The DijonStock Digital Home Recording Support Forum

This is the Stupidly Wonderful Tone Control, an amazing passive tone control that was designed by Jack Orman of AMZ fame. Using just 2 resistors and one capacitor this lets you boost or cut treble without affecting bass. It also has a volume control.





The SWTC is easy to build and requires no batteries or electric power. Put the SWTC after a guitar effect like a fuzzbox and this will let you control the tone of the effect before reaching the amplifier. It will warm up the sound or brighten up the sound since it can both cut and boost the treble frequencies.




I built this in about 45 minutes from start to finish including assembling the case and putting on the labels. Anybody reading this even if you never built a guitar effect in your life could build this. It requires no circuit board instead you just use "point to point wiring" like in a hand build tube amplifier (!)

Think about it these are all the parts you need and you can build it for about $10 USD. The electronic parts only cost a couple of dollars, and most of the cost is for the case, the knobs and the guitar jacks.

(2) 100K ohm potentiometers for volume and tone controls
(2) plastic knobs
(1) project box or case size does not matter much
(2) 1/4" guitar jacks
(1) 10k ohm resistor
(1) 47k ohm resitor
(1) .022uF capacitor

A drill to drill holes in the case for the 2 guitar jacks and the 2 knobs, and a pair of pliers to mount this hardware in the case.

A bit of wire and a soldering iron. That's it.

Here is my recording of it using a SolaSound Tonebender I built a great 1960's fuzzbox that has no tone control on it. You will hear it start off with the SWTC cutting the treble, then flat, then boosted treble and back again. It makes a huge difference in the tone.

Listen here:
http://www.vimeo.com/1756959

Here is Jack Orman's design page.
http://www.muzique.com/lab/swtc.htm

Bill

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I play old school because I am old school.

You must be talking to Geno!

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I've been doing a lot of abstract recording lately, extremely abstract. No guitar, no mic, no AW2400, I just think about it.

rz-land

Looks cool.

I have the skills, I have the soldering iron, I have the $10......I don't have 45 minutes.

I could have the soldering iron (but I don't), I also could have the $ 10, (that is € 7,- which I don't have), I could have the 45 minutes... all doable. But I'll never have the skills.

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Don't judge the coffee by its cup.
The proof of the cheese is in the eating

Together Robbie, we could make this happen. I'll warm up the soldering iron....just send me some spare time to purchase supplies and get it done.

Guys I am going to make this even simpler by showing the wiring as a picture. Let me know if you have any questions. this is how it will look like if you are looking into the case from the back (the inside), with the volume and tone control pots drilled and mounted in the case, the input jack drilled and mounted on the left side, and the output jack on the right.

Of course when you finish the job and flip the box over to use it the input jack will be on the right and the output on the left, and the volume knob is on the left, tone control on the right. But since we are looking from the back of the case this is a mirror image. This is the "conventional way" wiring diagrams are drawn, the way you actually see it while you are doing the soldering.

Here is a crude wiring diagram I whipped up of how to wire up this simple schematic. Red wire is the input signal path, Blue wire is the output signal path, and green wire is the ground path. Build it with 3 colors of wire and will never get confused. Points on the diagram where there is a dot means "solder here". For example one end of R1, one end of R2 and one end of C1 are all soldered together at one point. That means twist the wire ends together and solder there. Wires that cross without a dot, for example the blue and green wires cross at one point, are not soldered together. They are just wires that happen just cross over or under each other but are not connected.

Solder lugs are the metal strips with holes in them that you solder wires and components to. They are the "points" in point to point wiring. A guitar jack has 2 lugs, one for the sleeve and one for the tip. Potentiometers have 3 lugs. When you mount the pot in the case and view it from the bottom, they are numbered 3, 2,1 as you go from left to right. So in the diagram there are 10 solder lugs and they all get something soldered to them.

The sound "signal" is carried by the metal tip of your guitar plug. The "ground" part is the long metal part of the guitar plug. the tip of a guitar jack is solder lug that connects to the long curved metal part that touches the tip of the guitar plug, when you plug it in. The "sleeve" of a jack is the other lug, that touches the ground part of the guitar plug when you plug it in.

Bill

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I play old school because I am old school.

Bill ,

You lost me after "This is the Stupidly Wonderful Tone Control...."

Though is does sound and look cool.

I admire your passion and dedication to your craft.

Gary (aka: the stupidly wonderful Bartman)

We're a great team, aren't we? You buy the cheese, I'll eat it. Together we'll make it happen!

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Don't judge the coffee by its cup.
The proof of the cheese is in the eating

jeezze......went to cheese

Again

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THE MUSIC IS DOWN IN HERE
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Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.

Guilty as charged...

Doc says that as long as I don't use my mouth in another cheese-related way I'll be fine...

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Don't judge the coffee by its cup.
The proof of the cheese is in the eating