Which Value Caps Recommended for a 6 Way "ToneStyler"/"Varitone" Style Switch?

[Ritter667]

I want to install my own homemade "Tonerstyler"/"Varitone" like 6 way rotary switch in my bass.

It would just be that, and no other controls, and I need one of the positions to be a total bypass, that is the pickup routed directly to output jack socket, as it is currently.

Now the question is which 5 values of capacitors would work well with bass?

Or would I be better off with 11 capacitors, using a push/pull 2 X 6 way rotary switch?

I want nothing too extreme, and am mostly interested in different relatively subtle HPF'ers with resonant peaks, with the most extreme being similar to that of a standard bass with tone control all the way down.

Also how would I connect this switch, as said current my single pickup is wired directly to the output socket of my bass, and I want this switch to be the only control?

Just to make it clear, I am not all that well versed in electronics, but I do know how to solder.

 

[silky smoove]

When I owned a ToneStyler Bass 10, I found the last few positions (most rolled off) to be mostly unusable. They attenuated so much of the signal bandwidth that output began to suffer considerably. For my needs, setting 10 (bypassed), setting 9 (similar to a traditional tone control all the way up), settings 8-6 (the sweet spot for many gigs) were all very usable, and setting 5 might be useful in a reggae setting or similar. I don't know if Stellartone has ever published the cap values for each of their settings, but it could be worth a look.

 

[cousinelmer]

Apologies in advance for not having a succinct answer...

The five perfect values might depend on the characteristics of your pickup. The video below shows how one person took measurement to guide his selection. I don't have that ability so I'd resort to trial an error. The video is well worth watching for some ideas -- in particular why you might want some resistors to help control the peaks.



Some installations of the ToneStyler retain the tone pot. Stellartone refers to it as depth control. Having experimented with a ToneStyler a little, dialing in a little resistance is useful for some positions. Having a pot lets you choose the amount of "depth" for any given capacitor. What the fellow did in that video is very cool because it avoids having to fiddle with a pot when moving through the caps.

I would probably seek some middle ground. I that I only used a very narrow range of resistance from the depth pot when using a ToneStyler. Since I'm using an actual ToneStyler, I can't add carefully curated resistors. However I think having about 3 well chosen resistors on a 3 way selector switch would suffice and make adjustments less tedious than tweaking a pot.
Note that idea is somewhat validated by Stellartone in the external pedal shown here:

Post in thread 'Tone Knob Pedal'

Dec 23, 2025

I use this one and like it a lot. Passive Varitone with different capacitors and switch to adjust intensity.

• Dynacord

• 

I assume that the three way switch introduces (probably two) well chosen resistors to tame the peaks. Note the instructions at the bottom.

Given all of that... Since you are wired directly to the output jack, I'd probably get a short low capacitance cable to a small box where I could experiment with different capacitors and optional resistor. And use that to curate 5 well chosen caps.

 

[silky smoove]

However I think having about 3 well chosen resistors on a 3 way selector switch would suffice and make adjustments less tedious than tweaking a pot.

I'm inclined to agree. For my needs having one that was fully bypassed, one that just took the edge off similar to ToneStyler position 8, and then one that was a classic Motown or RnB type setting similar to ToneStyler position 6 and I'd be all set. If they each had resistors set to balance apparent output it would be even better.

 

[sunbeast]

@cousinelmer gives great advice and that RobMods video (as with all the RobMods resources on YouTube, his website, and on TB) is great stuff. I would just buy a bunch of values and test them to find favorites as he does in that video. Going between your current tone pot value and the tiny values usually used for pickup tuning leaves a pretty large expanse of possible values to choose only 6 from and so it would be impossible to guess for your needs. Each capacitor will have a pretty sharp resonant peak associated to it which he visually shows in that video) and a “depth” pot or added depth resistor (like what he adds near the end of the video) would probably be advisable to help tame the honkier tones you will get as you move that resonant frequency down into the midrange (personally I like a pot dedicated to this purpose though as sometimes I might want the honk). The depth pot/resistor is just wired as a variable resistor between the end of the capacitor and ground or between the source and the input of the switch (works the same either way). Probably you can get away with just using a 50k pot for this based on my experience as much more resistance than that will start to roll off the resonance nearly completely- you could even mod this pot to be a “zero load” tone pot so that when it is turned all the way up it will bypass the entire capacitor array and you won’t need a separate bypass setting. I have built a Tonestyler and depth pot into a pedal before with good results and would probably recommend that, at least until you’ve dialed in your values to taste. You can set depth pot to taste and measure the resistance to then hardwire onto a separate switch or onto the main capacitor switch if you don’t like having the added pot.

