Played some Gibson 137s ...You guys with the Varitone??

[Charlie X]

I played a 66 345 for years...always hated the varitone on it. There
is a guy on You tube who shows that after 62 or so, the varitone sucks
tone..he is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HecbQnYoY5g

But..i played some 137s with and without and gotta say, the one with
did sound like a true bypass. It really sounded fine and the one
without did not sound more open or better (i know they have diff
pickups..and the classic did sound great..but not better). The
varitone had some very usable rhythm sounds for me.

Does anyone know if Gibson fixed the circuit and whether it is a true
bypass now?
They claim it is (I called them) but I never believe any of their
marketing...Epi also says its true bypass but that sounds like bull
too.

What do u guys think of the varitone? I

[Greg D]

I'm awaiting responses to yor thread, too, Charlie.

[Charlie X]

ha...do u have a varitone guitar?

There are some guys making them where you can plug in externally...and
they have true bypass switches on them...seems like the way to go..but
the 137 Custom really sounded NICE.
so..im perplexed and dont want to buy both.

Not a lot of good info on the net...many folks dont hear any diff on
guitars that DO have a differnce.
anywho...

[RS]

I've never had much use for the Varitone sound-wise, but there's no
reason why the circuit should load the guitar pickups when on position
1 (bypass). Gibson has had problems at times, but it would be
difficult to completely screw up that circuit, at least to the extent
that is evident in the video.

I do have some old Varitone schematics, and I believe they're similar
to these:

http://www.flatearthguitars.com/files/Gibson_Varitones.jpg

The circuit above should not be audible when in bypass.

[RS]

I've never thought the sound was that useful to merit having one built
into a guitar. If you wanted to do it yourself, it would be easy to
make sure it could be effectively out of circuit (the term 'true
bypass' doesn't really relate to that circuit topology). Tough part
is finding the inductor. Everything else is off-the-shelf Radio Shack.
I posted a link to a circuit that should be accurate (to my
recollection of the original circuit...sorry, can't dig that out of
the archives at the moment).

Anyway, since the Varitone affords only a few presets of dubious tonal
merit (IMO), and you're talking about going with an external unit, why
not just go with a decent quality parametric EQ? More versatile, and
you could minimize the obtrusive peaky quality of the Varitone's
series cap-inductor circuit.

[Charlie X]

Yes..i considered the Roland / boss EQ 20...it lets u preset 10 eqs
via a pedal...would likely work, but they quit making it.
I got the guy at certainbass.com to make a varitone for me...he is
going to add an on/off switch with a true bypass..then i can use it on
anything. .
I need to get a good jazz tone, but want to add some funkish rhythm
guitar...I cant get it with a gibson type, but the varition works for
those rare times. The gibson ones up trhu the 90s at least...you could
hear them even when in bypass...they def changed the sound of the
guitar to somewhat of a muffle. Not sure they are the same now
though...anyone know?

[Greg D]

I don't have one. Just curious.

[RS]

On Wed, 8 Feb 2012 15:04:22 -0800 (PST), Charlie X
<diym...@excite.com> wrote:

>Yes..i considered the Roland / boss EQ 20...it lets u preset 10 eqs
>via a pedal...would likely work, but they quit making it.
>I got the guy at certainbass.com to make a varitone for me...he is
>going to add an on/off switch with a true bypass..then i can use it on
>anything. .
>I need to get a good jazz tone, but want to add some funkish rhythm
>guitar...I cant get it with a gibson type, but the varition works for
>those rare times.

Yeah, that would be where it might be useful. I still never cared for
the tone much though. I think you can do better with a parametric.

BTW, if you're having a Varitone made, you could put a pot across the
inductor to control the amount of high end. It could help to damp the
squonky sound a bit when necessary.

>The gibson ones up trhu the 90s at least...you could
>hear them even when in bypass...they def changed the sound of the
>guitar to somewhat of a muffle. Not sure they are the same now
>though...anyone know?

