Tone Block v3: Nailed It!

Yeah! Nailed it in one shot. The crew was busy working on a project with a tight deadline. I didn’t want to disrupt their workflow. After simulating the circuit, I got bold and went straight to PCB prototyping—skipping the usual breadboard stage. I figured, heck, I’d just hack the board if I found any flaws during testing.

But whoa! It worked perfectly on the first try—flawless! Well, almost. The headers are reversed—a minor aesthetic flaw. But most importantly, the thing works as I expected, as designed.

For those who tuned in late, the Tone Block is a compact (48 x 20 mm), second-order (two-pole) resonant RLC filter with variable frequency and Q (resonance). It is a general-purpose device that can be used with any pickup, both passive and active, including piezo, giving you the freedom to change each pickup’s character on the fly, from dark gothic metal to sunny surf rock. The Tone Block allows you to dial in the characteristics of virtually any pickup. The second-order filter provides a 12dB/octave (40dB/decade) roll-off, which is exactly the response of a traditional high-impedance passive pickup that the Tone Block is meant to emulate.

Curious about how this thing works? Want a peek under the hood? Let me know, and I’ll break down the inner workings in another post. Gotta say, I’m pretty thrilled with my design!

This is drop-in compatible with the v2 Tone Block but with a lower profile—thanks to johnt5837 in our Discord chat group. He mentioned, “While you’re redesigning it, minor feedback about the previous version: it was too deep to fit in a standard Strat route. I had to route the cavity deeper (where the second knob usually goes).”

So now, the headers are horizontally oriented, and the inductor is rotated 90 degrees and repositioned at the center of the board for a more compact fit.