Talk:Varitone

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Unrelated Varitone[edit]

Someone had posted information about a guitar-related Varitone. I'm moving it to the talk page for now. If it's verifiable then it should be moved to its own article. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 05:56, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There is another Varitone in the music industry, a six way tone selector switch used on several guitars. Possibly the most well known is the Gibson B.B. King Lucille (or 345/355). Basically the switch is a chicken head rotary device that supplements the normal 2 tone controls on a Gibson (or Epiphone) guitar. By turning the Varitone the guitarist can subtract or attenuate bass tones. Torres Engineering markets add-on kits to add this feature to other guitars. The major benefit of using a Varitone is that it adds many more tonal combinations to a guitar.

The Bill Lawrence poleless "Super-Humbucker"Gibson L6-S had a very similar chicken-head rotary tonal switch arrangement, however is it normally not usually referred to as a Varitone-equipped guitar.

Varitone Introduced by Gibson in 1959, the Varitone 6-way tone control is a circuit that acts as a notch filter, reducing frequencies at set points along the frequency spectrum. Filtering is achieved by passing the signal through capacitors that effectively remove or reduce specific frequencies. As the Varitone knob is rotated from positions 1 to 6, the center frequency of the filter shifts from high frequencies to lower frequencies, producing unique tones at each setting. Probably the most notable use of a Varitone circuit in an electric guitar is B.B. King's Lucille. An example of the various settings and the tonal effect of a Varitone circuit: Position 1: Bypass (no effect) Position 2: -8.5dB at 1875Hz (or 1.875kHz ) Position 3: -12dB at 1090 Hz (1.090 kHz) Position 4: -15dB at 650 Hz Position 5: -16dB at 350 Hz Position 6: -20dB at 130 Hz The specific frequencies impacted by the Varitone will be dependent on the values of capacitors used.

Source(s): http://www.sweetwater.com/expert-center/glossary/t--Varitone

          http://www.gibson.com/Files/schematics/thinline.gif

(please clean up my horrid html =) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.183.69.3 (talk) 07:03, 9 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

These are two different things, and should probably have separate articles. "The Varitone" is the woodwind pickup and effects unit developed and marketed by Selmer. "Varitone" is the name of a particluar passive tone control circuit developed by Gibson for electric guitar. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.206.183.96 (talk) 08:51, 15 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]