 

[markanini]

Instead of guessing, get one of these https://amazon.com/dp/B06ZZK5DRF hook two leads across your output jack and you will be able to explore the full range of values and figure out what's useful to you and your bass.

 

[cousinelmer]

@cousinelmer gives great advice and that RobMods video (as with all the RobMods resources on YouTube, his website, and on TB) is great stuff. I would just buy a bunch of values and test them to find favorites as he does in that video. Going between your current tone pot value and the tiny values usually used for pickup tuning leaves a pretty large expanse of possible values to choose only 6 from and so it would be impossible to guess for your needs. Each capacitor will have a pretty sharp resonant peak associated to it which he visually shows in that video) and a “depth” pot or added depth resistor (like what he adds near the end of the video) would probably be advisable to help tame the honkier tones you will get as you move that resonant frequency down into the midrange (personally I like a pot dedicated to this purpose though as sometimes I might want the honk). The depth pot/resistor is just wired as a variable resistor between the end of the capacitor and ground or between the source and the input of the switch (works the same either way). Probably you can get away with just using a 50k pot for this based on my experience as much more resistance than that will start to roll off the resonance nearly completely- you could even mod this pot to be a “zero load” tone pot so that when it is turned all the way up it will bypass the entire capacitor array and you won’t need a separate bypass setting. I have built a Tonestyler and depth pot into a pedal before with good results and would probably recommend that, at least until you’ve dialed in your values to taste. You can set depth pot to taste and measure the resistance to then hardwire onto a separate switch or onto the main capacitor switch if you don’t like having the added pot.

That's all great advice.Regarding a 50K depth pot -- yes indeed. I had a 250K depth pot and only a tiny bit of rotation was useable. 50K would be a good start -- perhaps less. A zero load tone pot is a clever idea, +1. I'll likely move my Tonestyler to an external box with either a well selected depth pot, some resistors on a rotary switch or maybe a 3 position toggle.

 

[sikamikanico]

I used a 20k “depth” pot and it works well. Or maybe it was 25k, cannot recall.

Regarding cap values, I found two useful ranges for my tastes: values up to a few thousand pF are most musical, and that’s with a pickup (P) wired in parallel. Then it gets honky until around .033 uF, and overkill above .068 uF. The latter values are typically used on tone controls, and the former just give you different flavors of the basic pickup sound.

I also found that if caps increase in capacitance by a factor of about 2.2, I get a nice smooth gradual transition in tones. Perhaps akin to the “audio” taper on pots. So something like bypass-330-680-1500-3300-6800 pF…

But yeah, experiment and see for yourself!

 

[sunbeast]

I used a 20k “depth” pot and it works well. Or maybe it was 25k, cannot recall.

Regarding cap values, I found two useful ranges for my tastes: values up to a few thousand pF are most musical, and that’s with a pickup (P) wired in parallel. Then it gets honky until around .033 uF, and overkill above .068 uF. The latter values are typically used on tone controls, and the former just give you different flavors of the basic pickup sound.

I also found that if caps increase in capacitance by a factor of about 2.2, I get a nice smooth gradual transition in tones. Perhaps akin to the “audio” taper on pots. So something like bypass-330-680-1500-3300-6800 pF…

But yeah, experiment and see for yourself!

Yeah I think I probably used a 25K depth pot in my old pedal, leftovers from my EMG days. I mentioned 50K mostly as a way to include a bit of that more subtle tone pot range, though it’s not really super necessary when you have super small tone caps to choose from. I need to reassemble that, I think I just stole the pedal box for an active LPF filter preamp.