How To Make A DIY tonestyler

Inspired by Tonestyler, and the old Gibson Varitone, here I'm showing the design process for a 12-way rotary tone switch tailored for my 1973 Fender P bass.
First I choose, by ear the bassiest value I like the sound of. Then I measure the properties of my pickup. From there I choose ten evenly spaced resonant peaks between the the pickup's own resonance and the roll-off that the 100n cap gives me.
The eleven caps were mounted to the switch and tested, but the middle seven positions needed tweaking/taming.
A fun project and I think a far more useful way to progressively turn down the treble. The roll-off is much steeper than a standard tone control, and (with the loading of the volume pot) I've kept a little 3-4dB resonant peak at each position.

[@everythingbobbywolfe]

Seeing the puddy for a 3rd hand is worth the price of admission, alone. Ingenius

[@rightfromtheart]

Technique is great brother !! Never thought of putty for use as a "3rd hand" -- the copper foil is awesome -- and just tapping the pickup post for tone check is cool too! Thanks for sharing!!

[@Fotosaurus56]

Cool! I use duct seal too, to hold components in place as I solder.

[@RobMods]

It's actually Blu--Tack. But yeah, it is a huge help!

[@paintbox48]

What a great way to ground the capacitors - efficient and space saving. I've often wondered why nobody has produced a tag strip to solder ground leads to when going to a vol pot. It always seems such a cram to fit all the leads in.

[@RobMods]

Thanks mate. One of my early videos. Not well lit, shot or edited. But good info there, so I've left it up. I'm planning a follow up to this video once I finish Project Berocca...

[@Deebz270]

A 'Work of Art' *Rob* ... Pure function and form.

[@RobMods]

Thanks for all the inquiries about my cap and resistor values. Please don't take this the wrong way, but really the point of this vid is to encourage y'all to have a go at designing one for yourselves! :) Realistically, with this sort of thing, unless your pickup has exactly the same L, C and R as mine, my values will behave differently in your bass. And even though it's designed to get a little closer to the treble-cut characteristics of a preamp, this, of course, lacks the active buffering that a preamp has. It interacts directly with the properties of the pickup. But FWIW, if you really want to try my values; 150p, 390p/33k, 820p/27k, 1n5/22k, 2n7/15k, 4n7/12k, 8n2/10k, 15n/4k7, 33n, 56n, 82n. Your mileage will vary...

[@sicostello7488]

Thanks for sharing this mod Rob. I'm really inspired to give it a go. One thing that I can't work out is how to calculate the resistor values for taming the mid peaks. Was there a formula you followed or did you take a guess?

[@ToneSpectra]

Hi. What switching dial did you use? I'd like to do something similar on guitar. Thanks

[@TomTobin67]

Where can I buy one of these with the caps?

[@BeesWaxMinder]

I hear what you say but that doesn’t explain the values of the resistors (they can’t be auditioned purely via audio, can they?) know whether they are in series or parallel with the capacitors🤷‍♂️

[@theinfinatewisdom]

interesting little puddy soldering stand you made! Very cool!

[@troycharbonneau8643]

Thanks so much for sharing this! It inspired me to do my own. I wanted a lot of choices, so I bought a 1/2” diameter 16 position switch for $20, and a box of Mylar caps. As I don’t have the equipment or wizardry for going all out calculating values, I played with values with wires running to a socket, until I decided on what sounded best. I also wanted to keep the resonant peaks. In spirit of how you grounded to an outside strip to save space, I wrapped a desoldering braid around the outside of mine and soldered to that. It all fits nicely in my P bass.

[@bailey.matthewr]

This is incredible. Great work man!

[@RobMods]

Thanks mate. I'm planning to revisit this video in the future. It was shot on my old phone, plus I could explain it better I think these days...

[@estebanbouba8582]

@@RobMods Great job ! Thank you very much !!! ... Soon? ;)

[@TomiBonTomi_2.0]

That is some advanced tweaking there! And it turn out to be some nice tones, too!

