Monday, January 23, 2012

Turning a tape cassette player into a guitar amplifier


I've been trying to do this for the last few weeks. I've messed up one (not collectable) old radio. But, I've figured out how to do it on a cassette machine.

I followed the instructions of a straight forward youtube video. There were a couple I found useful. This one does a good job of showing the potential but not exactly the clearest instructions:




The simple instructable is to cut the wires leading to the play head (in the centre of the image right).

There will be a live wire, red. And the other wire, in this case white. This is the wire the signal will go down to the amplifier in the player and down to the speaker.

In my case, I put a 1/4" socket next to the speaker. There wasn't really that much room, so I had to remove the tape player's motor.

Once in place I soldered the wires and drilled two holes so I could pass the wire in the cassette area.


Then you solder the wires together. It took me a while to figure out what part to solder to the jack, so I've posted what I did (see above). Just in case you're using a different brand of jack (mine was Radio Shack), the tip of the jack is live/red and the shaft is black and it will carry the signal to the rest of the machine  (in my cassette that wire was white).


Note, the little bit of copper you see hanging out is actually reinforcing wire. I wasn't sure what to do with it but it doesn't seem to effect anything so I've left it there.

The video that best help me understand how to wire the cassette player up is embedded below.


Mine turned out to be overdriven as I'm using a piezo with no volume control. But I think it sounds fantastically crunchy (below).

 

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