DIY build alternative to tone stack

[Wayno]

Hi all,

Posted this in another forum and just wondered if anyone here has any input to add.

I'm in the design stages of my first amp build, a marshall plexi clone. Reading through Merlin Blencowe's book got me thinking about alternatives to the standard tone stack. Instead of the traditional tone stack could the cathode bypass capacitors be used to introduce control over tone at the various gain stages. Rather than just the standard cathode bypass capacitor, i'm thinking of making it variable by potentiometer. Say for example, at the first gain stage, from ground up to a fixed resistance then on to a low pass filter based around a potentiometer in parallel with another fixed resistance ( which could also be in parallel with a smaller capacitor to allow high frequencies past ) then on to the cathode. That way you could, in theory i believe, control the bass response of the first gain stage. Repeat with a high pass filter for the second gain stage and again with a bandpass at some point after that? Then you could do away with the traditional tone stack completely?

Has anything like that ever been tried in the past? If not, why not? And if so, to what degree of success?

Thanks for any advice / comments if anyone finds this of interest or even if its completely wrong and won't work.

Thanks,

Wayno

 

[Given To Fly]

I have no clue how amplifiers work. With that said, read about the Bogner Telos: http://www.bogneramplification.com/telos All the words you used are used in this amps description.

 

[Wayno]

Looks like an interesting amp. Kind of in the same school of thought as me. However, I'm thinking more along the lines of rotary controls over the cathode bypass caps rather than switchable voicings.

Thanks for the reply.