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A simple varitone circuit for your bass -

#181
smoothdave said:
I want to thank Dark Horse for his work on this and SGD_Lutherie and davelowell2 for answering my questions. I finished wiring this up(with some help) in my old bass this weekend, and it sounds ridiculously awesome. :hyper::hyper::hyper::hyper::hyper:

I used Quarter Pounders with a 500k volume pot and the following caps after testing about 30 different possibilities.

1-open
2-0.010
3-0.022
4-0.047
5-0.100
6-0.470

It's amazing. The thud from that 0.470 is just nuts.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. You guys rock.
Click to expand...


It took some time to find this.
I was asked to modify tone control and could not find this schematic.

Did smoothdave's mod on a Pbass last year. Been useful.

Does this thread merit a sticky or reference at beginning of section?
 
#182
Wouldn't replacing the origal tone cap by a pot parallel to a 1 uf cap and going into a smaller cap towards the ground have about the same effect as this switchable circuit? With the pot bypassing the large cap you'd have the cut-off of the smal cap, with the pot dialing in the extra larger valued cap the total capacitance would rise truly variable and the cut-off frequency would go down. If the right value stacked pot exits it would be nice to have as a stacked tone/cutoff control knob.
 
#186
Matthijs said:
Something like this?:

View attachment 211289
Click to expand...

That's not a Varitone. You need an inductor between the cap and ground.

Here's the version in the Gibson Ripper bass. Its the middle control with the .1 µF cap.

You can use an audio transformer like this for the choke (inductor):

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#187
SGD Lutherie said:
That's not a Varitone. You need an inductor between the cap and ground.

Here's the version in the Gibson Ripper bass. Its the middle control with the .1 µF cap.

You can use an audio transformer like this for the choke (inductor):

Invalid Link Removed
Click to expand...

I wasn't trying to recreate the actual varitone. I was just wondering wether the effect of the OP's circuit could not also be reached by a circuit like the one I posted. I haven't tried it but it seems to me the variability would be usefull, and if the pot values work out, you might be able to control the whole thing with one stacked pot.
 
#189
I'm not getting any reactions here, might be due to a very obvious mistake in the cap values in the circuit I posted. What it is supposed to be is a relatively big cap directly to the ground and a similar cap that gets dialed in in series with that cap. With the extra cap in series the total capacitance is about 1/10 of the respective cap sizes. I'd think the values inbetween would be somewehere inbetween.

When this still doesn't attract any attention by the experts there's no choice left but experimenting myself: I'll remove the cobwebs from my soldering iron.
 
#191
#192
i want to build

example : open my link my Diagram Pre AMPS

*VOLUME (Single Knob)
*PASSIVE TONE (Single knob)
*BLEND (Single knob)

*TREBLE LEVEL (EQ) & FREQUENCY (knob stack)
=FREQUENCY Treble

*MID LEVEL (EQ) & FREQUENCY (Knob stack)
=FREQUENCY (150Hz - 3kHz)

*BASS LEVEL (EQ) & FREQUENCY (Knob stack)
=BASS FREQUENCY

*SWITCH PickUP CHANGE
*ACTIVE PASSIVE SWITCH
*POWER(battery)

Total 6 Knob tone equalizer and 2 switch PU And Active/passive

QUestion
what preamp suitable for these charts?
whether to custome preamp?
There are selling so from the factory? what brand? what type?
anyone ever make/custome preamp same with me?
Give mee solution for me from my problem...

plz master or teacher :help: newbie...!!!:bawl::crying::bawl:
thanks :hyper:
 
#194
For anyone that may be interested I have just completed a major electronics mod on a SX short scale fretless J-Bass. This mod utilizes a 12 position decade switch with 11 capacitors and a pot for fine tuning. For details with pics please visit This Thread. A lot of my ideas originally came from many of you here on this thread so I thank you all!!


jbs.jpg




Thanks again!!
 
#197
jags said:
Thanks for that suggestion. I was thinking about how that might sound and you answered my question! It wouldn't take much to change the wirling on the 5 way. I'm going to try that and I'll let you know how it works out.

Thanks SGD Lutherie!
Click to expand...

Back in the 70s I had a crazy amount of switches on my Rickenbackers. So I had series/parallel and a phase switch. Parallel out-of-phase is really thin. Series is a little better. It's actually the tone you hear on the Devo song Jaco Homo (played on a Ripper).

Another trick you can do is keep them parallel and then run the bridge pickup though a cap to reduce the low end. That restores the lows and still gives that hollow out of phase tone. You can try a .02µF cap. Smaller will leave more low end, so if you want more try .01µF or even .005µF.

That might even be better than the series wiring. The cap doesn't work with the series wiring because it will reduce the lows.
 
#198
I just modified the mod and did the out-of-phase in series as SGD lutherie suggested. It definately made an improvement as it is far less thin sounding. I really like it now!!

I went ahead and changed the schematic drawing to show the new and improved design.

SGD Lutherie said:
Another trick you can do is keep them parallel and then run the bridge pickup though a cap to reduce the low end.
Click to expand...

Never thought of that one. It sounds like it would be pretty interesting but I don't think I have enough room in there to squeeze in another cap. I'm really happy with your first suggestion and I'm going to keep it that way. ;)

Thanks again!
 
#199
jags said:
Never thought of that one. It sounds like it would be pretty interesting but I don't think I have enough room in there to squeeze in another cap. I'm really happy with your first suggestion and I'm going to keep it that way. ;)

Thanks again!
Click to expand...

Caps are small, as long as you aren't using some big orange drop, which is totally unneeded. It could be soldered right on the back of the switch. Even a small ceramic cap is all you need.
 

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