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I notice on my arch tops, all of different makes, that the tone controls, when rolling away from 10, seem to have little (but some) effect, then at about 3 they really dump the treble.
Is this the result of using an audio taper? I'm thinking these all have 500k audio taper pots. Would changing to linear taper make a difference? Or 300K?
Not sure what the capacitor value might do to how smoothly the control takes effect.
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02-20-2016 05:20 PM
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Ah, Mr L-Stone.
Boost the volume on your amp, put your guitar volume a third on and listen how the tone cuts and boosts the highs.
This works well for me but I spent sooo long faffing about with guitar tone until I discovered Baxandall tone stacks on amps!
Instantly tailored my tone shaping.
Boosting and cutting frequencies can help guitar tone immensely. IMO 99.9% of guitar amps tone controls are made to boosts from 0 to 10 to help the grit. Great for blues but PIA for clean tone.
When I got me an Ampeg GVT 15 with the Baxandall tone stack I was blown away by its tone shaping.
The whole boost and cut thing has been in the back of my mind for some time. I came across this....
This year, at some point, I intend to put this onto my Epi Emp Regent along with a reissue Dearmond p/u.
On the boost and cut thing there are pedals available to help shape your tone.
These types of pedals would be predominately gain boosts for overdrive sound but I'm thinking at lower gain settings you get a good dollop of tone shaping!
But that whole tone, pots and cap thing will ruin you mate.
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Actually it appears I have an amp with boost/cut capability. My Polytone Minibrute has boost/cut (-/0/+) for low, mid, hig. I also have a Roland Cube 80GX but its 3 band EQ looks to be the traditional boost (or a pass filter of some kind).
I'll have to experiment more with my old Polytone. It apparently has more tricks than I gave it credit for.
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The old Polytones have great bass and treble controls. They are true baxandall tone controls. They boost and cut tone, with flat being at the 12-o'clock position. (Same thing on the old Ampeg amps.) These controls are the easiest ones to work with in a jazz setting, IMO.
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My experience is that linear taper on the tone behaves like that. I like to use audio taper so the "tone effect" starts sooner as I twist the knob.
Originally Posted by lawson-stone
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My tone control is an audio taper. I think I just need to work more with the guitar-amp connection. I tend to put everything on the amp at 12 o'clock and then adjust the tone control on the guitar. Probably need to invest more thought into what I'm doing.
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I don't really understand the answers here or at least, I don't agree.
Lawson- stone you started the thread asking about the tone controls on the guitar and it ended up being the amp. You will still have the problem on the guitar, and I have the same.
For whatever setting you have on your amp, it is nice and very practical/usefull to be able to shape the sound directly from the guitar and in the moment you are playing without having to go back to you amp.
What I want to archieve is, that I set the brightest sound I intend the to use on the amp, and from there I can just roll it off on the guitar. But I have the exact same problem, nothing really happend from 10 and down to 3 and from there is just cut off all the upper frequencies. It must me possible to have a tone control that is working all the way up and down?
English is not my first language but hope it makes sense anyway.
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Here's a way to get a quick solo playing tone shape between guitar and amp.
I read it somewhere many years ago...
Basically you go neck pickup with full volume and tone rolled on to bassy on the guitar, pluck the bottom E (lowest note) and then turn the Bass tone control on your amp backwards and forwards to a point where the sound is about to go boomy.
Then bridge pickup (or neck if you only have neck), full volume and tone rolled off, pluck the top E and then turn the Treble tone control on your amp backwards and forwards to a point where the sound is about to get shrill and ice-pick like.
I would leave any middle controls as low as possible.
But..
In a Bass, Drums and Keyboard band situation I use a compressor and I would drop bass and treble and boost mids on my amp with the tone control on the guitar to boost and cut bass.
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I agree that having the ability to shape tone from the guitar itself is very helpful and important. Originally Posted by Klausm
I am sorry I didn't close the loop on this discussion. Here's what I figured out, it's actually pretty simple.
I have two guitars with a very gradual, even change as I rotate the tone control. They have 500k pots, but .022mf capacitors. The one that has the delayed, then excessive effect has a .047mf capacitor. So I think my problem on that guitar is with the capacitor. Next time I'm in the mood to solder, I plan on replacing the cap with a .022mf one. I think that will be the resolution.
It's still also true that there is no real tone "solution" that does not address the amplifier-guitar combination, so I think our amp-related posts here are still very relevant.
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Yes, I'm quite sure that your are right about it is the capacitors making the biggest change. Originally Posted by lawson-stone
But I would think it is the type of pots that determine if the tone control are working all the way, or not like ours, only from 3 and down.
