Silvertone 1483 tone stack
Tone stacks and tone controls from amps and pedals, from their schematics, with the stage that drives each one and what it feeds. Turn the knobs and watch the curve. Pin a setting to compare, change any part, and listen through a speaker. Pickups and guitar knobs are on the Guitars page.
The Treble 1 and Bass 1 controls of the Silvertone 1483, with every part as on the bench.
Swipe sideways for the whole drawing. Tap a part to change it. The source drives the end marked in, and the load hangs on the end marked out.
At this setting
0 dB is the source’s voltage with nothing hooked to it, so the curve shows what the stack cuts. A tube source changes the curve only through its output resistance, not its gain.
Pin this curve keeps what the graph shows, up to three pins in their own colors. Pins stay when you switch stacks, so you can lay a Marshall treble sweep over a Vox one. In a sweep, the lightest line is the knob at 0 and the darkest is 10.
Listen
You hear a picked string through a guitar on full, with 15 feet of cable. Play without it leaves the stack out.
Source and load
Driven by
Driving
The knobs
- Treble 1
- Treble, 1 MΩ as a variable resistor from the two .0022 µF caps to ground. Turned down, its resistance drops and the caps pull the treble off. Turned up, the caps see more resistance and the treble stays. Taper and direction aren’t marked, so audio and brighter clockwise are assumed.
- Bass 1
- Bass, 1 MΩ. One end is the 220 kΩ’s end, the wiper is the Volume’s top, and the other end goes to 100 kΩ to ground with .006 µF back to the wiper. Turned up, the wiper moves toward the 220 kΩ end and the lows come through the pot as well as the .0015 µF. Turned down, more of the pot sits in series and the lows drop. Taper and direction aren’t marked, so audio and more bass clockwise are assumed.
Parts
- 20 nF
- Coupling cap into channel 1’s tone network.
- 220 kΩ
- First of two 220 kΩ in series along the signal path. With the .0022 µF caps and the Treble pot below them, a two-step treble cut.
- 2.2 nF
- From the start of the 220 kΩ pair to the Treble pot. With the pot turned down it shunts treble to ground.
- 220 kΩ
- Second 220 kΩ along the signal path.
- 2.2 nF
- From the middle of the 220 kΩ pair to the Treble pot.
- Treble 1 1M
- 1 MΩ, Treble, 1 MΩ as a variable resistor from the two .0022 µF caps to ground. Turned down, its resistance drops and the caps pull the treble off. Turned up, the caps see more resistance and the treble stays. Taper and direction aren’t marked, so audio and brighter clockwise are assumed.
- 1.5 nF
- Across the Bass pot’s first half, from the 220 kΩ to the Volume. It passes the treble around the pot.
- Bass 1 1M
- 1 MΩ, Bass, 1 MΩ. One end is the 220 kΩ’s end, the wiper is the Volume’s top, and the other end goes to 100 kΩ to ground with .006 µF back to the wiper. Turned up, the wiper moves toward the 220 kΩ end and the lows come through the pot as well as the .0015 µF. Turned down, more of the pot sits in series and the lows drop. Taper and direction aren’t marked, so audio and more bass clockwise are assumed.
- 6 nF
- From the Bass pot’s wiper to its far end.
- 100 kΩ
- From the Bass pot’s far end to ground. With the series parts above it, a divider that sets how much comes through.
Source and load
Source: 47 kΩ, the output resistance of the stage before it on the bench at 1 kHz. Load: 970 kΩ, the input of what follows it on the bench, from its impedance at 1 and 10 kHz.
Values, wiring and drawing are taken from the Silvertone 1483 on the bench, so the two always match.
Warnings. The summary above the graph turns red if the stack can’t be solved as set, usually from a part at zero or a shorted pot track.
How this tool works. We solve each stack with the circuit bench’s engine: the source stage’s operating point first, then every part at 161 frequencies from 20 Hz to 20 kHz. A stack that’s also in a bench circuit is built from that circuit file, so the two always match.
The curves are small-signal. They don’t show clipping or grid current in the next stage. For the stage before or after a stack, try the gain stage tool.
Spot an error, or want a circuit added? Email info@swellamps.com. A schematic or a clear photo of one helps. Anything you send may be used to improve these models and our desktop app.
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