So what exactly is this? Nordstrand Tone Drop

[redstrand]

Relax people. Nordstrand has a lot of fun with their descriptions. It's almost like a spoof on those crazy reviews you see on Amazon.

They're just having fun and not being boring.

Yep.

 

[hooky_marr]

Apparently, Nordstrand hired a former copywriter from some winery in Northern California.

Randall Grahm is a LEGEND. the Rhone Ranger rides again!

 

[Yeshuarocks]

So, I bought one. I guess I'll get it installed and tell everyone, in layman's terms, how it sounds.

 

[Yeshuarocks]

 

[BassLife77]

I made a few of those for my basses but instead I made them .022uF/.047uF and used a 500K pot. It's nice to change tones on the fly. I tried .1uF and it sounded too muddy. Total for each was only $6 in parts. I see Nordstrand wants $42

 

[Yeshuarocks]

Yeah, but I helped pay for all the fancy words they used for advertising. After all, six pages of comments that mostly trashes the way they chose to describe the tone cap!! Haha. I hope to make one, someday. However, I can't even solder my guitar cable properly yet. When I am able to, I plan on doing what you did.

 

[fig]

I drew this out. It's a regular passive tone control that we all know and love (ok...maybe not all of us LOL). The circuit can select between two different capacitance values.

Capacitor C1 is hardwired to stay on all the time. With the pot pushed, C1 is still on, C2 is disconnected. It's a normal passive tone control using a .047uf cap.

With the pot pulled, C2 is switched into parallel with C1, giving a .100uf cap equivalent.

That's it.

Here's the drawing:

A couple of folk in here already figured it out. I just like drawing (with pretty, pretty colors LOL) things out, 'cause it helps me in a full and quicker understanding.

And I like Nordstrand's description. Funny, to me, like some pedal descriptions.

 

[Yeshuarocks]

I drew this out. It's a regular passive tone control that we all know and love (ok...maybe not all of us LOL). The circuit can select between two different capacitance values.

Capacitor C1 is hardwired to stay on all the time. With the pot pushed, C1 is still on, C2 is disconnected. It's a normal passive tone control using a .047uf cap.

With the pot pulled, C2 is switched into parallel with C1, giving a .100uf cap equivalent.

That's it.

Here's the drawing:
View attachment 4981720

A couple of folk in here already figured it out. I just like drawing (with pretty, pretty colors LOL) things out, 'cause it helps me in a full and quicker understanding.

And I like Nordstrand's description. Funny, to me, like some pedal descriptions.

Great!!! Thank you for this!!! I'm going to try to make one, after I master the ability to solder the instrument cable. Thanks again for the diagram!!!!

 

[fig]

There were a couple of folk who thought the Nordstrand Tone Drop was smoothly sweepable between two cap values. Of course that's not the case. It's either one or another capacitance value in a push-pull config.

But there is a config that is sweepable between two different value caps. And it's easier to build than the Tone Drop. Called a Duo-Tone in the guitar site I found it in. I substituted random bass cap values for their guitar values:

The center position splits the 500kΩ resistance and puts 250kΩ on either side of the wiper. Same as a 250kΩ passive tone control at full treble position, meaning minimal hi freqs are lost. Then sweep it one way or another and hope it doesn't open an inter-dimensional portal.

I think I've seen something like this mentioned in this forum, too. Never tried it, but I put this drawing in my notes to mess with later.

Anyway, thought I'd throw this out.

Here's the article:
Mod Your Axe with the Duo-Tone Control