[@michellerifici941]

Give me your plug u must got that fire in your stash bag

[@MrEyesof9]

You got my sub with this one lol well done!

[@KenjiKitahara]

Great video. Thanks for sharing.

[@paulevans4334]

What a great idea. I really liked the test set up you did first where you are able to swap out the capacitors. I think I'll have to give that a go on my project p bass I'm building at the moment. I have put an Orange drop 047 in there but haven't tested it yet.

[@jeffally9991]

Bro that sounds great.. might inquire in the future to buy one..

[@user-cj8dr2oz8b]

What a great video, thank you! The Blu-Tack "soldering stand" is an idea I will definitely adopt. I see that you put the resonance-taming resistors in series with the caps. I have seen schematics where resistors are placed in parallel. Not sure I understand the difference between those two approaches, could you elaborate?

[@helltonguitar]

Hi friend, your work was perfect, congratulations! Would you like to make the schematic diagram available for this system? A big hug here from Brazil.

[@lushkordz6643]

Hey this is so sick m@N ...i love that stuff !!!

[@kovidno.-1939]

Ohh.. Brother.!! Big Thanks. ^^

[@the_nondrive_side]

I've been switching my tone caps to ..22uf to have a brighter tone than the .47uf and a larger sweep when I do turn it down. Different strokes I guess. Nice resonant hump your getting. Serious bass boost.

[@BucketofGuts646]

Where can I learn to do everything you just executed?

[@BeesWaxMinder]

GREAT WORK/PLAY Are all the RESISTORS the same value & are they in series, parallel or just attached by one leg to their CAP’ & the other UNconnected!? Please let me know..!👍

[@RepukeinScapegoat]

Dude sell these most ppl can’t make these I can solder but I don’t know schematics and have all the know how to tame transistors and all that stuff sell them and could this be put in a guitar ?

[@feuerstreuer6393]

wich Capacitors dif you used with wich resistors ? Thank you ..

[@johnr7303]

Excellent stuff. Is it easy to create a circuit that measures pickup resonant frequency?

[@RobMods]

I'm planning to revisit this video at some stage TBH. There are one or two little things that are not quite right, plus I was new to KZbin when I made it. This project seems to be misunderstood and needs a better explanation I reckon. To find the resonant frequency I use a driver coil and a signal generator. I wound the coil myself, but there's other options. The old usb scope and software I use was bought mostly for this and because it can plot freq responses. These days you can get scopes that do it that aren't crazy expensive like they used to be.

[@johnr7303]

@@RobMods ok, thanks for the reply.

[@g2D1]

I love this vid. Is there a book I can read that explains the math utilized on the extrapolation of the freqs? Can this theory be applied to electric guitar? Also, what is that very useful putty you are using? Much thanks, -G

[@paulevans4334]

Putty? Looks like blue tack to me, which he has used in other videos.

[@EriccsonGuitarBassMan]

Regards Rob, it sounds excellent! I have a question, do you have those potentiometers that you show in your video for sale? I'm interested in one, I hope you can sell them

[@RobMods]

Hi Erick. Sorry mate, I don't make these for sale. Besides, the values I used are chosen specifically for this particular pickup. At some stage this year I plan to revisit this idea with a follow up video. Thanks for watching my stuff!

[@KingCrimson82]

5:26 5:50 funny, it sounds like a modeern active pickup setting.

[@the-np4mr]

So did you wrap foil around the switch and then just solder the capacitors to that to ground them? Because that seems infinitely better than what I was trying lol

[@RobMods]

Yep, it works well, but is still pretty fiddly to wire up, especially with the addition of the resistors on there. If you have the space, another approach is to use a switch with PCB pins, and install it on a piece of circuit board. You could just dremel the circuit, and use a mini drill for the parts. Or, really if I had to do a few of these, I'd just design a PCB, and with SMT parts as well...