I just found this answer from another forum regarding the capacitors role, maybe you can use that:
"First off….When the electric guitar was brought to us and widely used in the 50’s. the guitars tone control was designed to MUTE or dampen the high frequencies so a guitarist could partly mimic a bass line or go from country/blues to jazz and smooth out the high end. But with doing this comes a price…you lose articulation and note clarity. Most tone controls cut frequencies instead of “shape” or boost the frequencies that modern guitarist like, therefore a wide range of BOOST pedals have been used to compensate for a TONE control that is 50 years old and unusable by todays standards. Lets bring in the real point here and how to fix it. Eric Clapton while putting “Blackie” together from favorite parts of various 50’s guitars accidently overheated the TONE capacitor that was strapped to the TONE pot and the value drifted from the typical .05 MFD to a cool .015MFD giving Clapton that “woman tone”. Also with this drift, he could dial back the TONE control and BOOST frequencies from his amp and when he wanted to stand out in a lead, ROLL the TONE control full on, getting a fat boost from his AMP and without pedals. Jol Danzig from HAMER guitars was the first person to recognize the need for a change in the value of the guitars TONE capacitor to around .015 MFD and was one of the first American companies to change it to that value without advertising or saying too much about and let guitarist find it out on their own after playing with the tone controls. Still most people do not know how to use the tone stack off their guitar or set their amp to get a perceived boost from the amp even today. Like most, people still remember that rolling back the TONE control on their guitar turned out to be this bassy, muffled, muted MESS that did not interact with the guitars or amps natural frequencies which is commonly shades of MIDRANGE, not BASS. So here we solve it. Change your tone caps in your guitars to between .01 MFD and .015 MFD and experiment with different types of caps to get your ears desired effect. A typical setting before this mod on my amp was BASS on 4, MID on 7, TREBLE on 8-9 and PRESENCE cranked to 10 for the sound I like, still having to buy a CLEAN/TRANSPARENT BOOST pedal to get MORE of that when I want to solo…..SO here is the beauty of this MOD of changing your tone caps…YOU now can crank the BASS to around 7-8 and the MIDRANGE to 8-9 and the TREBLE to 10 and the MIDRANGE to 10 and back your NEW MODIFIED TONE CAPACITOR CONTROL on your guitar back about halfway, essentially “CUTTING” back those louder higher frequencies boosted direct from your AMP. the when you want to step into a solo, instead of kicking a pedal, you can roll your TONE control to 10 and the “apparent FREQUENCY shift makes your guitar sound “LOUDER” in the mix and making your LEAD stand out ahead of the band….and RIGHT FROM YOUR GUITAR. You can also back the VOLUME knob back to 6-8 and add volume to you amp a few notches from where you normally play it and do the same by cranking it and controlling it right off your guitar. Master volume amps and even NON-Master volume amps benefit by controlling or “PLAYING” the amp this way. Jimi Hendrix loved having the tone and volume controls under his hand by playing a right handed guitar upside down and restrung LEFTY so he could max ALL the Marshalls TONE controls to 10 and controlling the AMP direct from the guitar. Try it and see but I know every MOD I have done for people by changing the TONE cap to a more midrange point value of .01 to .015 MFD have found out they use the TONE control more than ever before because it sweetens the balance and mix right from the guitar and IS USABLE all the way to turning it ALL THE WAY OFF…still retaining clarity and articulation and shaving those NOW boosted frequencies off the AMP. Just try it and see or write me and I can help you understand it."
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But all the guitars I own, that I checked, have 500k pots. The only one with the problem is the one with the .047mf cap. The others, having a 500k pot, have .022mf caps and work as would be expected. Possibly a linear rather than audio taper would work, but my smooth-acting tone controls have audio pots, so that doesn't seem to be the effective variable.
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Yes the 500K pots are normal for Double Humbuckers, for what I remember they use 250K on Strats with single coils.
Im not sure on the difference between the Linear and the Audio taper, but wouldn't you think just from the name, that it is the linear we should use? I will try and look more into it.
If had read his answer, it seems like, changing the capacitor would not only change how the pots behave but also the general tone of the guitar.
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Here is another interesting one I just found. He is writing about a Decade Box, try too look it up, seems like that could be very usefull.
"I wire my telecaster with a .01mfd orange drop film capacitor on the tone pot. the guitar has all 250 k potentiometers on it.i get good tones on the entire range of the tone knob now.before i would get that farty muddy tone when rolling the tone knob all the way off.it was a completely unusable tone.now i get a nice woman tone with the tone control all the way off and have 2 or three really nice sweet spots when i turn the knob closer to the off position. if you want to get what is your ideal sound to your ears, buy a decade box and it is extremely easy to due as all you have to do is lift out the volume and tone pots by removing 2 screws.clip the leads on the capacitor leaving a piece of lead to hook your decade box to. you can change values on the decade box to anything you want, listen and find your perfect tone cap fo your own personal sound. It can also be used in moding guitar amps ect…...keep rockin….Ed~!!"
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pot taper...resistance value... and capacitor value... are three distinct things
pot taper is the way the pot reacts to being dialed..a linear will be even across the entire turn of the pot..linear!
an audio taper has characteristics that were deemed more pleasing to the ear..allowing greater fine tuning at certain points before rolling off..but not precisely even
pot resistance value..250k, 300k 500k 1 meg...are important in the amount of high frequencies they let through..thus typically high frequency fender single coil pickups ala strat and tele used 250k...the highs were filtered by the 250k pot..where a 500k pot used in many humbucker applications lets a bit more high end thru... the 1 megs do the least filtering
the capacitor value fixes the point where the tone control being rolled off affects the frequency..it matters little unless the tone control is rolled back...
great chart displaying cap value versus freq cutoff point
cheers
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Great thanks a very good explanation!
