# Gibson Clavioline Amp



## sammyr (May 7, 2013)

hi guys,

I've got a friend who was gifted an old Gibson Clavioline amp. He deosn't have the keyboard and was hoping to convert it into something useful for guitar. It's a weird amp 5v3 rectifier two 6v6s a 6j5 driver and an 0a2 voltage regulator. not to mention a field coil speaker to boot.

I'm looking over the schematic but tbh until he brings it over and i can examine it its hard to say what to do with it. it would need a quarter inch jack for the input to start but beyond that I haven't had a chance to really think what else would be needed.

If anyone has any suggestions I'd appreciate it even if it's don't bother and just leave it. I've got to do some more reading but I figured I'd throw out a feeler here.

https://antiqueradio.org/art/ClaviolineGibsonPowerSchematic.pdf


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## sammyr (May 7, 2013)

upon further inspection this may be futile. I'm assuming that it's basically a driver and a power amp and it's going to need a preamp. I assume the preamp was built into the clavioline keyboard instrument.


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## cboutilier (Jan 12, 2016)

sammyr said:


> upon further inspection this may be futile. I'm assuming that it's basically a driver and a power amp and it's going to need a preamp. I assume the preamp was built into the clavioline keyboard instrument.


Plenty of cheap preamp pedals on the market. I believe Joyo has a whole array of them.


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## nonreverb (Sep 19, 2006)

Cute! Single ended output with parallel output tubes.


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## sammyr (May 7, 2013)

It's sorta like a similar project I had where someone gifted me an old rusty Leslie 25 booster amp. cathode biased 6l6s and a 12au7 as a driver. I didn't want to hack it up so I just restore it and put in a 1/4 inch jack and a dedicated standard power cord. I just plug my guitar into one of my boost pedals and its more than enough signal to drive it. Not the most elegant solution but infinitely cheaper than a trek preamp pedal. I have an old chopped leslie 125 that I'd built a speed control as I'd just been using it as a passive cab. 

I've advised the fella that I could restore the amp and get it working in its stock form and then put a quarter inch jack in it and see where it takes him. Seems like a waste to hack up an old rare amp and try to make it something that its not.


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## nonreverb (Sep 19, 2006)

I've converted several Leslie 25's for guitar. They're great.... You can plug whatever preamp you want in. The really cool one is it's big brother the 47/147 amp utilizing the venerable 6550's cathode biased @ 40watts RMS.


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## cboutilier (Jan 12, 2016)

Could easily build a little tube preamp to sit on the top of it as a head. Couple old octal preamp tubes or some 6AV6 or something.


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## Nielsdaj (Feb 14, 2021)

sammyr said:


> hi guys,
> 
> I've got a friend who was gifted an old Gibson Clavioline amp. He deosn't have the keyboard and was hoping to convert it into something useful for guitar. It's a weird amp 5v3 rectifier two 6v6s a 6j5 driver and an 0a2 voltage regulator. not to mention a field coil speaker to boot.
> 
> ...


I have a Clavioline keyboard without the amp. I would be happy to part with it. It’s been in dry storage since the 1960s.


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