To Varitone Or Not To Varitone?

[Ampig]

I'm thinking of putting one in my MIA Jazz. I'm looking for opinions of those who have already been there. Good? Bad? Indifferent?
If you liked it, maybe a recommendation on what/where to purchase.

[PilbaraBass]

stan hinsley of HAS-sound reportedly makes some quality gear, and I've checked his website and the prices are reasonable.

I think the decision depends upon you...but here are my opinions on a varitone.

Useful for a guitar because you really need to work different cutoff frequencies throughout a performance.

Useful for bass to get "the" rolloff you need...but for 90% of gigs, you'll get it set and then forget it (same thing achievable on an amp)...

if you play more "up front" in your band, it would also be a useful device for a passive bass, in my opinion...

[4Mal]

I just ordered the Bass specific vari-tone from HAS today. It's going in a 1 pickup, Dark Starred, hollow bodied Samick I'm experimenting with. Had an extra hole so what the hell. They're are cheap enough ... time will tell.

Not sure that it would be really useful on a J though. You want your J to rip, rock 'n roll ? Spend the $150 and install a JZ3 ... a blend control that really works is worth that! the z-mode is too ...

[Thangfish]

4Mal,
Have you had any contact with Stan directly?

I get no replies to my emails, and his PM box here is full.
Maybe he's on vacation... or just busy??

[GlennW]

Do it, and bypass the pots.

[Ampig]

[quote=4Mal;6085961]I just ordered the Bass specific vari-tone from HAS today. It's going in a 1 pickup, Dark Starred, hollow bodied Samick I'm experimenting with. Had an extra hole so what the hell. They're are cheap enough ... time will tell.

Well bro'? What's the result?

[mellowgerman]

my semi has a HAS sound varitone. it's great. very affordable and really gives you a whole lot of new sound possibilities. there's 5 different voicings and a bypass so you're not losing anything in the deal. GO FOR IT! you won't be sorry

[acleex38]

My first exposure to varitones was through Birdsong, and now, I love them and won't go back to a standard passive tone knob by choice. If done right, instead of "wide open" or "rolled off" - there can be a larger number of distinctive, useful tone settings.

[MichaelVee]

I'm jumping in here. First of all, Stan Hinesley has on several occasions dealt with me very promptly and professionally, so I give him about ten thumbs-up.
The Varitone he builds is a very good unit, and I have gotten two of the Sprague Orange-drop based controls from him- both excellent.

He IS a busy man right now, because he builds all his products by hand - by HIMSELF- and his business has picked up a lot due to the quality he delivers.
I know about this, because I am a sole proprietor myself.

Hang in there with Stan, he is building great products and is well worth the wait.

[Thangfish]

Originally Posted by Thangfish

I get no replies to my emails, and his PM box here is full.
Maybe he's on vacation... or just busy??

Never mind, he got back to me... hurricane.
Tropical storm got them good.

[4Mal]

oh good - I just revisited this thread - I ordered and received the Varitone maybe 3 days later. Super service from HAS. Now I neeed time to install the bugger...

[Mushroo]

I have one of Stan's varitones in my EB-0. It is an awesome way to get more versatility out of this single-pickup "one trick pony." It really helps emphasize different areas of the mid frequencies as required by the song/band/room.

On a Jazz, it would probably be a toss-up for me between the varitone or a 5-position pickup selector, as I hear the series/parallel mod is really useful on 2-pickup basses. You really can achieve a lot of "EQ" on a Jazz just by blending the pickups in different combinations.

The only argument I can see against a varitone is that it simply does not replicate the "traditional" tone control (unless you get Stan's "varitone plus" which has 2 pots). So if you use your tone control a lot, you would give up that ability (unless you drilled an extra hole or stacked the vol/tone--I think a stacked vol/tone, vol/tone, varitione setup would be the ultimate!!!)

[4Mal]

You mean the 62 J stacked pot style ? Yep - it's one of my faves for a J. Slightly darker than VVT but very versatile and often darkening up a J isn't a bad thing.

[Mushroo]

Originally Posted by 4Mal

You mean the 62 J stacked pot style ? Yep - it's one of my faves for a J. Slightly darker than VVT but very versatile and often darkening up a J isn't a bad thing.

