SO, WHAT IS ‘ATN’?

The ATN is a hand-made (in the UK), completely passive way to enhance the tonal capabilities of your electric guitar. You wire it directly to your tone and volume pots, replacing the components originally connected to them and thus expanding the tonal range of your electric guitar. 

The ATN is an inductance-based unit and belongs to a family of electronic devices known as LCR circuits. LCR means INDUCTANCE (L), CAPACITANCE (C), RESISTANCE (R).

The whole device is based around a coil, a rather clever coil actually, that is capable of changing the basic character of a guitar pickup from fatter and warmer to glass-shattering trebles whilst always being able to return to its normal sound structure when required. So it’s like your guitar has actually got variable pickups, enabling you to customize their natural, analogue sound.

Originally, the ATN was presented as a sort-of ‘modelling circuit’ based on familiar guitar models. Yes, once the basics are learned, one can nicely replicate the sound of almost any guitar with it, but really, it is simply a tone shaping tool. It was ok back in 1988 to say “Turn the first tone control fully anti-clockwise, and the second tone to the midway point and your Strat will sound like a Les Paul”, but that would be better said today as “Turn the first control fully anti-clockwise, and second tone control to midway, then you will get a nice, warm mid-range that will deliver an excellent ‘woman tone’ ”.

WHAT DOES IT SOUND LIKE?

There are three tonal parameters that are adjustable with the ATN, which work in conjunction with the volume control. Blending them together (dependent on guitar controls available) gives a myriad of tones:

Woman Tone – Popularized in the 60’s by players such as Eric Clapton, giving a ‘flutey’, warm tone that accentuates the mid-range and really sings with added sustain when you add some overdrive.

Warm / Mellow Tone – Turns your tone warm and mellow, removing the harshness that some pickups can give. This is reminiscent of the ‘Burns Marvin’ tone from the 60’s.

Bass Cut – A drop in the low-end frequencies to make chords sound more even. A great way to emulate the 60’s ‘jangle’ or ‘surf twang’.

Volume Control – Rolling back the volume from between 10 and 8 gives a much mellower tone with an electro-acoustic-like quality. Great for strumming big chords.

HOW DO I USE THE ATN?

The ATN works through the guitars existing tone controls. If, for example, you are using an ST type guitar, it will function and interact by means of Tone 1 and Tone 2 of that guitar. If you are using a TE type guitar with only one tone control you can replace your existing tone control with a push/pull which enables you to utilise all of the ATN’s parameters. And if you are using an LP/SG type guitar you can assign each of the three tonal parameters to a separate control, or by adding a second ATN you can retain the original separate volume controls for each pickup (in addition to the second ATN you will require two push/pull 500K linear pots).

N.B. The following instructions work for any guitar/control configuration in the accompanying wiring diagrams but where a push/pull pot is required then TONE ONE is activated on the ‘pull’ function rather than turning the control.

Each type of guitar and pickup configuration will respond slightly different to the next, giving its own character to the tones of the ATN. Experiment with mixing and matching every control (including the volume) and learn how the ATN and pickups interact to get the most from your newly modified instrument.

1) TONE ONE when rotated fully ANTI-CLOCKWISE will now give a warm, non-muddy, hi-mid response. It tends to make a single coil sound more like a humbucker and it acts as an excellent distortion smoother. In other words…..’WOMAN TONE’.

2) TONE TWO functions as a very wide frequency shift, from warm and acoustic-like in texture when rotated fully ANTI-CLOCKWISE through to a bright, twangy top end (BASS CUT) when rotated fully CLOCKWISE.

3) Mixing TONES ONE and TWO produces a myriad of different voices that are great both clean and over-driven.

4) Returning to the guitar’s original sound is easy. Simply put TONE ONE fully CLOCKWISE and TONE TWO in the CENTRE and you have it.

5) The VOLUME plays an important part in the ATN’s operation, acting like the ultimate treble-bleed circuit and to some degree exaggerating the ATN’s operation. Roll the VOLUME control back slightly with TONE TWO fully ANTI-CLOCKWISE to get a very acoustic response, often better than that of an actual electro-acoustic. If you then turn TONE TWO fully CLOCKWISE you get a BASS CUT that is every bit as bright as that old Burns ‘Wild Dog’ sound.