[Digital Black]

I've been toying with this idea since I saw it.
I do use my tone control a lot. But if this truely offers more sounds I'd go with it.

http://www.stellartone.com/index.asp

[Drew]

Interesting, but there's gotta be a less invasive way to do that than a stepped potentiometer. I know Fender's "delta tone" tone knob essentially uses two capacitors, one higher than the other, and varies the degree to which they're blended as you roll back and forward - maybe something like that?

[7slinger]

I think it looks interesting, especially since I have no use for my tone control
the way it works/sounds right now

[Jim Soloway]

First a quick disclaimer. I have no affiliation with Stellartone and we are not a reseller for their products.

Stellartone sent us two sets to experiment. Each set included both the Tonestyler tone control and a prewired volume control with a stacked pot and a treble bleed cap.

We completed my new personal 7-string yesterday and I thought that would be the perfect test guitar since I would be playing it a lot anyway. The pickups are custom wound 7-string humbuckers from Jason Lollar, but I suspect the results would be about the same regardless of the pickups.

Installation was very simple, about what you'd experience putting in standard pots. They are a direct swap for the existing pots. No extra drilling is required.

First the good news. The controls definitely work as advertised. There are a lot of useful tones and as the manufacturer claims, you can roll off highs without losing mids, so as the highs are decreased, the tone remains clear and unmuffled. It's click control (I believe there is a diffent model available with a continuous sweep) and every click is a slightly different sound, so it provides a lot variations, many of them very useful. Even rolled all the way to the zero position, it never turns into mud. Two obvious applications that come to mind are taming shrill icepick tones and dialing in a warm jazz tone without the dreaded "blanket over the speaker" syndrome.

Now the bad news. There is a decided click as you move between some of the settings. You may find that annoying. Second, with so many different discrete settings, it can be difficult to get back to where you were and with each setting being truely unique, that may be important. I tend to find one setting and stay there, but if you move between different settings a lot, you might want to look into their other control with the continuous sweep.

This is not an inexpensive product. I believe the retail price is about $130 for the set. You'll have to decide for yourself if it's worth the cost, but there is no question that it expands the useful tonal range of a guitar. I'll be keeping it in my guitar and we'll probably offer it as an upgrade.

[dpm]

I'm no guru, but I have looked into this kind of circuit a bit lately. It's basically a set of switched caps and resistors which interact with the pickup coils. It's quite possible that the effect is more obvious with Lollar and similar pickups as scatterwound coils tend to be more interactive with the rest of the circuit.
I have no doubt there are some cool sounds to be had with the Stellartone.
What is a bit of a concern to me is the frequency graphs which give the impression of definite fixed rolloff points when, from what I understand anyway, these filters interact directly with the pickup coils giving different resonant freqs (the rolloff point) for different pickups. So the graphs would show a theoretical result which is quite variable in reality. I'm saying there is anything wrong with the product btw.
There's some reference info at this site and a similar product - http://www.buildyourguitar.com/resources/lemme/

[Vince]

Originally Posted by Sephiroth000

I've been toying with this idea since I saw it.
I do use my tone control a lot. But if this truely offers more sounds I'd go with it.

http://www.stellartone.com/index.asp

check out the mega-mullet on the dude in the bottom left corner of the page. It's like Joe Dirt and George Michael had a kid!

[Metal Ken]

Originally Posted by Jim Soloway

Now the bad news. There is a decided click as you move between some of the settings. You may find that annoying.

Does this come through the amp at all ?

[dpm]

yeah, it would

[Digital Black]

The clicking would obviously make this harder to use in a live setting. Allthough , I gues you could roll the volume down some..
Thanks for the info , Jim..

[Jim Soloway]

Originally Posted by Sephiroth000

The clicking would obviously make this harder to use in a live setting. Allthough , I gues you could roll the volume down some..
Thanks for the info , Jim..

I played the guitar for a couple hours yesterday and honestly, I dont know if I can live with the clicking. It's very disappointing. I had high hopes for this system and I really like the control it gives me, but I hate the noise. I'll give it another couple days, but right now I'm leaning towards taking it out.