kpcrash Posted June 17, 2010 Report Share Posted June 17, 2010 Came across this item (http://www.elexp.com/kit_csbk.htm) tonight looking for a few other things. Considering getting it and changing the caps to at least include the most popular values for guitar/bass usage. Might be an interesting way to evaluate various values on a set of pickups before breaking out the soldering iron. Thoughts? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ripthorn Posted June 17, 2010 Report Share Posted June 17, 2010 I say go for it. Those are extremely easy to do with a rotary switch and the appropriate caps. In fact, on my next build (a tele) I am going to do a wiring scheme that has 6 caps, two inductors and something like 6 switches so that I can do all kinds of crazy tone things. You could even do one that compares different types of caps of the same value (like polystyrene, polyester film, ceramic, PIO, etc.). I might want to make one for the PIO caps I just got to see if they will be better suited to an amp or a guitar, hmm.....now that's an idea. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psw Posted June 17, 2010 Report Share Posted June 17, 2010 You understand that the tone cap is just a means to roll off the highs ( a treble bleed the opposite) and that with any passive circuits, all you can ever do is take away form things. Many have gone with the varitone idea or switchable caps...but these only really affect things in the operation of the of the tone control...not the TONE of the guitar at all. If considering such schemes, you might want to put one setting to be a total bypss of all the controls and get the full power and harmonic richness and highs of a pickup unaffected by pots and caps and such...just a thought. If you are keen on using the tone controls (few in reality ever use the things) then it can make sense to have preset tone caps that can be easily switched too. A Varitone can give more options using inductors also to provide 'notches'...but it is important that unless one goes "active" all any of these tone circuits can do is "take away" tone (highs, lows, middles, etc) and there are a lot of limits to how well it can do that compared to say an active equalizer or something. Interestingly, guitars (less so with basses) have all but failed in such attempts. Ibanez had some great active systems with intuitive equalizers in their top line artist models...you don't see them now...Gibson got Moog to do an overly complex tone and expander compressor circuits in their failed RD models...again, no one thought they were a good deal (except perhaps John Williams in the band "sky"...but hey, if gibson are giving away guitars, who would say no right?)... Something neat though that I have been playing with are treble bleed caps with high output (traditionally muddy) pickups...these can tame things down with a little less volume and bring back all those lovely highs in the opposite manner to how a tone control works, by shunting them all off to ground and making things muddier still...I'm tempted to hard with the things in there so it can never go up to 11 on my new guitar...lol Not sure how you would use this substitution box practically either, a simple rotary control and a hand full of resistors and capacitors and inductors is all that one need to be effective and easier and cheaper to make oneself I suspect! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kpcrash Posted June 17, 2010 Author Report Share Posted June 17, 2010 Thanks guys! Pete I think what is going through my head on this is sort of an external test harness for those cases when someone comes up asking about "what if I change from .022 to .068?" Anyway, you are correct, I could probably build the same thing with a simple 11-way (or less) rotary and have an additional one that I could use to play with treble bleeds as well. The key would be to have it portable so I could add it inline to an existing system to see how modifications would affect sound before-hand. A Varitone++ if you will Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Marossy Posted June 17, 2010 Report Share Posted June 17, 2010 Pete I think what is going through my head on this is sort of an external test harness for those cases when someone comes up asking about "what if I change from .022 to .068?" Anyway, you are correct, I could probably build the same thing with a simple 11-way (or less) rotary and have an additional one that I could use to play with treble bleeds as well. The key would be to have it portable so I could add it inline to an existing system to see how modifications would affect sound before-hand. Might be worthwhile if you do a lot of that sort of thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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