Veri-tone

[hunchiepunker]

Anyone had any experience with the veri-tone circuit or its variants?

I've found a few folks on the online who sell their own veritones for cheap. Lots of different opinions about the subject... switches... caps... &tc. I'm curious about putting together my own veritone or modifying one which is a solid build. Any opinions on inductors, cap values or switch builds?

Also. I'm curious about where to put the veritone into a circuit.

Best.

[d95err]

I'm guessing you mean the Varitone circuit used by Gibson.

The tricky part would be to find a suitable inductor. I'm guessing that an old guitar pickup could work though. I think some of the "boutique" varitone kits available use small transformers such as the 42TM022 and similar. These have much lower inductance than the original Gibson inductor though.
Otherwise, it's very simple to simulate an inductor using opamps (search for "gyrator"), but then you loose the charm of an all-passive circuit.

The varitone circuit in the Lucille guitar is inside the guitar, so I guess early in the FX chain would be a good place to try. Although, there was a Varitone amp from gibson which had a varitone circuit inside the amp.

I've been toying with the idea of trying to build a varitone myself but I haven't got around to it. Let us know what you come up with!

Some info:
http://www.blueshawk.info/varitone.htm
http://www.schematicheaven.com/gibso...0_varitone.pdf

[Albert Kreuzer]

Hi,

I used a relay coil. You'll have to test several types of relays though to find a suitable one.

HTH
Albert
www.albertkreuzer.com

[d95err]

Hi,

I used a relay coil. You'll have to test several types of relays though to find a suitable one.

Hey, that's a really cool build! Love the enclosure!

Relay coil is a very clever idea. I might just try that...

[David Schwab]

I've used small signal transformers from Radio Shack in the past. There's a transformer from Mouser that works, but I'm not home, so I don't have access to that info at the moment.

Varitones are a lot of fun. I've put them in basses, sometimes just a single frequency version and a pot, to work like a midrange control (as found on the Gibson L6-S guitar, and L9-S Ripper bass).

I put a 6 position Varitone in the Les Paul I used to have. That worked great.. on the last position I could get a convincing single coil tone.