise the signal level of the guitar pickups enough to provide enough power to drive the input of the computer speaker amp. If you have two computer amplifiers you might be able to use one as the preamplifier and the second as the main amp. If you have more experience with electronics you could also use one channel of the computer speaker amp as the preamp and the other channel as the main amp. I have done some similar things for a couple projects. Of course it doesn't sound like a Fender Stage Amp but at least it is loud enough so you can hear what you are playing.
Hi Nick, Do you want to make an amplifier from scratch or are you interested in making the amp from other pieces of equipment? If you are looking for something that is fairly low power you might use an amplifier that comes with auxiliary speakers for a computer. I have found that there are lots of these little amplifier systems sitting around and unused. You will have to get a small preamplifier so that you can raise the signal level of the guitar pickups enough to provide enough power to drive the input of the computer speaker amp. If you have two computer amplifiers you might be able to use one as the preamplifier and the second as the main amp. If you have more experience with electronics you could also use one channel of the computer speaker amp as the preamp and the other channel as the main amp. I have done some similar things for a couple projects. Of course it doesn't sound like a Fender Stage Amp but at least it is loud enough so you can hear what you are playing.
Hi Nick, Yes you could use an LM386 which can give you approximately 1 watt power output. You will also have to build a preamp to drive the LM386 as the voltage from your guitar pickups is fairly low. You might be able to use an op amp like a 741 for the preamp. If you lookup data sheets on these two components they may give you some basic designs that you can build. Don't expect a lot of power but you will get a lot of satisfaction when you build it yourself and it works.
Good idea with the LM386, it's still about the easiest-to-use audio amp around.
I know nothing about guitar pickups, but I recall the LM386 has a 'crazy gain' mode : ) where it can be turned up to huge levels (by adding or modifying one capacitor - the information is in the datasheet).