If you have a schematic, I can probably tell you what's going on and
how to fix it.

[Phil T]

On 2/11/2012 2:18 AM, RS wrote:
> On Wed, 8 Feb 2012 15:04:22 -0800 (PST), Charlie X
> <diym...@excite.com> wrote:
>
>>
>
> BTW, if you're having a Varitone made, you could put a pot across the
> inductor to control the amount of high end. It could help to damp the
> squonky sound a bit when necessary.
>

Now that sounds like a useful addition to that circuit. Good idea.

[george4908]

Info on the present-day Varitone here:

http://www.blueshawk.info/varitone.htm

The Blueshawk was a somewhat quirky solid body that was only in the
line-up for a few years (1993-1999). I've never had much use for
Varitones, and for the most part I preferred the Blueshawk with the
Varitone switched out, but there were a couple of Varitone settings
that sounded good. Very likely it's the same circuit on the 135, at
least in terms of the bypass. They may have tweaked the other
settings for the 135's humbuckers vs. faux-P-90s of the Bluehawk.

[RS]

You could determine the pot value empirically, of course. Just swap in
different resistance pots till you find one with good range and taper.
But just doing a quick off-the-cuff calculation, I'd recommend
starting around 250k or 500k audio taper. (Taper determines how fast
resistance changes with rotation of the pot--you probably knew that).
It would probably be good to get sharper taper pots if possible--
1/10th resistance at 1/2 rotation. Those are somewhat tough to find,
but then you could use higher values without crunching all the usable
range into the lower half of the rotation. Otherwise, just see if the
regular 250k Fender-type audio pot will do it. Those should be easy to
find, and will probably work well.

The overall effect should be a bit like having an extra tone control,
but one that could just roll off very top without attenuating mids.
That should be great for jazz.

[Phil T]

With that inductor being 1.5 H, the reactance isn't very high in the
frequency range of the guitar - call it 3K at 300 Hz and around 10K at 1
Khz. A 250K pot across it might be too large to provide any useful
effect. Or is there something else to consider here that I'm not aware of ?

[RS]

Hi Phil, I usually use 5Khz as a reference point for the top range of
electric guitar. At 5KHz, reactance of the inductor would be about
50k. A true log10 250k pot would present 25K at midpoint. That would
be close to 2:1 wrt the reactance at 5khz: almost -10db. Fender type
pots don't have as steep a taper, of course, but midpoint would still
be close to 1:1.

The overriding factor though, may actually be the 100k series
resistance that kicks in when the Varitone is engaged. Ref:
http://www.flatearthguitars.com/files/Gibson_Varitones.jpg The 250k
pot would work fairly well against that resistor. (Consider the bass
control on Fender amps, which works against the 100k slope resistor)

There is also a secondary 'tanking' effect at the resonant point of
the inductor and the cap. I thought that it may not be good to keep
the range of the pot fairly high just to make sure that it's
effectively out of circuit at max.

Anyway, that's my reasoning. It's sometimes difficult to predict sonic
results anyway, so some of this may need to be tweaked by ear.

[Phil T]

Gotcha. I hadn't considered any of that. Thanks

[Charlie X]

On Feb 8, 5:00 pm, RS <R...@nospam.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 8 Feb 2012 13:20:26 -0800 (PST), Charlie X
>

well..thanks for the idea..i have been playing a guitar with a
varitone and find the options useful for rhythm and other
effects...the last 2 settings give a great sound for funk and are
almost a single coil sound...the external varitone i had made did not
work for me...but we are still tweaking.
I DID try the eq idea. I think it will eventually be the solution....i
have a boss EQ 7 or whatever the boss eq pedal is...i can dial out the
bass and get a good rhythm sound when i hit the pedal, though not as
nice as pos 5 or 6 on the varitone. Someone makes an EQ with presets
that I may try. With that, I can lose the varitone and go with a 335
or 355..though the new bb king gem model without the F holes is REALLY
attractive and the same price. If it didnt have that unsightly
headstock, I would pull the trigger as the colors are nice. The EQ
plan may be the best idea so far...im still tweakin though.

