(Quick memory refresher: The Vari-Tone appeared in several historic Gibson guitars, notably the ES-345. It uses a half-dozen different-sized capacitors to alter the voicing of the tone pot. It also adds an inductor, which preserves lows while the capacitors remove highs. Result: the rolled-off settings have a somewhat piercing, nasal character, as opposed to the usual dark, wooly sound of a rolled-off tone pot.)
Like some cool DIY versions of the project, the ToneStyler omits the inductor. And while it looks like a conventional tone pot,it’s actually a 16-position switch that selects between stepped capacitors, all of them smaller than in a conventional tone control. Result: rolled-off tones that maintain more volume and impact than in a conventional tone control.
Welcome to the second installment in the Mongrel Strat Series!
If I were a sensible person, I would have split this week’s experiments into several posts. But much like eating pistachios, it’s tough to know when to stop .
Anyway, this project tackles three topics:
1. Several readers dug the sound of the Telecaster-inspired Seymour Duncan Twang Banger pickup used in Mongrel #1, where I paired it with a Duncan Lipstick Tube for Strat neck pickup and a Alnico II Pro middle. But I wanted to hear how the Twang Banger sounded in a more traditional Strat array, so this time I paired it was a couple of vintage-accurate SSL-1s, with a reverse-wound, reverse-polarity model in the middle position.
2. Over in The Secret Room, a participant brought up the subject of the Vari-Tone control used in the Gibson ES-345. I wanted to learn more about this often misunderstood circuit (well, I never understood it, anway) and explore whether it had relevance for Strats.
3. In response to another Secret Room topic, I wanted to resolve whether there’s any sonic benefit in bypassing the tone circuit completely.
As threatened, here’s a closer look at Strat with PAF humbuckers used for my recent “God Only Knows” cover. Most parts are from the long-suffering guitar used for all the Mongrel Strat Project experiments. And this one is especially mongrel-ific, with its blend of vintage Fender and Gibson.
Obviously, Gibson pickups is a Strat is far from a new idea. But usually, that arranged marriage is designed to spawn macho, high-gain solos minus the characteristic shrillness of vintage Strat bridge pickups. While many players I love have used humbucker-equipped Strats, I’ve always loathed playing them myself. But what, I wondered, if you didn’t use a hot humbucker, but an über-vintage PAF?
Like many players my age and younger, I was astonished when I first encountered a vintage-voiced humbucker. It was nothing like the dark, over-overdriven tones I associated with the word humbucker. A good PAF is sparkly, resonant, and perfectly capable of gloriously bright and clean tones. Here I used a Seymour Duncan Joe Bonamassa signature set, the same one heard in a more Gibson-like context here.
The results are … compelling. As expected, notes have far more mass than on a conventional Strat, and the bass response is vastly increased. There’s no shortage of top-end either, though the big lows can overwhelm the highs at times. So while I’m pretty much always obsessed with bass-cut controls (especially the high-pass section of the PTB circuit I’ve written about approximately 37 zillion times), it’s especially invaluable in this case. Since lows disproportionately drive distortion, even modest bass cuts clean up the tone and make highs speak more clearly.
I’ve also incorporated the dual-capacitor treble control I wrote about here. It creates a Vari-Tone/ToneStyler effect in a simplified way: Instead of using a clunky rotary switch to choose from a large set of treble-trimming capacitors, it fades between a large cap and a small cap, yielding the same resonant effect as the more complex options. I’ve incorporated this circuit in several guitars now, and it’s still working for me. It’s especially nice here, when paired with a Steinberger JackPot potentiometer, which lets you bypass the entire tone circuit for absolute maximum volume and brightness. I chose the small cap based on the minimum amount I’d ever want to remove from the signal, and the larger one based on the maximum cut I’d use.
I would have included a photo of the project in progress, but I didn’t because I’m embarrassed about how awful it looks inside. I needed to route out the pickup cavities to accommodate these larger pickups. But instead of taking it to a professional, or getting a proper router and learning how to use it, I chipped away with the tiny routing bit on an inexpensive Dremel tool. Do yourself a favor, kids, and don’t follow my lazy-ass example.
But hey, what’s a Strat pickguard for if not to conceal your shoddy workmanship? The guitar looks okay in the end, and I’m digging its sounds, even though it was far harder to get accustomed to than I’d anticipated. I had to recalibrate my right-hand dynamics to prevent treble notes from screeching. I was almost ready to chalk this up as a failed experiment, but after a few days of noodling around, I started to get the hang of it and enjoy the results. I think I’ll keep it this way for a while — or at least until the next Mongrel Strat concept wafts up from the bowels of Hell. 🙂
Hey, smart people — let me get your take on this. I’ve been playing with a new tone control idea that’s so simple, I can’t believe no one’s done it before. (Chances are someone has.)