I understand what you are saying, but I don't why you would cut anything at all before rolling off? Or do I get it wrong, so that when full on, it's not cutting at all? At least that is what I want, then you can just cut from there by starting turning the knob. Also it seem like it is Linear we want, because we want it to work all the way up and down, not only from 3 and down. So how to that? Linear pot and.....?
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a good audio taper pot does not just cut from 3 and down..that's just a poorly made pot...don't confuse poor qc/workmanship with original intent..most guitar co's used audio taper pots because they allow some leeway with the ear...the taper was ear friendly!...but they must be manufactured properly and to spec...look for cts and bourne pots that have been checked by the seller
the pots work in conjunction with the capacitors..so its not so plain and simple..but yes a very toppy single coil can benefit from a 250 k pot which filters some highs and sounds pleasant when rolled back using the proper capacitor
its not very black & white..and many roads can get you to the same point...my main theory is - use those guitar controls..tone & volume..to think that so so many players just have their guitars on full up all the time...bewildering!!
cheers
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Hmmm now when I look at your Diagram, (again if I understand it right) it seems like that even with a .001uf Capacitor it is still cutting off the ultra-high frequencies, so maybe don't have any capacitor at all?
Now I'm sure you will say, that a guitar don't have frequencies in that area anyway
Some years ago I saw a Television program about frequencies and what can hear and not hear. That was very interesting because the said something like this: a normal person can hear up 22Khz but adults can hear anything over 18Khz or something like that. And here comes the interesting thing. They took a Violin and measured that the violin have and can produce tones way higher than we can hear. So the interesting point was they cut down the frequencies in different intervals, and even when they frequencies we not should be able the hear, it just changed the overall tone of the Instrument, and actually when they started to cut into that area we can hear, it didn't even sound like a Violin.
So again please, how can I make this setup, so that full open tone controls or capacitors are not cutting anything at all, and at the same time the tone knobs are working all the way up and down, not only in the area below 3?
At the same time, I would also like to have the volume control to only affect the volume and not the tone.
I'm sure that can be done.
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well you can wire your pickup direct to output jack and work your way back from there
the capacitor really only (more dramatically) affects tone when you roll back the tone control...if you dont roll the tone it matters little/much less...
if you want the volume to roll back without affecting tone then you are in the realm of treble bleed caps..very involved as i said
...first thing you should do is try to get your tone with what you have..roll back, dial and adjust and take it from there...
cheers
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Yes, thanks and that is of course what I have done, but I'm sure I can find more sweet spots if the tone control reacted all the way up and down. In that way you can dial way more precise. Originally Posted by neatomic
And on my new guitar Ibanez JSM-10, I find it even more important because you also have that triple switch, that can switch the neck pickup to a single coil or reverse the polarity. So all in al, way more tone options which could be nice, if I could tweak them a little bit more after my taste.
Cheers
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you'd probably be better off with a better quality pot of the same spec..it sounds like your trouble is in the taper...not the spec...cheap pots often have terrible tapers....regardless of what type and resistance they are..thats a whole 'nother subject!
luck
cheers
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Ha ha Im sure you are right, and that was actually what this thread started as
So can you recommend some good brands? And shouldnt it be the linear pots if I want them to react all even all the way up and down?
Anyway you can describe what the taper's are doing? I know you said earlier that the should be more pleasant for the ears but how?
I really appreciate all you answers, thanks
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cts or bourne full sized audio tapers......a well made audio taper is hard to beat..
if you prefer linear..thats up to your ears!! i can't tell you!!..but i'd start with good audio taper of same spec
the quality of the potentiometer is as important as the spec!
cheers
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Ok I know it is VERY difficult to explain sound but you can't tell me more about how the taper is working? And why it should be more pleasant. And I don't which one would be best for me, but in my head it should be working all the way up and down.
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The human brain / ear perceives sound volume logarithmically. Audio taper potentiometers work with that by providing an uneven (tapered) roll off of resistance which fits with the way we perceive sound volume.
Tone is different and in theory linear should be "better", indeed some people prefer it. But most don't as it tends to yield an on / off response. This is to do with the R/C network, it is not the capacitor alone, the pot resistance at any given point matters to the frequency range that is sent to ground, not just the capacitor value.
In a simple guitar circuit the volume position matters also, as that adds a resistance if the volume is not at 100%.
The wiring that Gibson used in the 50's is preferred by many who "ride the volume control", as it puts the tone control after the volume and therefore as you roll off the volume you don't start to roll off the high frequency as well, allowing you to effectively independently "fix" the tone control on the guitar and vary the volume around it.
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Ok thanks that makes sense
Hmmm I thin I would be one of the who like Gibson's way, that sounds correct to me.
You are writing that "as it tends to yield an on / off response." that is nearly as I feel mine is.
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