Do you like to play around with making your own amps? Then there’s a good chance that you’re one of those people we might occasionally catch drooling over vintage amp schematics, dreaming of how you can recreate and improve your very own gear and equipment. Learning about how an amplifier works is also a huge bonus if you are ever in the unfortunate situation of needing to repair equipment, as it can save you quite a bit on cost, expense, and frustration.

Resources that are online are a bit scarce – we spent several hours today looking for what we needed and pretty much felt like banging our head against the wall because it seems like anybody who is into this kind of thing hasn’t updated their website since oh, probably 1996 or so.

So while the collections online leave a yet to be desired, there’s not much we can do about it – while I’d like to post up my own list of them here, I probably couldn’t do that without getting pictures from another site, and that can lead to bigger problems I don’t really want to deal with! (It’s a big no-no to use other people’s images without their consent – and frankly I don’t have the time to individually contact obsolete websites to ask permission) – So, the best thing I can do is reccommend a few books to check out. There’s actually quite a lot of interesting books and while I haven’t read them all, I thought I would share some below that seemed the most interesting.

	Complete Schematics I can’t honestly review this book because it’s not scheduled to be released until January of 2010, but with 650 pages, it looks promising. You can however pre-order it at Amazon.com, which I recommend if you’re serious about this stuff because you’ll probably forget about it come January.
	The Tube Amp Book With 416 pages of new material and two CD-Roms of diagrams, this is almost a complete kit for beginners to get started. While the images could be more accurate and easier to read, this is a good place for beginners to start, especially if Fender is something you’re interested in. See More Details & Read Reviews
	Introduction to Guitar Tone and Effects This isn’t a book about building or repair amps per se – but it does have a great way of explaining how to get different effects and is definitely a good resource for beginners – sometimes just learning about it can help you come up with your own playing style. Also comes with a CD-Rom to listen to the different styles described in the book. Learn More

Can you recommend a good book or resource for vintage amp schematics? Share them in the comments below.