Here’s the idea: Conventional electric guitar tone controls employ a single pot and single capacitor connected to ground. As you turn the pot, more signal goes to ground for a darker sound. The capacitor value determines the cutoff frequency — the larger the cap, the lower the cutoff frequency and the darker the sound. In other words, the cutoff frequency is fixed, but the percentage of signal that gets cut off changes as you move the pot.
Meanwhile, the Gibson Vari-Tone circuit uses a rotary switch rather than a pot, and a set of capacitors of ascending size. The small caps have a brighter tone, and the large ones sound darker. But once a cap is engaged, it’s engaged all the way. In other words, the cutoff frequency varies as you move the switch, but not the percentage of affected signal—it’s always 100%. (The Stellartone ToneStyler employs the same concept, with as many as 16 caps arranged around a rotary switch.)
But do you really need all those caps? Why not use the tone pot to fade between a small cap and a large one, like so:
Here, the brighter/lower-value cap is engaged when the pot’s all the way up. As you roll it back, the larger cap is introduced, producing greater capacitance and a deeper treble cut. When you arrange caps in parallel, their total capacitance is the sum of their values. For example, I tried a .0047µF cap and a .047µF, so the minimum value is .0047µF (a very modest cut) and the maximum is approximately .052µF (a very dark tone).
So far I’ve only tried this on breadboard, though I plan to deploy it in a new “parts” guitar I’m assembling. So far it sounds … really good. A lot like a ToneStyler, actually, but with fewer parts and handpicked values. The only tricky thing was finding a good pot value where all the action wasn’t bunched up at one end of the knob’s range. A reverse-log pot worked best for me—I got nice results with both a C500K and C1M.
I often use similar wiring to alter the value of the input cap on distortion pedals. (High values filter our more bass for a brighter/cleaner sound.) But I’m not aware of anyone having tried this on a guitar tone control.
Another issue is the fact that, in this circuit, the tone pot always has a cap engaged. You could use a really tiny value for the smaller cap so there’s little perceptible cut at the minimum setting, but that can make a substantial part of the pot’s range a little too subtle. So my plan is to combine this with a Ned Steinberger-designed JackPot as the volume control. This part has an “off” setting that bypasses the tone circuit entirely for a maximum-bright sound. That way, I’d choose for the smaller cap a value that provides the minimum treble cut I’m likely to want. (I suspect I’ll wind up with something between .0022µF and .0047µF.)
Have any of you seen or heard of such a guitar circuit? If so, any observations or advice?
Premier Guitar just posted my new article on three favorite electric guitar wiring mods. The concepts won’t be new to anyone who hangs out here — I’ve pretty much flogged them all to death! But the new article includes the step-by-step walkthroughs that I never got around to creating for this site, and PG art director Meghan Molumby created beautifully clear tech diagrams like this one:
The descriptions and instructions in the new story are clearer and more detailed than my original posts here, plus I’ve refined some details, so I suggest working from the new PG versions.
My three choices:
Yup, the ol’ PTB tone control, the coolest mod I know, at least for players who love distortion. The new version of the project uses the 500K pots you probably already have in your guitar rather than the more eccentric G&L values.
I also revisited the Strat version of the “Nashville-style” Tele wiring popularized by Brent Mason and other Music City cats. It performs brilliantly in a Strat, and IMHO its benefits (vastly more blended-pickup options plus a musical and intuitive control layout) for outweigh the costs (loss of the middle-pickup-alone setting, cost of a 3-way switch). Not to launch a protracted Strat-vs.-Tele battle, but I love the whole notion of “Tele-fying” a Strat via wiring, control layout, and pickup choice.
In the article’s comments thread, several savvy readers also mention Strat wiring systems that provide the sounds of the Nashville mod without sacrificing any others. They’re right — but the more I mess with this stuff, the more I value simplified operation. I’m less concerned with having all options than with having the coolest ones, ergonomically organized. Still, there are many ways you can go here.
Finally, I’m once more beating the dead Varitone horse exploring variations on Gibson’s Varitone concept, updated for modern players. I added a new twist in the PG story: deploying these ideas via toggle switches, rather than a big, clunky rotary switch.
It was fun when PG editor Shawn Hammond asked me to choose my favorite mods. It was easy to decide though — these are the three I keep coming back to, and all three deliver dramatic results, unlike many better-known mods.
So which electric guitar mods would be on your short list? Wiring, hardware, whatever. How do you make your guitars cooler?
Thanks again to everyone who chimed in on the “What your favorite mod?” discussion. I got tons of great ideas from your comments.
Like this one, which I’ve been meaning to explore for ages: the Fender TBX tone control circuit, which appears in several Custom Shop instruments, notably the Clapton signature Strats. Like the G&L PTB circuit I’m so apeshit about, it’s a 2-band passive tone control — but one that sounds very different.
The PTB is a two-knob circuit that lets you siphon off highs, lows, or both. I’m agog at how well it works with humbuckers — you can get so many cool sounds by rolling off lows on the way to a fuzz, as heard here.
