Tremster
Member
There are several variations of the Gibson Varitone or the "Stellartone Tonestyler". Essentially you can (rotary) switch different capacitors on your guitar for different sounds: bass cut, no load, cocked wah etc.
Maybe it's just a gimmick, I don't know, but it might be cool to try out something new for the guitar. The Tonestyler is ridiculously expensive for what it is.
There are some DIY projects on the net, but it would be handy to have a PCB for this, maybe for the PedalPCB Mini Rotary Switch.
I just don't know if something this bulky can be done through-hole. SMD would be a problem for me.
Links / examples:
Tonestyler
Varitone
Varitone
Varitone
Edit:
Here is the comment of the Tonestyler company to the Joe Gore video posted below:
Hello again, Joe - We spoke a few years ago when you bought a ToneStyler from us. At that time, we were starting development of a genuine "old-school" varitone, which is finally being released this year. It incorporates our own hand-wired 15 (FIFTEEN!) Henry Audio Frequency Choke. 15H is the same inductance value used in the original Gibson vari-tones, sold in the late 1950's. (Check our Facebook page for photos of both chokes.) Later generations of "vari-tones" used smaller & smaller Henry values, also with higher and higher DC resistance (not good). Performance continued to decline... We all know about the DIY internet kits which feature the wrong inductor value (1.5 Henry) in the form of a tiny blue line-matching transformer from Mouser. In the 1950's the "1.5 Henry" value was a little "decimal point joke" which the Gibson draftsman played on the industry and the public. By marking the wrong value ('Oops! Our mistake!') on Gibson's schematics and patent applications, this would confuse and embarrass potential competitors. Gibson played a similar trick by printing the registered patent number for their stop tailpiece on their PAF stickers of all original humbuckers. When researchers located Gibson's "humbucker" patents in the archives, all they got was a drawing of a curved metal bar and two screws. If they used the number on the back of the stop bar, that would locate the PAF pickup patent and design drawings. Funny Stuff! These Gibson jokes still play today, as evidenced by all of the 1.5 Henry "varitone" kits still being sold! When using the wrong 1.5 H value, there's barely one capacitor value possible which even pretends to create a "V" notch. Higher and lower cap values produce no useful results at all. No wonder the public today has basically rejected the entire concept of a vari-tone... they've never heard a real one. In sharp contrast, by using the correct 15 Henry Choke value, and low DC resistance, the desired set of audiophile-quality mid-range "V-notch" filters is created. Anyway, your cool guitar video came up in our site's search results for "Stellartone" or "ToneStyler". Maybe these words are included in your Meta Tags? Anyway, that's how I bumped into you again! If you're still interested in the original 1950's style of vari-tone, drop us an email, or a call. Hope all is well - take care! Best regards, D.Campbell, Stellartone
Maybe it's just a gimmick, I don't know, but it might be cool to try out something new for the guitar. The Tonestyler is ridiculously expensive for what it is.
There are some DIY projects on the net, but it would be handy to have a PCB for this, maybe for the PedalPCB Mini Rotary Switch.
I just don't know if something this bulky can be done through-hole. SMD would be a problem for me.
Links / examples:
Tonestyler
Varitone
Varitone
Varitone
Edit:
Here is the comment of the Tonestyler company to the Joe Gore video posted below:
Hello again, Joe - We spoke a few years ago when you bought a ToneStyler from us. At that time, we were starting development of a genuine "old-school" varitone, which is finally being released this year. It incorporates our own hand-wired 15 (FIFTEEN!) Henry Audio Frequency Choke. 15H is the same inductance value used in the original Gibson vari-tones, sold in the late 1950's. (Check our Facebook page for photos of both chokes.) Later generations of "vari-tones" used smaller & smaller Henry values, also with higher and higher DC resistance (not good). Performance continued to decline... We all know about the DIY internet kits which feature the wrong inductor value (1.5 Henry) in the form of a tiny blue line-matching transformer from Mouser. In the 1950's the "1.5 Henry" value was a little "decimal point joke" which the Gibson draftsman played on the industry and the public. By marking the wrong value ('Oops! Our mistake!') on Gibson's schematics and patent applications, this would confuse and embarrass potential competitors. Gibson played a similar trick by printing the registered patent number for their stop tailpiece on their PAF stickers of all original humbuckers. When researchers located Gibson's "humbucker" patents in the archives, all they got was a drawing of a curved metal bar and two screws. If they used the number on the back of the stop bar, that would locate the PAF pickup patent and design drawings. Funny Stuff! These Gibson jokes still play today, as evidenced by all of the 1.5 Henry "varitone" kits still being sold! When using the wrong 1.5 H value, there's barely one capacitor value possible which even pretends to create a "V" notch. Higher and lower cap values produce no useful results at all. No wonder the public today has basically rejected the entire concept of a vari-tone... they've never heard a real one. In sharp contrast, by using the correct 15 Henry Choke value, and low DC resistance, the desired set of audiophile-quality mid-range "V-notch" filters is created. Anyway, your cool guitar video came up in our site's search results for "Stellartone" or "ToneStyler". Maybe these words are included in your Meta Tags? Anyway, that's how I bumped into you again! If you're still interested in the original 1950's style of vari-tone, drop us an email, or a call. Hope all is well - take care! Best regards, D.Campbell, Stellartone
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