[@g2D1]

Is the use of foil-wrapping the pot standard for Varitone switches or is this your practice? is there an advantage beyond the obvious? Also for anyone interested, I found a link to a table of resonance freqs, see below. buildyourguitar.com/resources/lemme/table.htm -G

[@wojtas0511]

Hello Rob, can i ask you what values did you use to make this sound? i'm talking about positions played in video. Thanks!

[@RobMods]

This is quite an old video, but I believe at the end I was just shifting every second position. Thanks!

[@wojtas0511]

@@RobMods I know it, but i would like to replicate it and i like tones u have achived. Just asking if you know specyfic values :)

[@martinheath5947]

Is it possible to combine a tone styler (variable cap selector knob) with a separate (full sweep pot) tone control, and would that allow wide variations with each preset capacitor?

[@RobMods]

Yep, having a standard 250KA pot and a switch of some sort that selects different caps is a very common mod. That's really not what I was going for with this design, but I say go for it. Give it a try!

[@rodriprat]

In the response frequency you have more than 0db, shouldnt be less than 0db is the filter is passive?

[@GarlandStringedInstruments]

Great video Rob; thanks a million for posting! I've managed to duplicate what you've done after many careful viewings of the vid, buying the CGM USB scope and downloading and learning LTSpice (took a few hours but well worth the effort). I've got data (resonance, suitable cap and 'taming' resistor values) for a few odd bass pickups I've had kicking around for a while. Haven't yet put them into a bass for testing, but that will come soon. A couple of questions, one actually arising from a later video you did: 1) How did you get such a clean display when measuring PU resonance? Did you amplify the sine wave signal generated by the oscilloscope? My waveforms and the XY plot were pretty ragged because I had to use high sensitivity on the scope to detect them, (but I still managed to estimate what the resonance frequency was). 2) If I want to measure a PU's frequency response using a driver coil, what kind of coil should I use? Can they be bought, or must I make one up? Thanks for any tips you can offer.

[@RobMods]

Nice one mate. for a cleaner scope reading, try covering the pickup with some shielding material. Just a piece of plastic or card with copper foil on the top side will work. And use an alligator clip lead to connect it to earth or course. As for a driver coil, well I wound my own, and I made a simple buffer preamp as the output z of my usb scope is not particularly low. But you could probably use an audio transformer, or maybe a coil from a relay or something, as long as it has much lower inductance than a guitar pickup, so its resonance is much higher, out of human hearing.

[@KohlHosein]

Hey Rob. Is there anyway where I can email you or talk? I have a very specific question about implementing this mod with an active preamp and using it in the passive mode.

[@KozmykJ]

With these fixed roll-offs are they the equivalent of tone pots fully off i.e. full cut? Very neat construction. I like the plasticine "jig". I'd like to learn more about the setup for determining the resonant frequency of the pickup. I've got the toys to do that. What are the values 3.81 and 2.01 in the notebook working lines 3 and 4 ? And M2 and H2 ? Ya got me there...

[@KozmykJ]

OK got it. Nanofarad values for bracketing towards a result. Plus I found this pdf. www.syscompdesign.com/assets/Images/AppNotes/guitar-pickups.pdf which appears to be what you're doing in the vid.

[@KozmykJ]

That's a really nice range of tones your Precision is getting, I'm tempted. The frequencies being musically useful they don't suffer from being full roll off like a stock cap would, what it the stock cap value btw? That's the Greyest lump of Blue Tac I've ever seen. I too have used the old "Helping Hands" but my favourite is a little Chinese vise. I used to carry two on gigs. One loose and another screwed to a piece of scrap wood. The stuff I've fixed for bands at gigs I was doing the PA for. They loved me. Got lots of work cos they remembered me saving their arses. Nice bit of Karma innit. ;^) My electronics bench is covered in randomness. I can't call it crap cos a lot of it is expensive crap... After watching this I fancy dusting off the scopes. Somewhere under the pile is a Hantek USB signal generator and every other multimeter has a Capacitance range these days. The copper wrap is a neat idea, elegant solution I'd call it. Stream of conciousness comment order . It's early hours Saturday night/Sunday morning and I'm somewhat the worse for wear. ;^) Keep up the good work.