But TBX (it stand for “treble bass expander”) is a one-knob circuit, tbough that single knob rotates two stacked pots. The control has a center detente. Set here, it’s like a regular tone control, wide-open. Turn it counter-clockwise and highs vanish, per usual. (You could “tune” the roll-off frequency with various capacitors, though I went with the stock .022uF.) But when you rotate clockwise, the absence of lows makes glassy highs erupt.
The dual pot cut highs or lows.
Technically, it’s not a boost, but it sure feels like one. Dirk Wacker, my now-colleague at Premier Guitar, dissects the circuit far more capably than I can here. (And he goes way beyond in this subsequent article on TBX mods. Man, I have some catching up to do!) He makes a good case for replacing the stock resistor with another value, but I went with the original 82K to establish a point of reference. I’ll try his mod when I restring, and I’ll update you here.)
BTW, you need the Fender TBX kit for this project — it uses highly customized pots to work its magic, and a standard stacked pot won’t do. But it’s cheap: You can find the TBX kit, with the pot, hardware, and passive components, online for about $15.
I put it into the mongrel strat I’ve been using as my digital synth/looping guitar. I’d been using a Stellartone Tone Styler, a cool Vari-Tone variant that switches between multiple capacitors. I dig it, but it’s the old model which clicks, rather than fades, from setting to setting, and it requires a powerful twist of the wrist to go from maximum to minumum, which I do every time I grab an EBow. Since I hadn’t gotten around to replacing it with the smooth-action version, I figured I’d try the TBX.
And I’m glad I did. It’s a super-easy install, at least to the extent that any job that requires removing both strings and pickguard can be easy.And here’s how it sounds:
I’m going to keep this one around for awhile. You’re hearing it through an analog rig, obviously, but I want to find out whether that extra shot of highs does anything meaningful when playing digitally. I’d also like to experiment with different cap and resistor values.
And now I can’t help wondering whether this would sound cool with humbuckers. Anyone have any experience with that?
Prewired replacement electronics provide access to many popular wiring mods, minus the soldering.
Larry Santellan of Santellan Sounds, maker of the Elec-Trix tone modules, sent me some samples to check out. These pre-wired circuits offer quick access to some of the “greatest hits” of alternate wiring, with an emphasis on Strats and Teles. He has pop-in modules for 5-way Teles, Vari-Tones, passive overdrives, vintage/modern switching, and more.
I haven’t had the time to try everything Larry sent, but for a few months I’ve had his 4-Way Fat Tone Monster Deluxe Wiring Kit in my Tele-like G&L ASAT. It lets me dial in the three standard sounds, plus that humongous series-pickups BLAT! A push/pull pot bypasses the tone control. (I never hear meaningful differences between bypassed tone controls and wide-open ones, but this setup lets me toggle between a bright, wide-open tone a muted one.)
Installation was relatively easy, and the parts and workmanship are top-notch. If you’re interested in alternate pickup wiring options, but don’t have the skill, patience, or time to solder it yourself, well, check out the Elec-Trix catalog.
Solder-free configuration via clever ribbon connectors.
Which sounds better: modern or vintage wiring? The experts disagree!
There’s a wealth of information online about the relative merits of “vintage” vs. “modern” wiring in Les Pauls. And after reading page after page on the topic, I was more confused than when I started. So here’s an attempt to pinpoint the sonic differences in a meaningful and relatively “scientific” fashion.
For those new to the debate, here are the basics: Nowadays tone pots in electric guitars usually connect to lug 3 of the volume pot, the same junction as the input from the pickup or pickup selector. Wired this way, the tone control siphons off highs before the volume control siphons off level. But in ’50s Les Pauls, the tone control often connects to lug 2, so treble is nixed after the volume pot does its thing. (I say “often,” because, as in so many other regards, vintage Gibson aren’t 100% consistent.) Here are some comparative schematics.
Most online sources manage to pinpoint the most basic difference: with vintage-style wiring, your tone retains more brightness as you lower the volume. But beyond that, there’s a buttload of b.s., including the frequent claim that vintage tone capacitors sound better or different from new ones. (They don’t.)
Anyway, I’ve made some comparative recording and measurements. After digesting all this geeky goodness, you’ll probably know whether ’50s wiring is an attractive option for you. (more…)
After auditioning so many different tone-control schemes over the course of the Mongrel Strat Project, I wound up with more tone circuits than I have Strats, so I figured I’d victimize a bass — specifically, a 1954 Fender P-Bass reissue with a Seymour Duncan Quarter-Pound pickup, which I’ve written about here. It’s a minimalist one-pickup model with basic volume and tone controls.
I was eager to audition a multi-capacitor tone control like I wrote about here. (Actually, it’s literally the same tone control — the guitar where it used to reside now houses the Stellartone ToneStyler tone pot covered here.) And while I had the patient on the operating table, I figured I’d also install the Black Ice distortion cube I wrote about here. (My friends in the medical profession assure me that patients always appreciate it when surgeons indulge in improvisational operating-theater mods.)
