Post by JFrankParnell on Apr 12, 2011 16:01:09 GMT -5
Pignose Roland FrankenHog
So, I had 2 portable amps, the Pignose Hog 30 and Roland Micro Cube.
[edit] - I rebuilt my website, so the images below got borked. See pics here: radiokdug.com/2012/11/pignose-roland-frankenhog/
The Pignose Hog is supposed to be a portable battery (and AC) powered bass amp. It does work ok for that. I played some surprisingly long outdoor jams with it on battery power. It keeps up with a couple acoustic guitars, no problem. Unfortunately, it has old school rechargeable batteries (at least mine does, I bought it around 1997), which means they die (permanently) fairly young.
The Roland Micro Cube runs on 6 AA batteries or AC. It will hold its own with an acoustic, and I've even used it for bass while playing with an acoustic player. But, it wont go very loud and when it does, it starts to distort the speaker pretty badly. The good thing about this is the amp modeling. No, it doesnt really sound like a Mesa on the R-Fier setting, but it does try. Also it has some FX and reverb, so thats cool.
The Hog really only has one sound, and it's not that fun to play guitar thru; there's not even any reverb. My micro cube had a blown speaker, so it was about worthless.
Hmmm, if only I could combine the best features of each amp, I'd have a pretty cool little portable amp...
Well, I do have a screw gun, a skill saw and some plywood...
I'VE GOT IT! The FrankenHog!
The guts come out of the roland real easy, just a few screws:
Likewise, the Pignose just unscrews:
Guts of the Pignose: I mainly took this apart to change out the power switch so I could switch on both amps at once. I replaced the rotary 1P1T with a toggle DPDT. I put the cool pignose knob on the master volume.
Here's the pignose speaker fitted into the new board. Note my use of extreme fancy quality plywood, finished with a few swipes of ultra-fine 60 grit sandpaper.
Attaching the Roland guts to the front:
To get it to fit, and to be able to access what was originally the back (and had now become the top), I bent down the chassis and moved the circuit board to the new location:
When I installed the front into the cabinet, there wasnt much room to put plugs into the Roland part. I'll need a 90* angle cord.
Its ALIVE! I take the "headphone/line out" from the Roland into the rear input of the Hog. It works pretty well. I like having the verb and FX in the hog as well as the distortions on tap.
So, I had 2 portable amps, the Pignose Hog 30 and Roland Micro Cube.
[edit] - I rebuilt my website, so the images below got borked. See pics here: radiokdug.com/2012/11/pignose-roland-frankenhog/
The Pignose Hog is supposed to be a portable battery (and AC) powered bass amp. It does work ok for that. I played some surprisingly long outdoor jams with it on battery power. It keeps up with a couple acoustic guitars, no problem. Unfortunately, it has old school rechargeable batteries (at least mine does, I bought it around 1997), which means they die (permanently) fairly young.
The Roland Micro Cube runs on 6 AA batteries or AC. It will hold its own with an acoustic, and I've even used it for bass while playing with an acoustic player. But, it wont go very loud and when it does, it starts to distort the speaker pretty badly. The good thing about this is the amp modeling. No, it doesnt really sound like a Mesa on the R-Fier setting, but it does try. Also it has some FX and reverb, so thats cool.
The Hog really only has one sound, and it's not that fun to play guitar thru; there's not even any reverb. My micro cube had a blown speaker, so it was about worthless.
Hmmm, if only I could combine the best features of each amp, I'd have a pretty cool little portable amp...
Well, I do have a screw gun, a skill saw and some plywood...
I'VE GOT IT! The FrankenHog!
The guts come out of the roland real easy, just a few screws:
Likewise, the Pignose just unscrews:
Guts of the Pignose: I mainly took this apart to change out the power switch so I could switch on both amps at once. I replaced the rotary 1P1T with a toggle DPDT. I put the cool pignose knob on the master volume.
Here's the pignose speaker fitted into the new board. Note my use of extreme fancy quality plywood, finished with a few swipes of ultra-fine 60 grit sandpaper.
Attaching the Roland guts to the front:
To get it to fit, and to be able to access what was originally the back (and had now become the top), I bent down the chassis and moved the circuit board to the new location:
When I installed the front into the cabinet, there wasnt much room to put plugs into the Roland part. I'll need a 90* angle cord.
Its ALIVE! I take the "headphone/line out" from the Roland into the rear input of the Hog. It works pretty well. I like having the verb and FX in the hog as well as the distortions on tap.
