software

...given no knowledge or experience in the matter. Thanks in advance.

Try

I think I'm going to try one of his amps. I've heard nothing but great things about the support he gives as well.

www.ax84.com

By Having No experience. Do you mean in electronices? or Soldering skills? I would recomend taking baby steps. You may want to start by building a stompbox or 2 ( where there's No leathal voltage if you make a mistake)
That's the problem building a Amp even from a kit. One small simple mistake could could be all it take's. (i.e.) Putting a 3.3K resistor where a 3.3M belongs.Or Installing a Electrolylic cap in in the wrong polaratiy. Hope this helps.

I also have been interested in this sort of thing, and found an interesting page that explains some of the inner workings. I also checked some old amplifier books out (1940's), but quickly found that they require some higher math and physics knowledge.
from : localhost/www.geofex.com/tubeampfaq/taffram.htm

KMC is right. A pedal has no (potentially) lethal voltages inside and you get to learn a bit about how stuff works, how things are connected and such.
On top of that, you may spend ten bucks on a pedal you might not get to work and either have enough dough left for a second try, or give up entirely on musical electronics without loosing too much money on it.
Or you could end up spending a frustrating several hundreds on a tube amp kit you might not get to work ..

Surely there's a pedal you've always wanted to have, but never got around to buy it, or hype and boutique shoved up the price beyond anything reasonable for the couple of bucks worth of parts inside.
Build it yourself ! You'll find lots of information here:

from : localhost/been into pedals about one and a half year before doing tubes and I must say it's a great advantadge.
Now I'm doing simple maintanance thingies and mods and it really worries me to receive e-mails with questions from kids who bought a kit, asking me how to tell the polarity is on the resistors ..
And they're poking around with lethal voltages ? Accidents, waiting to happen.

For your own sake, don't get tempted into those low cost kits with an instruction that makes it look as easy as lego. Tube amps need to be handled with great respect, or they'll quot;get evenquot; with you and let me tell you .. you're not going to like being zapped. I didn't, but at least I got to tell.

Walk before you run, crawl before you walk ..

Build a 5E3 Tweed Deluxe and get a great amp plus an education.

I've read just about every amp book I could get my hands on. There are still a couple of Kevin O'Connors left, but other than that ...

so, I'd suggest reading some of the amp books, like Gerald Weber's to start, since they are more hands on, less technical, but still very informative and practical

he has a very good, concise section on quot;getting your amp sounding rightquot; that is especially good

1 on AX84.com. Despite what some have said, it is entirely possible to build an amp with no experience. Stay away from high gain models, but the AX84 P1 and P1-Ex are very do-able by beginners. For the basics, the AX84 P1 theory document is great, even if you don't build a P1.

Also check out 18Watt.com, a group more focused on one particular type of amp, but another that's quite do-able.

Also look into converting a donor amp - it reduces the amount of sheet metal work and lets you focus on getting the guts right. See the story of my own amp (a Bogen PA converted to an 18-Watterish mutant) in the quot;Workshopquot; section at the link in my signature. Go for it, and good luck,