Deluxe Vari-tone

[nopainkiller]

On torres engineering there's a deluxe vari-tone for sale. I bought the regular varitone kit, since I didn't know how to make one. Now that I do, I don't want to buy another varitone when I prolly have the parts for the deluxe version. It invloves a push/pull pot of some vallue, and an inductor. I think the inductor is the same one that works the vari-tone except it's hooked up with three leads. This I can see form the picture. http://www.torresengineering.com/delvartonful.html

I found this somewhere but it looks like the vari tone is hooked up differently. How can there be an output?http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k9...assivetone.jpg

[nopainkiller]

ey, in the pic, it looks like there's something strange going on at the bottom of the pot! Wtf?!?

[Enzo]

I am not sure what you are asking. The photo looks to me like it would do what the schematic says.

What do you see under the pot? I see the switch section of the pot and the litttle transformer there. I see the caps under the rotary switch.

The circuit is basic, where does it look odd to you? The signal from the pickups goes in the IN and out the OUT. The 47k resistor won't diminish it much - no more than the typical 68k series resistor found in many amps input jack circuit.

They didn't draw in the grounds, but they are assumed to be there.

The circuit itself is just a fancy tone control. There is a cap, an inductor, and a variable resistor all in series across the signal. The cao is actually several caps, any one of which can be selected at a time by the rotary switch. They used one side of a transformer as an inductor. That may not be the primary reason the part was made, but it is an inductor. And the pot acts exactly as one does in the tone control on any guitar. In fact, bypass the inductor and you have a standrard tone control circuit - but with selectable cap.

The standard cap and pot tone circuit is just a highs rolloff control. Adding an inductor in series makes it a tuned circuit, It will peak one particular frequency. The cap and inductor determine that freq.

[nopainkiller]

Yes I know. I put it together and I love it alot.
I meant how does the deluxe varitone work. I only have the rotary switch and caps version. One of the things I was wondering about that resister and why is it even there. And amps usually have a series resisiter in the input?? So that resister would lessen the amount that the varitone cuts?

What I was wondering is what the push/pull pot did. This doesn't come with the varitone kit I put in my guitar.And the inductor has three leads. The one that came with mine had all pre-cut off but two, so that's what I'd have to order.

And the in and out thing. Mine is hooked up at the output jack, but now it makes se4nse to me.

And I wasn't talking about the top of the pot I meant the bottom! It looks like the washer under the knob part is soldered onto the pot! wtf?!

[Enzo]

Series resistors won't drop the signal level much at all. There is almost no current flowing through the resistor, therefore no voltage drop occurs - Ohm's Law. See the attached Champ schematic, note the 68k series resistors at the input jacks.


Look at the little schematic you linked. The transformer symbol has 6 terminals. The top 3 are not used, leaving the single winding as the inductor. The one on the right end goes to the pot, the center and left one are connected to the switch. The switch selects which one. Selectable tone shift.

The pot shaft? I see the shaft sticking up from the bushing. Then a nut, then two sizes of flat washer. The upper one might be a split washer, can't tell. Then a larger inside star washer. I see no solder there. There is solder on the side of the pot cover and the side of the transformer. These are to ground the parts in the guitar body.

[Steve A.]

I put the Deluxe kit in my Epi Casino about 14 years ago- I made it even "more" deluxe by wiring up the 6th (unused) position as a regular tone control. Only problem with that is for a fairly neutral sound you want the control set to 0 for positions 1-5 and set to 10 for position 6 (the regular tone control).

If you got the regular kit I believe that the middle terminal would have been snipped off so you need to order another audio transformer/inductor from Mouser (or Dan).

BTW you want the 47k series resistor in there to create the LCR filter (rather than just trusting to the resistance in the guitar or amplifier input). Although in the bypassed position it would be nice if it was out of the circuit. (With vintage output passive pickups I can usually hear the difference with an added 47k series resistor if I am plugged in straight to the amp.)

The regular control takes one hole, the deluxe control takes two. After wiring this up inside my Epi Casino I realized that it would work almost as well in a stomp box between the guitar and the amp. That way you could use it with any of your guitars. At least for me there are only a few positions that work well with a particular guitar anyway.

And the idea of getting some really cool B.B. King tones with the Torres Vari-Tone never did happen for me. If you check over at the Pickup Winders forum you will find that the Gibson ES-345 was often (or always?) wired with the pickups out of phase so that original Varitone could dial in some really cool sounds...

Just my 2 cents

Steve Ahola

"And I wasn't talking about the top of the pot I meant the bottom! It looks like the washer under the knob part is soldered onto the pot! wtf?!"

In wiring up guitars it is not unusual to solder a ground wire to an internal lockwasher that would go on a pot. I'm not sure if that is what you see...

[nopainkiller]

thnx those are some two cents! I think that is what I see at the top of the pot.

As for the resistor, I was wondering what that was, since I don't see it in the picture of torres deluxe. Do you remember what value the push/pull pot was?

So you say those particular gibsons were always wired out of phase all the time?? R$ight now my guitar is wired for series and parallell with push/pulls. Do you think it would be worth it to switch one pick-up to out of phase since I got a vari-tone?

That champ schematic looks pretty simple, maybe I could build me one when I get more comfortable with tubes. I only have 4 12au7s lying around tho.

One more question, what is LCR? and why filter it??

[nopainkiller]

hmmm, I might also make on inside a stompbox. Theres another tone circuit I saw, for the big muff that when I built it into a pedal it sucked way too much tone. I could build that into a pedal also, bypassing it with a second switch so it didn't suck signal all the time, along with my passive bass cut and a regular tone knob. But I heard vari-tones work great in hollow bodys, so I got one. I love it. I put it in my ricfk copy, The copy is totally hollow, unlike the real ric 330s which are semi-hollow

[nopainkiller]

Hey, on the schemo it says to use a 50k pot. But wouldn't that suck signal?????

Also the schematic is different from the picture. They are different circuits. What are they doing differently?? Which one should I try?

[Enzo]

You seem to be deathly afraid of resistors....

The 50k pot in series with the cap and inductor makes the effect variable. When turned one way, the pot is at the zero end, so it effectively becomes a short circuit - might as welll be a wire. That leaves the cap and inductor directly across the signal path so it has hte most effect. Turned the other way, the pot adds its 50,000 ohm resistance in series with the cap and coil. This makes the filter less intense.

This is exactly the same circuit as the tone control that came in your guitar. A cap and a pot in series there. The higher the pot is turned in resistance, the less effect the cap has.


What do you see in the photo different from the schematic?

[nopainkiller]

The inductor. I guess it's the same. I thought the lower value pot you use the more it dims your guitar output.