[RS]

On Mon, 13 Feb 2012 19:22:30 -0800 (PST), Charlie X
<diym...@excite.com> wrote:

>On Feb 8, 5:00 pm, RS <R...@nospam.com> wrote:

>> I've never thought the sound was that useful to merit having one built
>> into a guitar. If you wanted to do it yourself, it would be easy to
>> make sure it could be effectively out of circuit (the term 'true
>> bypass' doesn't really relate to that circuit topology).  Tough part
>> is finding the inductor. Everything else is off-the-shelf Radio Shack.
>> I posted a link to a circuit that should be accurate (to my
>> recollection of the original circuit...sorry, can't dig that out of
>> the archives at the moment).
>>
>> Anyway, since the Varitone affords only a few presets of dubious tonal
>> merit (IMO), and you're talking about going with an external unit, why
>> not just go with a decent quality parametric EQ?  More versatile, and
>> you could minimize the obtrusive peaky quality of the Varitone's
>> series cap-inductor circuit.
>
>well..thanks for the idea..i have been playing a guitar with a
>varitone and find the options useful for rhythm and other
>effects...the last 2 settings give a great sound for funk and are
>almost a single coil sound...the external varitone i had made did not
>work for me...but we are still tweaking.

Why isn't it working? That should be fairly easy to hook up, -if- you
find the inductor. If you have the schematic, I'll be glad to take a
look to see if there are any problems.

BTW, inductors can be a pain--ringy sounding and prone to picking up
hum. But they're a decent way to do that type of EQ without requiring
a battery. That's the main reason that they're sometimes used in
guitars. If you have a pedal with power (battery or AC), there's not
much reason to use an inductor these days.

>I DID try the eq idea. I think it will eventually be the solution....i
>have a boss EQ 7 or whatever the boss eq pedal is...i can dial out the
>bass and get a good rhythm sound when i hit the pedal, though not as
>nice as pos 5 or 6 on the varitone.

With a graphic EQ, you may not get the extreme notch that you can get
with the Varitone, but the EQ should be way more versatile. If you do
want to duplicate the Varitone response, I think a parametric EQ will
get closer than the graphic EQ.

>Someone makes an EQ with presets
>that I may try.

As long as there's not a lot of extraneous circultry. Which one were
you looking at?

[Charlie X]

Yes! I think you are right..i cannot get the extreme notch that the
varitone gets and I wish i could becuase i like the notch sound better
than the eq. I looked at 2 eqs..there is one by 'Source Audio' that
has 4 presets and there is the boss 20 but that one is discontinued
and it also did not allow u to scroll thorugh the 10 presets....maybe
Boss is fixing that and will issue a new model.

I would prefer not to have a pedal..the external VT just hooked to my
strap and was very comfortable.
The reason it didnt work is there was a lot of added distortion in the
sounds. Also..the sounds had too much bass retained..so it was not
working for rhythm.

A good plan would also move position 5 and 6 to pos 2 and 3..and have
those extreme tones right next to the bypass, since those are the only
ones i would be using.
Pos 2 of a varitone is the most useless of all for me. ..then i have
to turn it all the way over to get the more single coil sound.
I could do with JUST those last 2 notches and a bypass.
Dave at certainbass.com is making it and I just told him my
observations...so I am waiting back for his response. He has the
schematic.
Im not sure he will want to pursue it as fixing the 'fuzz' may entail
a total redesign. There is a varitione pedal someone makes but to
change the sound you have to do the deep knee bends then step on the
switch...no good.

I will likely go the eq route as this is not a major thing I want to
be chasing. I just need a good funk sound from a gibson and an eq
should get me there..but I would love a varitione with the sounds I
use in the correct position and with a TRUE bypass. That would work
for me, but does not exist at this time surprisingly.