Leña_Costoso
New member
- Joined
- Jul 24, 2005
- Messages
- 2,234
Hey folks - just a heads up in case anyone ever had the urge.
I've long been a fan of the L6s, and its unique wiring and "middle" control, as well as a fan of its designer Bill Lawrence.
That thing you see there, above, is an amazing little device. Bill Lawrence makes em for $20 a piece. Basically its two inductor coils, wound in opposite directions for hum cancelling, packaged in a little square plastic container, with leads.
Technical (skip this paragraph if you like) I ordered up two, and both measured 55.5Ohms DC, and 1.85Henries. Note, Lawrence's forum lists this as a .9Henry inductor, but I think it must haved changed spec, as my meter seems to be very close on other "known value" inductors.
This thing is outrageous! Its perfect for the inductor in an Varitone. Just plain flat out perfect. BTW, I attached one inside the cavity of my BFG with double sticky tape, it weighs next to nothing. For a guitar with two volume controls (like most Gibsons with more than one pickup have), you need two inductors. A Gibson Varitone is fixed depth notch filter who's frequency changes by changing the capacitor in the circuit.
You can also sort of do the opposite - use a fixed capacitor value, and change the resistance in the circuit to keep the frequency the same, and just change the depth. If you do that, it acts like a "middle tone" control. In this respect, it works better than the middle control on the L6s, which I always thought didn't leave quite enough top end in the final signal. The problem with the L6s is an inductor that is, imho, a bit too low in Henry value (inductance). The higher the inductance, the more top end will be retained. Changing the capacitor value will determine the amount of low end retained, with larger caps losing more low end on the final signal.
I'd be amazed if you can't vary the cap, and use a pot as well, as I've experiemented with this thing, and subbed in different capacitors and...well ...they all sound different by a fairly large degree (different frequency) and the pot they were soldered to still worked ok (except it was the wrong taper... and thats getting corrected).
Ok, so whats it sound like? Here is the WAY cool part. As a mid control, wired to a pot, Lawrence's site says use a .022 cap with a 10k resistor across it, all in series with the coil, so you dont get the coil going directly to the signal with no load - which cuts the bottom out completely. What I found, is you can use a smaller value cap, like .01, and no resistor, and you get a nice smooth mids contour. It sounds like the tone control you always wanted, that silkens up the high fundamentals, but leaves the harmonics or "sparkle" there. Even a .0047 cap would be something to try (I stopped at .01 though). If you use a larger cap, you and up with more low end being cut and you get a real "notch" sound. The .022 cap alone with no resistor rolls you from a contour of the high fundamentals all the way through a "Strat 2/4" tone, and finally to a more "brassy" tone as the bottom is drops away a bit. Use a 250k AUDIO taper pot for best results. I also tried .1 and .047 caps.. and if I was putting in a switch, I'd keep the .047. That is, I'd use .047, .022, .01 and .0047 on a 4 position switch, with the pot selecting depth and the switch selecting freq.
Its a very cool device, very cheap, can be used to replace your tone contols capacitor for interesting effect. I'd use the "blocking resistor and also keep the cap size smaller than Lawrence suggests, like maybe .01 cap and 15k or even 20k resistor.
I suspect that your milage is going to vary - depending on the pickups your using, so expect a little bit of experimentation, but I saw the most useful tones with a .01 and .022 cap when I used 'em with a BB3 and P90.
So thats it. Enjoy 'em.
I've long been a fan of the L6s, and its unique wiring and "middle" control, as well as a fan of its designer Bill Lawrence.
That thing you see there, above, is an amazing little device. Bill Lawrence makes em for $20 a piece. Basically its two inductor coils, wound in opposite directions for hum cancelling, packaged in a little square plastic container, with leads.
Technical (skip this paragraph if you like) I ordered up two, and both measured 55.5Ohms DC, and 1.85Henries. Note, Lawrence's forum lists this as a .9Henry inductor, but I think it must haved changed spec, as my meter seems to be very close on other "known value" inductors.
This thing is outrageous! Its perfect for the inductor in an Varitone. Just plain flat out perfect. BTW, I attached one inside the cavity of my BFG with double sticky tape, it weighs next to nothing. For a guitar with two volume controls (like most Gibsons with more than one pickup have), you need two inductors. A Gibson Varitone is fixed depth notch filter who's frequency changes by changing the capacitor in the circuit.
You can also sort of do the opposite - use a fixed capacitor value, and change the resistance in the circuit to keep the frequency the same, and just change the depth. If you do that, it acts like a "middle tone" control. In this respect, it works better than the middle control on the L6s, which I always thought didn't leave quite enough top end in the final signal. The problem with the L6s is an inductor that is, imho, a bit too low in Henry value (inductance). The higher the inductance, the more top end will be retained. Changing the capacitor value will determine the amount of low end retained, with larger caps losing more low end on the final signal.
I'd be amazed if you can't vary the cap, and use a pot as well, as I've experiemented with this thing, and subbed in different capacitors and...well ...they all sound different by a fairly large degree (different frequency) and the pot they were soldered to still worked ok (except it was the wrong taper... and thats getting corrected).
Ok, so whats it sound like? Here is the WAY cool part. As a mid control, wired to a pot, Lawrence's site says use a .022 cap with a 10k resistor across it, all in series with the coil, so you dont get the coil going directly to the signal with no load - which cuts the bottom out completely. What I found, is you can use a smaller value cap, like .01, and no resistor, and you get a nice smooth mids contour. It sounds like the tone control you always wanted, that silkens up the high fundamentals, but leaves the harmonics or "sparkle" there. Even a .0047 cap would be something to try (I stopped at .01 though). If you use a larger cap, you and up with more low end being cut and you get a real "notch" sound. The .022 cap alone with no resistor rolls you from a contour of the high fundamentals all the way through a "Strat 2/4" tone, and finally to a more "brassy" tone as the bottom is drops away a bit. Use a 250k AUDIO taper pot for best results. I also tried .1 and .047 caps.. and if I was putting in a switch, I'd keep the .047. That is, I'd use .047, .022, .01 and .0047 on a 4 position switch, with the pot selecting depth and the switch selecting freq.
Its a very cool device, very cheap, can be used to replace your tone contols capacitor for interesting effect. I'd use the "blocking resistor and also keep the cap size smaller than Lawrence suggests, like maybe .01 cap and 15k or even 20k resistor.
I suspect that your milage is going to vary - depending on the pickups your using, so expect a little bit of experimentation, but I saw the most useful tones with a .01 and .022 cap when I used 'em with a BB3 and P90.
So thats it. Enjoy 'em.