Yes I mean 62 style with a varitone in the 3rd hole--never tried it but I bet it would be really fun!

[greenboy]

So, what is each position of the HAS Sound Varitone set up for?

[Mushroo]

Originally Posted by greenboy

So, what is each position of the HAS Sound Varitone set up for?

Position 1 is bypass, then the other 5 are various mid-contours. He does not publish any specific frequency information that I know of. Depending on your pickups, positions 5 and 6 can have a distortion effect as well. There's a link to a youtube demo on Stan's web page.

[Hoover]

Originally Posted by Ampig

I'm looking for opinions of those who have already been there. Good? Bad? Indifferent?

I used to have an Ibanez ST-980 with a 5-position VariTone. I guess ultimately I'd have to say I was Indifferent. Seemed like a cool thing, and solo'd all the sounds seemed potentially useful, but once you were in the context of a full arrangement I almost never found any of the sounds quite so compelling.

(fwiw, I had a Gibson ES-345TD guitar many years ago, and my opinion of the VariTone on that instrument was essentially the same...although what with the current popularity of "low-fi" I suppose I might embrace that guitar more nowadays.)

Originally Posted by PilbaraBass

90% of gigs, you'll get it set and then forget it

And what I found was that I almost always set it to the 1st position, aka "bypass"!

[SGD Lutherie]

I had a Varitone in my 8-string bass. It was a very mid heavy bass, and it was great for taming some mids. I've had them in a few basses and guitars over the years.

Basically they are passive midrange notch filters.

[Hoover]

Originally Posted by SGD Lutherie

Basically they are passive midrange notch filters.

What bass -- and/or what VariTone circuit -- was that? On both my Ibanez ST-980 (also an 8-string bass!) and my Gibson ES-345TD guitar they sounded more like passive bandpass filters, each with a different center frequency. In every position except #1 they seemed to roll off the highs & lows...unlike a notch filter which would leave the highs & lows mostly unaffected.

[SGD Lutherie]

Originally Posted by Hoover

What bass -- and/or what VariTone circuit -- was that? On both my Ibanez ST-980 (also an 8-string bass!) and my Gibson ES-345TD guitar they sounded more like passive bandpass filters, each with a different center frequency. In every position except #1 they seemed to roll off the highs & lows...unlike a notch filter which would leave the highs & lows mostly unaffected.

The bass and the Varitones I built. The Varitones were based on the standard Gibson circuit with different cap values for bass. I've also used the Craig Anderton version from EPFM.

Varitones are notch filters made with an LC network. On end positions of the switch you get a very high notch, which removes some of the highs, and a very low notch which removes some of the lows. But it's not a band pass.

The inductor and cap make up a resonant circuit which does act as a band pass filter, and when you have this draped across the signal line, it takes the frequency it's tuned to and shunts it to ground, leaving the higher and lower frequencies, which is the notch response.

So if the circuit is turned to 2KHz, it will pass that directly to ground, and you won't heat it, and the signals above and below 2KHz will continue to the output. Because it's passive, it's a very wide notch, and not very selective.

If you wired it up in series with the signal, it would act like a band pass, probably with a lot of insertion loss.

The midrange controls on some bart preamps also work with inductor coils, but passive circuits can't really boost, only cut (unless you are using a transformer based circuit like the Villex stuff, and even then, it's a very subtle boost).

Wikipedia list a Varitone as:

a Varitone circuit (similar to that used on the Gibson ES345) - the Varitone circuit is a mid-cut/band-stop filter with a choice of five centre frequencies

And then a band-stop filter as:

In signal processing, a band-stop filter or band-rejection filter is a filter that passes most frequencies unaltered, but attenuates those in a specific range to very low levels. It is the opposite of a band-pass filter. A notch filter is a band-stop filter with a narrow stopband (high Q factor). Notch filters are used in live sound reproduction (Public Address systems, also known as PA systems) and in instrument amplifier (especially amplifiers or preamplifiers for acoustic instruments such as acoustic guitar, mandolin, bass instrument amplifier, etc.) to reduce or prevent feedback, while having little noticeable effect on the rest of the frequency spectrum. Other names include 'band limit filter', 'T-notch filter', 'band-elimination filter', and 'band-reject filter'.