Anyone tried Tonestylers?

Johnhamdun

Junior Member
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Saw these on the guitarworld website and did not know if anyone had tried them before

Stellartone Tonestyler Tone Pot - http://www.guitarworld.com/article/stellartone_tonestyler_tone_pot

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9DFo_OnMkU
 
So basically its a 16 pos rotary switch?

"Allows your guitar to be true bypass"....  :laughing7: :laughing7:

Its yo money man, but I think I will stick to cryogenically treated N.0.S. CTS pots from the 1960's.
 
I should be more up on my acronyms, but what does "cryogenically treated N.0.S. CTS pots from the 1960's." breakdown to?

 
Johnhamdun said:
I should be more up on my acronyms, but what does "cryogenically treated N.0.S. CTS pots from the 1960's." breakdown to?

all I know is that NOS means nederlandse omroep stichting (dutch broadcast society :p )but the more commonly used acronym of NOS is 'new old stock'.
 
I watched the video.  It looks pretty cool to me.  I usually build my guitars without tone pots to get the bypass sound, but I might try one of these.
 
Orpheo said:
Johnhamdun said:
I should be more up on my acronyms, but what does "cryogenically treated N.0.S. CTS pots from the 1960's." breakdown to?

all I know is that NOS means nederlandse omroep stichting (dutch broadcast society :p )but the more commonly used acronym of NOS is 'new old stock'.

Cryogenically treated = Frozen
N.O.S                      = New Old Stock (like Orph said).  Components that were made 'back in the day', but never used.  Just sat in a box on the shelf until now.
CTS                        = Good quality brand of parts
60's                          = Old stuff usually better than mass produced modern crap
 
Seems to me they basically all these do is set 16 preset bandwidth filters instead of having one variable one, plus a bypass, for $105 more than the variable pot.
 
but jack it believe it is selectable notch filters, not just a cap that gives a high end cut off and lowers the resonant peak and on some guitars making everything muddy. and this could be done in series with a pot so one knob is the amount of filtering and the tone styler is where the signal gets filtered. on the other hand there are with a few ways too wire an inductor with a cap into a guitar tone crcuit that would give a very wide range of sounds for much less $.
 
DiMitriR33 said:
but jack it believe it is selectable notch filters, not just a cap that gives a high end cut off and lowers the resonant peak and on some guitars making everything muddy. and this could be done in series with a pot so one knob is the amount of filtering and the tone styler is where the signal gets filtered. on the other hand there are with a few ways too wire an inductor with a cap into a guitar tone crcuit that would give a very wide range of sounds for much less $.

If you look at the blow up of the actual device (link below) it appears as if there are 16 separate surface mount capacitors, presumably of differing values wired in line with the lugs off the rotary switch:

http://www.guitarworld.com/sites/future.p2technology.com/files/imce-images/stellartone_tonestyler.jpg
 
yea i guess your right. you need an inductor for a notch filter unless a buffer of some kind is involved which it's not.

it would give a slightly different sound that the standard arrangement though probably not very useful. now in series with a lawrence Q-filter and a pot would be super versitile, that would give 15 diferent points it could cut mids and still be variable, but 2 pots and 2 caps and an inductor can probably work similarly.
 
DocNrock said:
IMHO, it looks a bit spendy for what it does.

I agree, especially when the reviewer says "you won't be able to hear the differences between all the settings" And when Rothstein (Guitar-mod.com) has very similar units for less than half the price...
 
Rickgrxbass said:
DocNrock said:
IMHO, it looks a bit spendy for what it does.

I agree, especially when the reviewer says "you won't be able to hear the differences between all the settings" And when Rothstein (Guitar-mod.com) has very similar units for less than half the price...

Yup, got one of their "voodoo" pots (passive mid control) for my next Strat build.
 
I sprung for a tonestyler a couple of years ago on a whim.  It does give some really usable tones at the different settings, and even bassier tones sound much more musical to my ear than a typical tone pot could give.   

That being said, I find myself rarely, if ever using it.  There are so many little "notches" in the thing that it's pretty much impossible to get it to land on the same notch every time on the fly in a live situation.   I also play with the tone pot wide open on 98% of my stuff so it's essentially pointless for me to have it and was a waste of my $$.   However, if you did a ton of studio work and actually use your tone control to dial in different, specific sounds; I could see it being pretty useful.
 
I leave my tone pots pretty much dialed to "10"; always have a Cry-baby at the front of my effects chain and control tone with that.
 
Johnhamdun said:
I should be more up on my acronyms, but what does "cryogenically treated N.0.S. CTS pots from the 1960's." breakdown to?

I was joking.

I was trying to fit in as many terms people looking for the HOLY GRAIL of tone and MOJO would use. eg Eric Johnson.
 
Ted said:
I was joking.

I was trying to fit in as many terms people looking for the HOLY GRAIL of tone and MOJO would use. eg Eric Johnson.

hahaha, I've been looking for those everywhere... Glad I can stop my search haha
 
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