Varitone...as master tone ?

Pickups, wiring schemes, switch techniques and onboard active electronics for guitars and basses
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danielzink
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Post by danielzink »

Looking for pointers as to whether folks think this'll work...

It's a mashup of a couple different ideas...

I have an Epiphone Wildkat hanging around...decent enough guitar...but the sound is very lackluster and pretty dark...

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I'm ordering a Compton bridge for it...and new Kent Armstrong pickups.

There's already a wiring issue...someone's had it apart as the pickup selector is reversed when you use it.

There's been lot's of discussion on the 'net regarding the cheap wire....and the inordinate lengths of it the Epiphone used...so I figured what the heck.

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The guitar is wired stock with two volume/master tone/master volume.

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Here's my idea...

What I'm shooting for is a mid control and a master tone control with 6 different tone caps at my disposal...

Obviously the 6PDT will go where the master volume knob is now..with a chicken head knob and possibly a number backplate..

Do I need resistors on my "varitone" switch (with regards to "popping") as I select the different caps ?

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Thanks for any insight/advice !!

Dan
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induction
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Post by induction »

I haven't tried a Varitone, so I can't comment on that, but since the Wildkat is so dark even with the tone control all the way up I'm not sure that different tone caps are going to help. The size of the tone cap has very little effect when the tone control is all the way up. In other words, you'll be changing how dark it can get, but not the maximum brightness. (Maybe your mid control will change things though?)

The way I fixed my Wildkat was to convert the controls to independent volume controls, and PTB tone controls, which is a standard treble cut pot plus a bass cut pot. I used a 1n cap on the bass cut pot, and now I can cut easily cut out the muddiness and brighten up the sound considerably. It helps a lot on clean tones, but the difference on distorted tones is where the magic is. I'm much, much happier with my Wildkat now.

If your current strategy doesn't deliver the goods for you, I recommend the PTB approach.

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