How does the Varitone Circuit affect Gibson guitars?

[feet]

i suppose its a little like this video here. just swapping out cap values on the fly.

you can hear its effect here:

[Bezoeker]

Regarding the John Cooper stuff: They are pleasant vids and a sincere effort from the guy in my opinion.

When he sticks to just the cap value, it is a nice illustration - if not exactly to the point of the Varitone.

I do tend to lose patience with his sincere but misguided loose movement between (faux) objectivity and free interpretation. The whole cap technology part (in his "Part 1" vid) gets way silly for me. This does not mean the guy is not genuinely sincere or entertaining on the subject.

And of course if cap type is entertaining and indirectly satisfying to the deeply suggest-able musician, then there will be a market for tone quackery vs. the absurdly simple and clear principles involved.

Go figure.

The Lucile demo is fine so long as you play well into amp clipping. Unfortunately, this Muddy's the Waters regarding the way the Varitone notch filter really can drop your perceived overall volume when playing cleanly.

Get it? "Muddies the waters,..."

[Chimera1to1]

I can't say that I agree with you Chimera 1to1. I've been around, and i do know a thing or two. And I know that I can always learn more.

My opinion is : The plastic cover on the back of a semi - hollow laminated maple body thinline guitar has very little to do with the tone. If it were ebony or spruce, I'll bet that wouldn't change a thing.... but the rear cover is miles away from affecting the tone in the way that p/ups mounted on the surface would.

Some people don't like floaters, some do, and for very good reasons. My Johnny Smith always sounded brittle when amped, and I could not EQ that away. I prefer mounted routed p/ups for a woody jazz tone. Different strokes.

I never ever meant to indicate that I thought you were stupid. Sorry for that exclamation.

Apologies Jimmy and everyone else. I had a really bad day!!!

I also can't believe I forgot the Lucille didn't have F holes. UH!!??

[jack_ellis]

Seen these?
It's a varitone built into a pedal and it also features the choke too





for sale at this web address:
Passive Varitone Stompbox Pedal | Jack's Instrument Services


Varitones are great fun, you do see some that don't feature the inductor/choke transformer, this means that they are variable frequency low pass filters with the choke added its retains some of the top end treble making it more of a notch filter

[Woody Sound]

[stoneground]

I've been lucky enough to own an early 1965 (1964 spec) ES345 for 36 years. It is a beautiful and extremely versatile guitar. Mine is a Stereo Varitone with unmolested wiring. I don't think that the Varitone in bypass position has a significant effect on tone but what hasn't been mentioned yet in this thread, although it is discussed at length in other forums, is the effect of the out of phase pickups and the fact that the pickups are not wired to the volume pots but to the three way switch. There is a good description of the implications of all this on the es-335.org site.
If the guitar is used with a mono amplifier then most people just wire the signals from both pickups together but doing this has an effect on tone and volume.
When using the guitar for mellow jazzy tones which basically means the neck pickup, I use a cable which takes only the neck pickup signal from the stereo jack. This really brings the pickup to life as there is no interference from the other out of phase pickup. I'm no expert on the theory behind all this but it works for me.

[Greentone]

Hmm? It's not true that nobody can tell you what a Varitone switch is/does.

(1) Think of what a passive tone control does. It is a bypass filter. It uses a capacitor and a variable resistor--potentiometer--to gradually dump more and more signal at certain frequencies--in the case of a "tone" control, all frequencies above the shelf point are gradually grounded out. Full "on" and the tone control is rolling off nothing--i.e., the potentiometer is at 0-ohms and there is no resistance. As you back the knob off, more and more resistance is applied and the signal above the shelf point (set by the combination of the capacitor/resistor) causes more and more signal to be attenuated.

(2) A Varitone control is basically the opposite of this. That is, what it is designed to do is to attenuate more and more _frequencies_ at a fixed _signal_, rather than the other way around. Instead of varying resistance, the Varitone varies capacitance via a chain of different value capacitors. The resistance is fixed and the capacitors vary. There is an inductor coil in the circuit, too. As you rotate the switch, more and more capacitance is applied. This dumps more and more (midrange) frequencies, while keeping the signal amplitude the same. So, the Varitone (as I understand it) works the opposite of the tone control. Instead of fixing the frequencies and dumping signal, the Varitone fixes the signal and dumps the frequencies.

Whereas the tone control does this continuously via a potentiometer, the Varitone does this discretely, at intervals, via a series of capacitors. You could design a continuous varitone control, but it would be clumsy. The Hammond Organ expression pedal is actually a variable capacitor--it's bulky and expensive. That component probably wouldn't fit inside a thinline or solid guitar body. So, you have discrete Varitones that offer different amounts of midrange notching.

[NoReply]

I my first 335-ish guitar was a Gibson es-345 and I remember it being called a Choke then and you could look thru the F-hole and see it mounted to the the center block. I remember I didn't like the sounds it created and sold the guitar first chance I got and bought a ES-335 that I still have.

[citizenk74]

For anyone out there who owns an ES-345, ES-355, or ES137 Custom equipped with said tone-sucking device, I might be talked into assuming the burden of ownership, as a service to humanity. My mid-60's patent-sticker equipped ES-345 may be feeling lonely, and I do have a spare stereo cable, and enough amps to run stereo rigs....

[GNAPPI]

For anyone out there who owns an ES-345, ES-355, or ES137 Custom equipped with said tone-sucking device, I might be talked into assuming the burden of ownership, as a service to humanity. My mid-60's patent-sticker equipped ES-345 may be feeling lonely, and I do have a spare stereo cable, and enough amps to run stereo rigs....

:-) It's too bad many players hear with their eyes and prejudices.

For every complaint I read on the VT switch, I have played ten times that amount WITHOUT a VT that sounded like crappenzola.

My 345 (stereo) and 137C are excellent examples of the previous owner (of the 345) and the many shop players that passed up my 137 when it was new passing up on great guitars. Their loss my gain.