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A simple varitone circuit for your bass -

#81
greenboy said:
I know. I've often seen them at gigs, messing with knobs and switches when they should be playing ; } ...Some of them hit the wrong stop/detent and are trying to get right, of course. At some point it makes better sense to do footwork for tonal changes when it comes to live work, I suppose is my underlying take on this.
Click to expand...

That would be me. I've always had a problem with knob-messing when you should be playing. It's why I hate vol/vol setups. I've sort of come to the conclusion that the minimum knob-messing occurs when you don't have any continuous adjustments except for volume. What I like to do is experiment with a variety of things (such as tone caps or series/parallel or switching pickups etc.) decide which things gives me a tone that I like and can find useful musically and then put it on a switch position. This allows me to easily flip between tone settings without a lot of knob twiddling. A varitone like this circuit is a very good start toward finding out which tone settings you want on your switches.
 
#82
neurotictim - your revision to the varitone wiring looks about right. The back of the tone pot should be a sufficient ground, though, so you wouldn't need the additional ground shown in your diagram. I would also consider adding an output jack... :)
 
#88
Got all my parts in the mail today! Gonna fire up the soldering iron tomorrow.

Any thoughts on adding that fuzzy sound. I'm thinking about the third diagram down.
 
#91
Stealth said:
Adding the fuzzy passive sound might be doable. Off that page you linked at AMZ, I'd go with either the second or third schematic - either the high-frequency fuzz or the low-frequency fuzz. No idea which'd be preferable in your setting, though.
Click to expand...

I'm thinking the third. Do I just put this between the varitone and the output jack?
 
#94
idoru said:
I cobbled a 12-way together back in August, and posted this clip here:

The tone pot on my beloved Tokai APB-'57 (just post-lawsuit Tokai "'57 p-bass reissue" from 1985 or 1986) has a bent shaft on the tone pot and my Ibanez Artcore AGB-140 with it's SGD dual coil pickup could use something different as well. I rarely ever use the tone control on a bass.

This has me intrigued. I was toying with the idea before this thread turned up, but I'm into it now. I like the idea of putting a stacked knob pot for volume and tone and a six selector switch for the cap value. Or just leave the volume pots alone and have the caps run full on where the tone control would be. I need to start by just getting a pair of the rotary switches and the caps.

I like this thread. Thanks for starting it.

KO
Click to expand...
 
#95
neurotictim said:
Okay, so how about this? I'm going to modify another SX for an HH Stingray configuration, and I was thinking of trying this.

Corrections, or suggestions?

HHSplitVaritone1.jpg


I combined a wiring diagram from guitarelectronics.com with your varitone diagram, and added a tone pot. It looks right to me, but does it look right to those of you who know what you're doing?
Click to expand...

neurotictim said:
Like this, then? Granted, it's not the prettiest as drawn, but electrically speaking?

HHSplitVaritonetake2.jpg
Click to expand...

Look at your second diagram. What you need to do there is to wire the volume pot like this;
Lug 1; Output to the tip terminal
Lug 2: Input
Lug 3: Ground.
and with the output from the 3-way coming in at lug #2 on the pot. Then you wire the input of the Varitone to either lug #1 on the volume pot or the tip terminal on the output jack. The other end of the Varitone capacitors are wired straight to ground, preferably the ring terminal on the output jack.
 
#96
kraigo-- I replaced the tone pot in a pbass with a varitone from stanhinesleypickups.com (it now has volume and varitone only). After playing it for several months now, I miss the tone pot. Jumping from cap to cap can be a bit stark, and it would be nice to be able to tweak the varitone settings a bit with the pot.
 
#97
kcbassy said:
kraigo-- I replaced the tone pot in a pbass with a varitone from stanhinesleypickups.com (it now has volume and varitone only). After playing it for several months now, I miss the tone pot. Jumping from cap to cap can be a bit stark, and it would be nice to be able to tweak the varitone settings a bit with the pot.
Click to expand...

Good information, thanks. The thing is that I always just leave the tone control wide open anyway, so the chances are that I'll just leave the Varitone at "by-passed" anyway. Or I'll do the varitone for the Artcore, who knows.

KO
 
#98
kraigo said:
Good information, thanks. The thing is that I always just leave the tone control wide open anyway, so the chances are that I'll just leave the Varitone at "by-passed" anyway. Or I'll do the varitone for the Artcore, who knows.

KO
Click to expand...

I'm in the same boat - I like all on or all off; the anemic mids at any other setting just don't cut it for me. Having some well chosen cap values to hand means I can go from sparkly to dubby at the twist of a dial. I will say this though - chickenhead knobs are pretty much essential for visual reference.

c-
 
#99
Wow, that was the most frustrating thing I've done in a while!

Originally, I wanted to put a single 12 position and a tone knob in a box. I couldn't get it to work, I tried everything. I took it apart a few times, nothing.

I also ordered 2 6 pole rotaries so I could put them in two basses once I figured which caps I like best.

I ended up using the 2 6 polers but without a pot. I got the pot to work a few times, just not altogether and I figured I could live without it.

But, now it all works and it's pretty cool. Maybe I can learn something from this one to make a proper box with all bugs removed! (that's what this version was supposed to be!)

I want to try the fuzz circuit eventually for the "Big Box of Fun" with as many caps as I can with a tone knob. I can dream, right?
 

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