Headphone Amp: Guitar + Backing Tracks

M

Mr Phil

Member
I'd like to build my own headphone amp (and maybe amp/cab simulator) to play directly through my pedals into headphones. I've found several different headphone amp schematics on the web, including a few PCB's. In case people are interested, some of them are discussed in this thread:
https://forum.pedalpcb.com/threads/headphones-need-a-new-pedal-to-build.6086/

Building the headphone amp seems straightforward. However, I'd like to add the capability to play along with music or backing tracks from my phone and I haven't found any schematics that include this feature. Does anyone know of an existing schematic (or PCB) for this? Below is a quick diagram to clarify what I'm looking for. Ideally it would have separate controls for the guitar vs phone signals.

Mono vs Stereo guitar signal: I currently don't have any stereo pedals, but this seems like a nice feature to have for future capability (PedalPCB's Binaural Stereo FV-1 project???). This would obviously require a true stereo headphone amp circuit, and not one that just splits the mono signal in two.

20210406_132504.jpg
 
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I would add a cabsim somewhere there.. or even two simple cabsims for stereo. So mabye headphone amp with a cabsim at the input?
 
Right, I didn't draw it in the diagram, but could add an amp/cab sim (UniCab or Emu Amp Simulator for example) before the headphone amp.
 
I’m planning on tackling something similar to this. I’ll be putting a unicab in the same enclosure as two other circuits from generalguitargadgets. One is a 4 channel mixer and the other is the MXR Headphone Amp.

my thought is I’ll have the unicab be seen first and can be bypassed with the typical 3PDT stomp but it will then go to a toggle switch to send it to either the pedal output or to the headphone amp. The headphone amp will have the mixer right before it that will blend the guitar with a stereo aux input for backing tracks. Mono output tho not stereo like you’re suggesting.
 
ADAOCE said:
I’m planning on tackling something similar to this. I’ll be putting a unicab in the same enclosure as two other circuits from generalguitargadgets. One is a 4 channel mixer and the other is the MXR Headphone Amp.

my thought is I’ll have the unicab be seen first and can be bypassed with the typical 3PDT stomp but it will then go to a toggle switch to send it to either the pedal output or to the headphone amp. The headphone amp will have the mixer right before it that will blend the guitar with a stereo aux input for backing tracks. Mono output tho not stereo like you’re suggesting.
Click to expand...
I think I'm heading down a similar path as you described. I was looking at the same 4-channel mixer from GGG, but might try a stripboard version of it from Tagboard Effects: http://tagboardeffects.blogspot.com/2013/01/4-channel-mixer.html?m=0

I was also looking at the MXR headphone amp, but I started by breadboarding Beavis Audio's Noisy Cricket mkII with headphone daughter board option (http://tagboardeffects.blogspot.com/2012/04/noisy-cricket-mkii.html?m=0 ) Perhaps I'll breadboard the MXR headphone amp also to compare the two. I was hoping the Noisy Cricket would sound more "amp like", but I need to experiment with it more. If needed, adding something like the Unicab would be my next step.

I'm going to play around with a mono setup first to make sure I get something I like before potentially jumping into a stereo version. As previously mentioned, I don't have a need for stereo yet, but would be nice for future capability.
 
Mr Phil said:
I think I'm heading down a similar path as you described. I was looking at the same 4-channel mixer from GGG, but might try a stripboard version of it from Tagboard Effects: http://tagboardeffects.blogspot.com/2013/01/4-channel-mixer.html?m=0

I was also looking at the MXR headphone amp, but I started by breadboarding Beavis Audio's Noisy Cricket mkII with headphone daughter board option (http://tagboardeffects.blogspot.com/2012/04/noisy-cricket-mkii.html?m=0 ) Perhaps I'll breadboard the MXR headphone amp also to compare the two. I was hoping the Noisy Cricket would sound more "amp like", but I need to experiment with it more. If needed, adding something like the Unicab would be my next step.

I'm going to play around with a mono setup first to make sure I get something I like before potentially jumping into a stereo version. As previously mentioned, I don't have a need for stereo yet, but would be nice for future capability.
Click to expand...
I thought about building on vero actually. I think the pcbs might help me fit it all in the enclosure. I’ll be interested to see what your thoughts are on the circuits after breadboarding it. I am definitely relying on the unicab to help the sound knowing that the headphone amp will likely have a flat response that doesn’t sound quite right.
I sketched out a quick template for drilling I think I’m up to 20 holes in a gorva S90!
 
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