stellartone - opinions?

[parkerbro]

So I'm having my first guitar built for me. I'm so excited! It's a Soloway. Anyway, I'm considering have a stellartone installed as one of the controls on the guitar. Does anyone here have experience with it good or bad? And if you have one, do you use a separate tone control as well or just the stellartone. Many thanks.

 

[parkerbro]

anyone?

 

[cvansickle]

I have three guitars with Stellartone ToneStylers on them right now, and used it on two others as well. I like having it, and I use at least four settings regularly. The best results I've had were with a P90 guitar and a Charvel So-Cal.

The LP Special with the P90s gets everything from bright and spanky to midrange growly to deep woman tone. And this is only used on the bridge pickup.

The Charvel has a pair of Duncan humbuckers, a Custom Custom bridge and a Pearly Gates neck. The ToneStyler is active for both pickups. I love how it smooths out the Custom Custom, and makes the PG really bark with mids.

Overall, I think the ToneStyler is a winner. I haven't tried it with a Strat yet, but you never know...

 

[parkerbro]

cvansickle - do you have another tone knob as well, or use this as your only tone knob? the guitar i'm having built will have two hums.

do you find it affects your tone at all? are there any downsides to having one?

 

[Member 995]

Use a knob with some sort of indication as to what setting you are on.

I had a Stellartone, but got rid of it. I've since tried a guitar with an informative knob and found it to be a much better interface. Sometimes, the little things make all of the difference.

 

[DC1]

I have a custom with the Stellartone as the only tone knob and I love it. It is especially good for getting a great grind w/o fizz on distortion sounds since it does not decrease the volume.

Very musically useful device.


dc

 

[cvansickle]

cvansickle - do you have another tone knob as well, or use this as your only tone knob? the guitar i'm having built will have two hums.

do you find it affects your tone at all? are there any downsides to having one?

The two Les Pauls I have ToneStylers on at the moment use the TS on the bridge pickup only. It's the only tone knob for that pickup. The neck pickups use the original Gibson tone pots.

Stellartone has a schematic on their web site that shows how to use a push/pull pot and a ToneStyler together, and wire it in such a way so that you can use the TS with either pickup. I haven't tried this yet, but I'm thinking about it for my third Les Paul which currently still uses the stock pots.

The TS doesn't affect the tone negatively. IMO, the tone settings you get from the TS are more useful than just turning down the stock tone pot. The only downside may be that you can't easily roll the knob up and down, unless you buy the newer, more expensive smooth taper TS. Mine are all original and have the notch positions.

 

[parkerbro]

I was just wondering if it would be useful to use the tonestyler to find a setting that I like and then use a regular tone knob to dial in further. But that's probably overkill.
Also, any thoughts on notched versus smooth? I'm leaning towards notched as I can always find my favorite settings.

 

[parkerbro]

anyone else?

 

[boost]

Yes, get the notched. I put two in a guys strat which got me curious to try one. Skeptical at first, but i thought they would do good in a tele. I put one in my tele last week but just yesterday got to crank it up to stage volume to test it out.

I found that the guitar was brighter, and more open due to there not being as much load on the pickup as a regular tone control. Similar to just having a volume wired directly to the output. In my maple neck/ash body tele with a Fralin SP42, this was not ideal as the high end was ripping. After playing with the Tonestyler a while I quickly realized this thing is staying in. I loved some of the sounds and really smoothed things out. Nice thick midrange tone for leads on some lower settings. Very Useful.

If yoy use a tone control (as everybody should that plays a tele), then this thing is great. Figure out the notches you like (I know them by where my set screw is on the knob) and you never have to search for that perfect spot on a smooth shaft tone control.

Any guitar that has only one pickup would benefit greatly from these. Not cheap though. I like mine and it's staying.

 

[duckbunny]

Sounds like it might be really interesting in an Esquire! Hmmm...



-db

 

[boost]

Sounds like it might be really interesting in an Esquire! Hmmm...



-db

Exactly! I think this would be ideal for any one pickup guitar. When I get around to getting a LP Junior, a TS is definitely going in.

I've always been a 'everything full on 10' type of guy until the last year or so. I never liked or needed a tone control. A tele has changed me on that idea and has opened up alot of different tone options.

Maybe is because I'm getting older. My amps are getting smaller too...

 

[sysexguy]

hmmm, I tried to bond with it but it's not my thing. I prefer the sound of a traditional tone control especially with an upgraded cap (not necessarily a $20 one fwiw, literally)

Andy