G3 6-way Switch Mod

[Bass VI]

Hello All,

In response to requests for an explanation of this scheme I did when I built my G3/Ripper clone " The Anna Tomick " model ( too long story ) I'll try to give fairly clear instuctions as to what it does and what I did.
AFAIK this should work for any stock G3, I used essentially the same parts and values on mine. One warning, this will change your bass from "stock" and though I feel it's a significant improvement, please don't hold me responsible for burnt fingers, solder splashes, lost sleep...........and I apologize in advance if my desciption isn't really technical, it was pretty hit or miss, me and several sets of jumper wires and no reall "theory".

What you will need:

One NOS 6-way switch, I picked up several from our friends on eBay, they don't have any listed at the moment (you can use a 6 position 4 pole switch like Allparts sells but it is deeper and will probably require routing...)

http://www.allparts.com/store/electronics-switches-ep-0920-000,Product.asp

I used one of these (above) on the original but this one (below) is much more elegant



Here is the Allparts switch



And the NOS switch



As for anything else, it should all be in your G3 

What it does....
Pos 1 Neck pickup
Pos 2 Neck/Middle
Pos 3 Middle
Pos 4 Middle/Bridge
Pos 5 Bridge
Pos 6 Neck/Bridge

As you see, it eliminates the "buck and a half" all three pickup setting, position 6 could be wired that way with another jumper but the Neck/Bridge (which you can't get with the stock setup) seemed more "natural" to me.

Now the process.....

Unsolder the three way toggle, I assume (hopefully ) that these will be the white wires. Gibson used several different color schemes, what you want is to find the "hot" wire (white in the pic), the other two, the one that appears to be soldered to the plate on the bottom of the pickup (black) and the "other one" (in this case orange) both solder to ground....this pic may make it a bit clearer......



In the above pic the white wires go to the switch, the others to ground, in this case the back of the volume pot. I believe ( but since I have no original G3 to look at ) that you should be able to unsolder the wires at the switch and leave everything else as is, if I'm wrong let me know and I'll try to modify the scheme.

For the actual connections please refer to these crude illustrations....




The lower ring refers to the terminals on the bottom of the switch (closest to you when installed on the pickguard) the upper being the row of terminals next to the guard itself.

Neck pickup hotwire connects to upper ring terminals 1,12,13
Middle hotwire to lower ring 3,4,5
Bridge to lower ring 2

Now the jumpers

Connect upper ring terminal 2 to lower ring terminal 1 and then to upper ring 8 (this terminal[8]* is the output to the volume pot )
Connect lower ring terminal 2 to upper ring terminal 10

*Connect [8] to volume pot, use whatever connection previously coming from the toggle, in my case it was the middle lug.

Here are several other views hopefully they will help you visualize what I have tried ( all I can say is I tried! ) to explain.













Best Wishes, hopefully this will explain more than mystephy! Please let me know if anyone needs more info or a better pic. Really any decent tech should be able to figure out what's going on I did! and building/finishing not wiring is my strong suit.

Cheers!

Scott

[chromium]

Nice write up, Scott- and a novel idea!  I had grabbed a few rotary switches (from the L6-S I think...) from our Ebay friends thinking they'd make cool custom varitones, but I haven't done anything with em yet.  I'm always a sucker for a neat electronics hack!

[Pilgrim]

Has anyone published a varitone mod for a bass like my EB-3? Inquiring minds, and all that.  The 3-position rotary selector for bridge/both/neck is handy, but it also presents opportunities.

[Dave W]

Has anyone published a varitone mod for a bass like my EB-3? Inquiring minds, and all that.  The 3-position rotary selector for bridge/both/neck is handy, but it also presents opportunities.

Derek at Big D Guitars offers a bass varitone. I don't know if anyone here has used one.

[chromium]

Craig Anderton had a Varitone-like passive tone control in the "Electronic Projects for Musicians" book that could work too.

I found a schematic for it here:  http://freestompboxes.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=498&start=0




That circuit reminds me a bit of the setup in the Howard Roberts guitar, where you could adjust the amount of "choke" with a potentiometer.  Always thought that might be more useful than the all-or-nothing choke engagement on the old EBs.

[Pilgrim]

Interesting diagram.  Looks like one would just follow the signal output downstream, and insert a multi-position switch between the pickup output and the output jack.  Since I'm not a schematic reader, there's other stuff I don't habla.  I see a 47K "something" on the input and a 50K depth "something" on the other side of the circuit...not sure what either of those are.  It also looks like there's some kind of switch upstream of the multi-position switch.