[@RobMods]

Ha ha, yeah that blob of blu-tac is getting quite grubby these days. It's seen a lot of action! Time for a new packet I think... :) The original cap was 47n. The solo part on my recent version of Blackbird is played on my 73P. It has an active preamp in it these days, with the treble boosted for this recording. That's just to separate it from the EUB in the mix. I don't always play her with such a bright tone. /watch?v=qtjKge6Bj9Y

[@ericy1005]

Is that LTSpice on the laptop at 3:52? I used to work for Linear Tech. Anyway, this is a good video. I'm thinking a rotary switch with RC combinations to switch through could be more useful than one cap and an R sweep pot. Thanks for the idea! Any particular values you like best?

[@RobMods]

Hi Eric. Glad you enjoyed the video. I'm trying to get better at making these things as I go! Yes that's LTSpice. It's pretty much the go-to for hobby electronics guys. With a traditional tone pot, the cap really makes little difference til the tone knob is almost all the way down. It's actually the pot that is creating the roll-off for 75-80% of the sweep. The nice thing about my switched-cap tone control is that the roll-off is steeper. Much more like an active treble cut. I have a new video all about traditional P bass tone control coming out in a day or two. I use a driver coil and a usb scope to run frequency sweeps on the pickup from this bass actually... Thanks for your comments!

[@ericy1005]

@@RobMods I like the blutak to hold things while soldering too. Looks easier than alligator clip stands which I've been using for years. Are you simulating the pickup too? Since the input to an amp is high impedance you probably wouldn't need it in your simulation, but how about the PU?

[@RobMods]

Ha yeah I''ve owned those alligator clip stand things too. But I've always come back to a blob of bluetac on a piece of timber! I've been sodlering since I was a boy and I found early on that blutak is very handy for guitar wiring and point-to-point wiring in general. Notice also my bench has that rubber draw lining stuff on it. The circuit or guitar doesn't slide around. Yes the pickup was simulated in a basic L,C,R model. A bit too simplistic really, but for designing this sort of thing it's fine. The thing I really should've done was added more cable capacitance. I think I had 250p for this, but I should've actually measured my leads. They have close to double this, so the first cap doesn't make much difference. OTOH, I have a no-load volume pot (see my other video about this), so the pickup is as bright as it can be with the volume up. I have a little fet buffer built into a jack which I sometimes use and with the cable capacitance out of the equation, the pickup's resonance is actually 4khz. Oh, and I recommend a "make-before-break" switch for this. (AKA "MBB" or "shorting".) The switch I used in this video was a regular break-before-make switch that I had in my parts bins, and it pops slightly between settings. I've since made another with an MBB rotary switch I ordered. Works very well.

[@waynegram8907]

Rod mods, do you have the schematic to Jesse Davey Kingtone switch?

[@RobMods]

No I don't. Sorry.

[@waynegram8907]

Can you try reverse engineering the jesse Davey kingtone switch?

[@RobMods]

Reverse engineering other people's stuff is not really my thing. Besides, these are $200 in Australia. But thanks for asking...

[@waynegram8907]

I didn't know they were $200 dollars in Australia that's a rip off but from your ears can you tell which RC networks are being used in position#1,#2,#3 on the jesse Davey kingtone switch?

[@RobMods]

@@waynegram8907 If they are just RC, then that really is a rip off, lol. I assumed there was a little inductor in there as well. I guess you aren't paying for the parts, but the soldering, potting and postage. I hadn't heard of these until 10min ago. Never had one on my bench either I'm afraid. Try making one yourself! A breadboard or even just an IC socket like I used is great for quick swapping caps.

[@SpaghettiEnterprises]

What was that grey putty you were using? I've tried to use modeling clay the same way, but it ended up adhering to the pins of the thing I was soldering.

[@RobMods]

That's Blu-tack. It works very well for this sort of thing. I also use it to hold wires or parts in place when I'm point-to-point wiring a bass or an old amp etc.

