mellowgerman
Senior Member
Backstory:
After picking up my new-to-me 1967 Sunburst SFB-I from it's fret-leveling session, I decided to waste no time and take on the dread tone-suck circuit. I figured I'd make some recordings to finally, once-and-for-all demonstrate exactly what we all already know is going on there.
To my surprise, the pots, switch, and caps had been replaced at some point with CTS and .022uF Sprague Orange drops. Was a clean job and they essentially rebuilt the original Guild harness. Not sure if the resistor was original or replaced, but I'm pretty sure it was to factory spec. I snapped a few photos of what the harness looked like before I snipped it.
Somewhat unimportant to this post: I didn't want to have a useless switch in my bass, so I made it an alternate-capacitor switch for the tone pot. I simply wired the switch in between the tone pot lug and the capacitors (two Sprague .022uF caps, totally .044uF) and in parallel, wired a 102k (.001uF) cap. These tiny caps are sort of a secret weapon in my mind. They might not be super useful as a traditional tone control cap, but it does cut out a notable amount of hiss/noise from the single-coil and from bad ground wiring, like I have at my house and have encountered at a lot of bar gigs. I also like to do some tone-sculpting with my Alembic SF-2 Superfilter, which is so powerful in it's boosting capabilities that this type of hiss/noise can become a real pain in the ear, so it's nice to be able to roll off some of it without really affecting the tone of the bass.
The Meat of the Experiment:
Many vintage Guild Starfire basses came equipped with a push-button on/off switch that was advertised as a "bass boost" but is more commonly referred to as the "tone-suck" or "tone-dump". It consisted of an extra capacitor, resistor, and a choke, which looks like a little transformer and is housed underneath the neck pickup.
Though this tone circuit allows the user to choose between two significantly different tones, the problem was that there was no bypass, so no matter whether it was in the up or down position, the pickup of the bass was not allowed breathe or give us 100% of what it has to give, which is the big burly holy grail Hagstrom Bisonic tone Starfire enthusiasts are typically looking for.
This clip demonstrates the big difference attainable by removing the circuit.
**FOR BEST RESULTS LISTEN WITH GOOD HEADPHONES OR STUDIO MONITORS**
What you will hear:
Riff A
- tone-suck position #1
- tone-suck position #2
- tone-suck removed
Riff B
- tone-suck position #1
- tone-suck position #2
- tone-suck removed
Disclaimer: this clip was recorded with brand new flatwound strings that have not had a chance to break in yet, so they do have a little bit of that bright/nasal thing going on, but it doesn't really interfere with the impressive contrast between the three sounds
https://soundcloud.com/mellowgerman/1967-guild-starfire-bass-tone-unsuck/s-Qnouv
After picking up my new-to-me 1967 Sunburst SFB-I from it's fret-leveling session, I decided to waste no time and take on the dread tone-suck circuit. I figured I'd make some recordings to finally, once-and-for-all demonstrate exactly what we all already know is going on there.
To my surprise, the pots, switch, and caps had been replaced at some point with CTS and .022uF Sprague Orange drops. Was a clean job and they essentially rebuilt the original Guild harness. Not sure if the resistor was original or replaced, but I'm pretty sure it was to factory spec. I snapped a few photos of what the harness looked like before I snipped it.
Somewhat unimportant to this post: I didn't want to have a useless switch in my bass, so I made it an alternate-capacitor switch for the tone pot. I simply wired the switch in between the tone pot lug and the capacitors (two Sprague .022uF caps, totally .044uF) and in parallel, wired a 102k (.001uF) cap. These tiny caps are sort of a secret weapon in my mind. They might not be super useful as a traditional tone control cap, but it does cut out a notable amount of hiss/noise from the single-coil and from bad ground wiring, like I have at my house and have encountered at a lot of bar gigs. I also like to do some tone-sculpting with my Alembic SF-2 Superfilter, which is so powerful in it's boosting capabilities that this type of hiss/noise can become a real pain in the ear, so it's nice to be able to roll off some of it without really affecting the tone of the bass.
The Meat of the Experiment:
Many vintage Guild Starfire basses came equipped with a push-button on/off switch that was advertised as a "bass boost" but is more commonly referred to as the "tone-suck" or "tone-dump". It consisted of an extra capacitor, resistor, and a choke, which looks like a little transformer and is housed underneath the neck pickup.
Though this tone circuit allows the user to choose between two significantly different tones, the problem was that there was no bypass, so no matter whether it was in the up or down position, the pickup of the bass was not allowed breathe or give us 100% of what it has to give, which is the big burly holy grail Hagstrom Bisonic tone Starfire enthusiasts are typically looking for.
This clip demonstrates the big difference attainable by removing the circuit.
**FOR BEST RESULTS LISTEN WITH GOOD HEADPHONES OR STUDIO MONITORS**
What you will hear:
Riff A
- tone-suck position #1
- tone-suck position #2
- tone-suck removed
Riff B
- tone-suck position #1
- tone-suck position #2
- tone-suck removed
Disclaimer: this clip was recorded with brand new flatwound strings that have not had a chance to break in yet, so they do have a little bit of that bright/nasal thing going on, but it doesn't really interfere with the impressive contrast between the three sounds
https://soundcloud.com/mellowgerman/1967-guild-starfire-bass-tone-unsuck/s-Qnouv
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