For the money, Derek's prefab mod looks much simpler to install. His website says he has a few bass varitones left at $55 each.  Guess I'll think on it.  Not sure I'm ready to make another hole in that EB-3 before I've test driven it for a while.

[chromium]

Looks like one would just follow the signal output downstream, and insert a multi-position switch between the pickup output and the output jack. 

It was originally intended to be built in an external box, but to wire it into a guitar - that would be correct.

Since I'm not a schematic reader, there's other stuff I don't habla.  I see a 47K "something"

Resistor.

and a 50K depth "something" on the other side of the circuit...

Potentiometer.  That's the fun part - that let's you control the intensity of the filtering effect.  If you don't use one of the tone controls much, your could replace it with this pot.  I do tend to use my tone controls - so that'd be a tough tradeoff for me to make.

It also looks like there's some kind of switch upstream of the multi-position switch

He uses a transformer w/a coil tap as the "choke" (inductor) in his circuit, and the tap and essentially gives you two different values of inductor to choose from.  The switch toggles between them, and you could use a push/pull pot for that to avoid drilling.  The cap+inductor design creates a notch filter - to "notch out" certain frequency ranges.

For the money, Derek's prefab mod looks much simpler to install. His website says he has a few bass varitones left at $55 each.  Guess I'll think on it.  Not sure I'm ready to make another hole in that EB-3 before I've test driven it for a while.

That is a good value considering the cost of parts and your time.  I'm not sure from what I read that I fully understand his design.  He only mentions using various capacitors in his varitone, with the switch to select between them.  No mention of an inductor that I saw.  Without an inductor, the filtering effect would be different - it would likely "bleed off" frequencies above or below a certain point (much like a tone control), rather than notch out a specific range of frequencies.  So keep in mind the end effect between these two circuits could be very different.  Neither way is right or wrong, it just depends what your looking for.  (EDIT:  I did find mention of the inductor in the Bid-D switch after I posted this - so it likely works in a similar fashion to the circuit above)

Also, there was a guy back at the 'pit that had a EB-3 like yours, but with Darkstars and an second varitone switch installed in it (presumably a Big-D).  IIRC,  his handle was "dazombiewoof", in the event you run into him on another board.  Might be interesting to hear his experiences.

[exiledarchangel]

Craig Anderton had a Varitone-like passive tone control in the "Electronic Projects for Musicians" book that could work too.

I found a schematic for it here:  http://freestompboxes.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=498&start=0




That circuit reminds me a bit of the setup in the Howard Roberts guitar, where you could adjust the amount of "choke" with a potentiometer.  Always thought that might be more useful than the all-or-nothing choke engagement on the old EBs.

I was thinking about building one of these in an external box, to use it with any guitar/bass, but I have one question: in bypass mode, that resistor (47k) won't affect the tone at all?

[Barklessdog]

here is a sound clip of my Blueshawk bass using the Big D Varitone

Each verse is a different setting- it does not overpower but shapes the tone, which for me I find useful.

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_songInfo.cfm?bandID=578947&songID=6798117

[sniper]

after listening to that:

i feel dick dale

the ventures

or at least me being in the 7th grade again living back in Hawaii and hearing those guys on the radio



think i'm going to use that HAS Sound switch i have!

[Pilgrim]

Man, I really like that demo!  You're right, it's very surf-ish.  That's a GOOD thing.

I think I might try a modified version of that as a short solo piece with my surf band!

It would be fun to play a number like that with the bass as lead, and let the guitar take a solo on the break....

[chromium]

I was thinking about building one of these in an external box, to use it with any guitar/bass, but I have one question: in bypass mode, that resistor (47k) won't affect the tone at all?

You could use a DPDT toggle or footswitch to completely remove the circuit from the signal path when you are not using it.  That'd be the best way to go, I would think.

Here's a writeup I found that explains "true bypass" switching, and has some example diagrams:

    http://www.muzique.com/lab/truebypass.htm

[uwe]

here is a sound clip of my Blueshawk bass using the Big D Varitone

Each verse is a different setting- it does not overpower but shapes the tone, which for me I find useful.

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_songInfo.cfm?bandID=578947&songID=6798117

Barkless Dale. I love the percussive click of that bass that never gets too bony. Not only a good looking bass, but also an excellent sounding one. Write to Gibson's new models dept please.

Uwe