Top Secret Wiring of the Pros !

[freefrog]

How about this idea as a variation of the standard treble bleed on a pot:

View attachment 495435

Note: There would be one volume pot per pickup and a single standard tone control would be hanging off the output jack.

When you turn down the volume, resistance increases between the wiper and the outbound lug but decreases to the lug with the filter. So more signal goes to the filter, and back to the output.

Possible issue: volume pot is now a rheostat instead of a voltage divider. Impact? I have no idea... don't know enough about electronics to guess.

Would this work?

Hello,

it would work somehow... but not as a volume control.

The pot must be grounded on one lug if you want it to lower the volume.

Now, a 220k + 1nF cap works fine as a standard treble bleed control: that's more or less what I have in my various Strats and Tele.

 

[Lester]

Hello,

it would work somehow... but not as a volume control.

The pot must be grounded on one lug if you want it to lower the volume.

OK, I can handle that. Won't say I understand it... but I'll accept it :- )

Now, a 220k + 1nF cap works fine as a standard treble bleed control: that's more or less what I have in my various Strats and Tele.

Perhaps I'll go that route. My tone control has a push-pull, so maybe try it a couple different ways. If I don't like that, perhaps I'll have to go with the ganged dual-pot.

 

[Tonemeister]

Thought I’d share my observations of my recent experience with this wiring scheme. In general, 50’s wiring has always worked for me and I like some of the idiosyncrasies of the volume/tone interactions, especially with tube amps , beano boost, and fuzz pedal. But I was ready to experiment to get more useable rhythm tones out of a neck pickup with overdriven amp tones. I was working on a CS 61 SG with BB1&2 pickups and 500k CTS pots measuring north of 500kohms. If you are attempting this I would highly recommend the aforementioned technique of using alligator clips attached to the middle lug of the volume and tone controls and a spare pot so you can dial in different resistance values as well as capacitors. I must have spent 3 days going back and forth trying all kinds of combinations. I only had a 1nf and a 2.2nf capacitor that I was trying. For me, 1nf yields an extreme result and does not sound natural unless you are using higher resistance values (over 150k -300k). Raising the resistance lessens the effect of the roll off. I settled on the 2.2nf orange drop with a 150k resistor. This provides a more subtle EQ of the pickup when you get down around 6 on the volume control. In most applications I can’t see a need to roll my volume down past 4 anyway. What’s cool about this mod is that if the bleed effect is too much you can roll the tone down to mellow it out a bit and you will get a perceived (if not actual) volume drop as well. It’s pretty flexible. Now I list my values purely for comparison and not to say it is the solution for anyone else. I firmly believe you must experiment to get the right values for YOUR GUITAR. Something I noticed was that with the volume full up the pickup seems brighter than without the mod. It seems to affect the resonant peak of the pickup. Is this possible? Also when I roll the volume down a tick to about 9.5 I get a much much darker tone , like I would naturally expect from LP neck pickup. I actually like this because I can keep the Vol on 9.5 and then full up for a brighter (gainier) tone. Then as you roll down to about 8 it starts to thin out Gradually as I get to around 6 I need to start dialing the tone down a tiny bit and so on down to about 3 on the volume. At about 2 the volume cuts out completely. Not sure what’s up with that. I think it’s just the taper of this pot itself because with the no mod it does that. All of these tests were done with an overdriven sound and separately with a super clean sound. The affect is going to be different/more apparent with one or the other and you’ll want to take that into account. Ok in summary, experimentation is key. The tones are in there.