The Burlingames

One of the questions I faced after buying my new bass rig was how to protect the amp. My last amp lived in a Gator rack bag. It was a nice bag: very functional, but kind of ugly. I love the look of many of the matching amps and cabinets out there, so I decided to undertake a small building project to create my own. Here’s the lumber after a bit of sawing. With some careful planning, I was able to get the whole thing out of a 2′ x 4′ sheet of plywood. Also pictured are two pieces of L-shaped aluminum which I used as brackets for mounting the amp to the inside of the cab.

Next I spray painted the lumber black. This is not a necessary step as it will be covered by carpet, but it will help camoflauge any dings that might show through the carpet in the future.

The box is starting to take shape. I used a lot of screws and glue.

Here are the assembled parts: the box, a cover for each end, and the faceplate for the front. I routed all the edges to make them nice and smooth. Notice the silver T-nuts on the faceplate. If you’ve never seen a T-nut, they’re very cool and useful. I drilled holes for them in the faceplate and pounded them in with a hammer. The faceplate is bolted into place from the back by securing it to the nailer you can see in the box.

You’ve probably also noticed all the spots inside the box in the painted area. The Eden WT-300 has a bunch of screw heads sticking out the bottom of the amp chassis, so I drilled shallow holes to allow the amp to sit flat.

All the exterior parts were then painted.

Next up was the carpet. Here’s the box with the feet attached. I put large feet on the bottom so the cab would clear the handle on top of the speaker cabinet. The small feet on the edge are used when carrying the amp, allowing me to set it down on edge. There’s a strap handle on the opposite end.

I debated covering the faceplate in carpet as well, but I thought it would be a nice subtle contrast to instead use speaker grill cloth instead. I then added some gray piping to set it off a bit.

Here’s one of the completed covers. I used a breakaway hinge on one end and a butterfly latch on the other for securing it to the box. I also mounted thinner strips of plywood (covered in carpet as well) inside the cover edges, protruding about 3/8″ to create a flange. It helps the cover to sit straight and keep dirt/water/etc. from getting inside.

Here’s the box with the amp installed. I also changed the hardware on the speaker cabinet to match the new hardware used on the amp cab.

The final product. The speaker cab has a gray metal grill covering the speakers. After getting into this build a bit, I thought it would be cool to cover the grill with the speaker cloth as well to make them match. I also added the gray piping. I’m very pleased with the final result.

There’s only one thing left to do. Eden makes an amp that uses black chrome (think shiny, dark gray) metal knobs instead of the red/blue/gray colors on most of their amps. I’m going to purchase those to replace all the knobs on this amp. I’ll post a pic when those are installed.

I’ve been quite busy lately with music gear projects. I bought a new bass rig a month or so ago and have been working hard to get it ready to rock. I purchased an Eden WT-300 amp and Ampeg PortaBass 212H speaker cabinet.

The first thing I did was add a speakon jack to the back of the amp. The cab was already wired to use the more reliable connector. The amp, however, was made back in 1997, well before speakon jacks were even invented. Conveniently, there was a spot on the back panel just big enough for me to drill a hole to accommodate the new jack. I used an Irwin Unibit step drill bit to make the holes. It worked great, easily making a clean hole.

I then mounted the jack to the amp chassis.

Here’s a look at it from the inside.

The wiring was pretty easy. I just added the jack in parallel to the existing 1/4″ jacks. All in all, it was a fun project.

I’ve been seeking to make a few changes to the pedalboard for awhile, but finally got around to it. Here’s the current layout, left to right starting at top-left: Ampeg Sub Blaster, EHX Bass Big Muff (relatively new), MXR EQ, EHX Bassballs (new), Loop-Frog routing pedal prototype (made by me), Korg tuner, Tech 21 SansAmp Programmable Bass Driver DI, EHX Small Stone (new; replaced the Russian version of the same pedal).

Could I squeeze any more on this board? Maybe. One thing that would help is to rehouse the Ampeg pedal as the electronics are much smaller than the case would lead you to believe. Another benefit of doing that would be weight reduction; the case on that thing is ridiculously heavy since it’s made of steel (rather than aluminum as many others are). The only problem, though, is I really like how it looks as is. Is that lame? Maybe. Either way, it’s not really an issue (yet) as I’m currently not wanting to put anything else on there.