PCB design for guitar amps

[jmcd]

Hi Guys

John, you correctly stated how the above board was designed - with over-sized holes.

Many builders who go from eyelet or turret board construction to PCBs try to copy their hand-wired layout as closely as possible in an effort to not lose any "mojo". One way, is to do as your photo shows and have very large holes (drills) in the pads, which themselves should be generous in diameter to provide a large solder area. This mimics eyelets.

In other cases, like Mickey Corrieri's amps, he rotated the components to match their physical orientation in the hand-wired prototypes, with all the familiar "V" shapes and "W"s and "L"s we see so frequently.

Have fun

Thanks for the response, Kevin. 

In addition to preserving the "mojo" of turret-board construction, the PCB with oversized pads would also discourage builders from packing the parts too tightly. I think it was in TUT3 where you (KOC) said that an "airy layout" helps to make an amp feel and sound big. I've always tried to maintain a reasonably airy layout after digging into TUT3.