does eliminating a tone pot & only having a volume knob on a guitar change the tone?

[hangwire]

So if you take a single coil pickup with a 250k voluem pot and a 500K toen pot, and then rewire it and elminate teh tone because you don't ever use it, will the pickup's tone set set at 10, or does it change by not having the pot connected anymore?

[Gourd of Ashes]

My experience is that it gives a faster response. You might not hear the difference but should probably be able to "feel" the difference when playing. IT's kinda like having a really high quality true bypass pedal in your effects chain or just plugging straight into the amp. Both work fine...but plugging straight in is cleaner and has a faster response.

It's subtle...and nit picky stuff...but my shred guitars are all just single volume for exactly this reason. But for clean tones I still need to reach for a tone knob when recording

[davenoid]

I recently rewired my guitar to remove the tone control. The guitar is brighter without the tone control than it was with the tone control set to max, which I believe is what you're asking.

[SUPER VELCROBOY]

So if you take a single coil pickup with a 250k voluem pot and a 500K toen pot, and then rewire it and elminate teh tone because you don't ever use it, will the pickup's tone set set at 10, or does it change by not having the pot connected anymore?

 

 

compare to what?

if you take the pot out completely and replace it with a wire, then it'll sound way different. If you replace it with a resister equivalent to the pot on 10, then it'll sound the same (in theory).

[bikehorn]

In my ideal wiring scheme, I would have bypass switches for volume and tone controls. This way, you can have both the "in" and "out" sounds. Also you can bypass the controls so that if you're like me and tend to hit Strat control knobs because you're rocking out too hard, you can just take them right out of the circuit and nothing will happen to your sound if you accidentally hit the controls as you're playing. Or, you can use that same switch to go between full volume and a preset, lower volume. Great for die hard single channel amp users...like me.

[MadSkillzMan]

The capacitor is what makes the tone pot work. If you remove the tone pot alltogether, yea you will have a difference, but soldering in a cap of .47uF will make it as if it were on 10 on tone. (just in general .47 with humbuckers)

The capacitor acts as a lowpass filter. Using different values will give you different results obviously.

[Mad Hatter]

the resistor is important for the filter.

[bvester]

I was actually wondering about this. Would you need to use a resistor in place if you were to take any knob out of the signal chain? Nooby question I know, I really don't know much about this..
My friend wired his guitar straight from pickup to output and had some problems with feedback..I'm guessing it's because he didn't put a resistor in there or something like that.

[hangwire]

what are some resistr values and subsiquent tone characteristics?

.47 = ?

x = y

r = n

[Mad Hatter]

It's an RC circuit. Both the resistor and the capacitor together are what set the pole for the filter and determine where the cutoff frequency will be.

[spentron]

Yes. Except for the special "No Load" pots from Fender which disconnect entirely when set on "10" (and yes that's considered a good thing), the tone pot on full is basically in parallel with the volume control. So having a 500K vol. and tone is comparable to having a 250K vol only. The lack of tone control on the bridge pos. of a Strat increases the difference in sound of that pickup. I prefer the tone control pot being of higher value, good way to get a little crisper without as much noise/variation as a higher value volume pot.

 

Pickup loading primarily affects the high end, and the tone cap is conducting most in the high end, in fact compared to 250K or more the cap is almost insignificant and may be considered a dead short.

 

The standard value for guitar tone control caps is .022 uF. I have seen guitars with much higher values, I guess wanting to make it more noticable to deaf people. Particularly when the cap is in this range, it is NOT a simple R-C filter, it interacts with the pickup's inductance. With tone=0, it reduces the frequency of the pickup's high freq. peak and also may *increase* the peak's magnitude (I've heard increases all the way down to the lower mids with high-output pickups). The tone control automatically matches to the pickup in a way that no other tone control in the chain does.

[Lanefair]

Here's a question: What if you have no tone pot, but you wire the pickups (say, on a Tele) so you can use a pot to blend between pickups?

[schultzie_]

Here's a question: What if you have no tone pot, but you wire the pickups (say, on a Tele) so you can use a pot to blend between pickups?

 

 

yep. don't know how, but there's plenty of basses that have a blend knob for the pickups. now that i think about it... most basses are that way, aren't they? i could be wrong...

[Lanefair]

yep. don't know how, but there's plenty of basses that have a blend knob for the pickups. now that i think about it... most basses are that way, aren't they? i could be wrong...

 

 

The good basses only have one pickup! I have a fretless with two pickups either in series or parallel I can't remember.

 

Anyway, I'd rather blend in some neck pickup than roll the tone off if I could.

[Soeru]

The lesser amount of pots in your circuit, the less amount of DC resistance will be in the path from the pickup to the amp, therefore less treble is rolled off and attack feels much faster. Lack of any tone pot whatsoever gives it a (IMO) nice glassy transparent sound.

 

I have a H-S charvel that came with that configuration(just 1 vol pot, nothing else) and the single sounded fine with it. But I'm upgrading the pot to a 1meg and changing the single to a HB-type pickup, as I want a little more bite out of the bridge pickup as it's very warm.

[Daryl Chaney]

In my ideal wiring scheme, I would have bypass switches for volume and tone controls. This way, you can have both the "in" and "out" sounds. Also you can bypass the controls so that if you're like me and tend to hit Strat control knobs because you're rocking out too hard, you can just take them right out of the circuit and nothing will happen to your sound if you accidentally hit the controls as you're playing. Or, you can use that same switch to go between full volume and a preset, lower volume. Great for die hard single channel amp users...like me.

 

 

+ 1

 

exactly what i would suggest.

You'll always need a tone control for recording.

[mister natural]

Here's a question: What if you have no tone pot, but you wire the pickups (say, on a Tele) so you can use a pot to blend between pickups?

 

 

 

Seymour Duncan makes a blend pot for exactly this purpose. Dunno where in the UK you'd be able to resource however . . .

 

I have one installed on my Parker in place of the three way switch & love it

[Lanefair]

Seymour Duncan makes a blend pot for exactly this purpose. Dunno where in the UK you'd be able to resource however . . . I have one installed on my Parker in place of the three way switch & love it

 

 

Wow, do you have a photo of that? Do you still have a tone pot?

[Fiery Furnace]

I have a bass with pickups that are wired straight to the output, no knobs or resistors at all.

On my next guitar project I'm working I'll probably go with a single volume and a pickup selector.