[@DarienCharlton]

I want to do everything in this video. 1. how do I test for my pick up frequency? 2. I'm assuming that 100n cap was chosen by your ear. 3. What math did you use to equally divide the res frequency to the cap with the lowest desirable roll off?.

[@RobMods]

Hi. I use a Circuit Gear usb oscilloscope. Here's how to measure the resonant freq: pdfs.semanticscholar.org/89d5/f924dddb854b01fe989662d57d9347170f55.pdf You can also do frequency sweeps if you make a driver coil. If you watch my other videos you'll see this from time to time. Yes, the lowest cap was just chosen by ear. Actually I changed it to 82n later on. 100n was just too muddy for this pickup. For evenly spaced frequencies, it's simple division. In the video, the spreadsheet shows 4khz as the resonance, and 1.37 as the divisor. But after cable capacitance and the load of the pots, the highest roll-off is more like 2.5khz. So these points were revised.

[@DarienCharlton]

Was that a copper ribbon you cut and wrapped around the 12 pole switch?

[@RobMods]

It's self-adhesive copper shielding tape. I use it to line control cavities mainly. You can buy it online from guitar supply stores, but you can also buy it from garden centres as "slug and snail tape".

[@msmm.2871]

Hubiera sido muy útil mostrar el esquema eléctrico.

[@DarienCharlton]

Also what made you specify the specific resistors?

[@dariencharlton4773]

What cap at 5:42

[@RobMods]

Hi Darien. I guess that's the 5th position there, that's 1n5 and a 22k resistor. Cheers.

[@mcfalcaojazzbass489]

Genial...você poderia fazer um tone igual a esse para um jazz bass?

[@loolee2000]

Marcelo Cesar Falcão: o cara fala e escreve em inglês. Ele não entende bulhufas do que tu pediu. Sugiro tu usar o Google tradutor e traduzir para o inglês tua dúvida. Na verdade serve sim em um JB. Mas, com certeza, será bem cara a mão de obra em dólares + transporte em dólares. É mais em conta pesquisar "Varitone Scheme" no Google, imprimir e perguntar para um luthier de sua confiança se ele encara o projeto. Boa sorte.

[@mcfalcaojazzbass489]

Loo Silva valeu pela ajuda...obrigado mesmo. Abraço.

[@bobc.5698]

A dual pot or push push pull pot was used here?

[@ioannizt]

Its a rotating switch, not a pot

[@angeloabarca4360]

Como es el sircuito

[@BeesWaxMinder]

Forgive me but I just don’t understand how to work out the value of the RESISTORS! I can understand auditioning CAPACITORS by ear but after that…🤷‍♂️ How to work out the resistance values IF The values for the Resistors you use are all different depending on what Capacitor the attached to?🤔

[@romannickobuday6409]

hi may i ask what's the name of that pot?

[@RobMods]

Hi. It's not a pot, it's a 12-position rotary switch. Cheers.

[@romannickobuday6409]

ok thank you so much i'm having a hardtime to search it 😅

[@solunasunrise]

so its like a wahwha or whammy but with fixed postions ... okay

[@RobMods]

Well, sort of, in those middle positions, before I tamed the peaks with the added resistors.

[@PhuckHue2]

to be a Varitone you need an inductor

[@jamesford744]

You do know you get full gain and tone without a control

[@RobMods]

Yes and no. With reasonable pot values, the gain/output is not effected, but the tone certainly is. For this project, the 12th spot has no cap. IOW, it's an open circuit. FWIW you can get the same effect with a no-load tone pot. If you really must have no load at all with the volume and tone dimed, you can make my no-load volume pot as well. Check out my other content for info on this stuff... OTOH, a little load can sound great. With this bass, I rarely use it live with this tone control fully clockwise. In the studio though, it's great to record with both controls dimed and no load (except the cable capacitance and interface input z of course). You can easily roll a little treble off in the mix, but you can't add it if it's not already there! Cheers!

[@brunobrunao7605]

eu quero o diagrama please