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Designing my tone circuit...

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  • Designing my tone circuit...

    This is gonna be kind of drawn-out, so only read this if you REALLY feel helpful...

    The idea I'm having for my Warmoth's controls is to use a system like G&L Guitars' PTB system: Volume, Low, and High control. The controls on my amp are the same, no Mid knob or anything. My idea is to have my amp set at all 10's, and use my guitar's controls exclusively.

    Now based on what I learned in electronics class and on this forum, the higher the value of your pots, the more control you have over the tone (I believe someone said 250k is the same a 500k turned down to 5, and 500k was 1m turned down to 5) sooo...

    What pots should I get? This is for a two-humbucker Strat so I was thinking of just getting 500k's, but G&L even uses a 1M pot for the bass control on their single-coil guitars, so i'm confused...any ideas?

    -X
    green globe burned black by sunn

  • #2
    Re: Designing my tone circuit...

    I would at first copy G&L's system to see how it works and then tweak it to taste, using different values for the components.
    Ain't nothin' but a G thang, baby.

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    • #3
      Re: Designing my tone circuit...

      I know Ohms wise turning a 500k ohms pot down to 250k should give you the same sound. However i've tried this on two differen't guitars and for some reason putting the 250k pot in gives me the sound i want yet when i turned down the 500k to 250k (not just turn down to 5 but actually checked on an ohm meter) I get a sound i just don't like.

      Maybe i am wrong but it just doesn't seem to be that easy or i think everybody would run 1-meg pots and just turn them down
      boreddddddddddd

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      • #4
        Re: Designing my tone circuit...

        Originally posted by Empty Pockets
        Now based on what I learned in electronics class and on this forum, the higher the value of your pots, the more control you have over the tone (I believe someone said 250k is the same a 500k turned down to 5, and 500k was 1m turned down to 5) sooo...
        Not necessarily...that is true in the case of linear tapered pots, but most guitars use audio taper pots. An audio taper pot tuned halfway gives you about 1/10 of the total pot value. I may be off by a little bit, but in general, an audio taper pot doesn't let much of the signal through from 1-5. About 90% of the adjustment occurs in the 5-10 range. Audio taper pots are useful for volume controls, as the human ear doesn't hear volume changes in a linear fashion. Linear tapered pots are good for the tone controls, because we do hear the rolloff of highs in a linear fashion. In general, 250k pots are used with single coils, and 500k pots are used with humbuckers. 1 meg pots are useful if you have an excessively dark sounding guitar, but 250k and 500k are the standard values.

        Ryan
        Originally posted by JOLLY
        I'm the reason we had to sign waivers

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        • #5
          Re: Designing my tone circuit...

          So I should just grab up three 500k's and call it a night?

          I'm not really looking for THE BEST TONE or anything, just seeing if my idea would work...

          Thanks fellas

          -X
          green globe burned black by sunn

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          • #6
            Re: Designing my tone circuit...

            Ok, just a touch of clarity here.

            The idea of a 500k pot on "5" equaling a 250k pot is relative only to a tone control. Not a volume control. And then, relative only to a linear pot. It would still hold true for an audio-taper pot, but only when the 500k pot is at its electrical halfway point. Not its physical halfway point.

            Now, if we go from there, lets say we have a 500k tone pot, and we want to add more highs. We can put in a 1 meg control, and place it at "5". (Again, assuming a linear pot.) At that setting, we have the same tonal effect as the 500k at "10". Since we can now dial "out" some resistance, we create the illusion, or affect, that we're adding in more high-end. In reality, we used a rolled-off high-end as our reference point, and now, are just rolling-off less.

            Does that make sense?

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            • #7
              Re: Designing my tone circuit...

              As for adding both bass and treble controls, this gets a little more complicated. You can't really "add" a passive bass control. Unless, of course, you only want to roll-off, or attenuate the bass. If we assume you want to boost and cut the bass and treble, using only passive controls, then what has to happen is, you build a low-pass, and a high-pass filter, with components so carefully selected, that you effectively lower the entire output of the guitar evenly. That is, you maintain the original sonic characteristics of the pups.

              Having done that, (no easy task), you basically have both bass and treble attenuators, which would allow you to dial-in some bass, dial-in some treble.
              It would mean also, that if you used to operate your amp at, say 2 or 3, now it would need to be at 5 or 6.

              Its not an ideal solution, and probably why not too many guitar makers use it.

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              • #8
                Re: Designing my tone circuit...

                Oh well I was only gonna use 'em as turn-down knobs...thanks for all the detailed advice Artie, that blew my mind.

                -X
                green globe burned black by sunn

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                • #9
                  Re: Designing my tone circuit...

                  Originally posted by Empty Pockets
                  Oh well I was only gonna use 'em as turn-down knobs...thanks for all the detailed advice Artie, that blew my mind.

                  -X
                  If you want to do simple attenuators, (turn-down knobs), thats not too difficult. I just haven't actually seen that circuit. I imagine it would use a coil to ground, rather than a cap.

                  Thats getting more into Kents area.

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                  • #10
                    Re: Designing my tone circuit...

                    it would be alot easier if it wasn't passive because then at least you could set the output to the right level
                    boreddddddddddd

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                    • #11
                      Re: Designing my tone circuit...

                      Originally posted by ArtieToo
                      If you want to do simple attenuators, (turn-down knobs), thats not too difficult. I just haven't actually seen that circuit. I imagine it would use a coil to ground, rather than a cap.

                      Thats getting more into Kents area.
                      The coil to ground would have to be really honking in L and in DCR to keep from shorting out there ...
                      The G&L P.T.B. (I think that's what they call it), are cut only controls of course. I would start with the values that G&L start with, note that on the bass control the attenuation level is more so controlled by the resistance of the pot, not the cap value (I have a 470pF with a 500k pot{linear taper} in one of mine), the cap value cuts up higher into the frequency spectrum, but the overall attenuation level is less (for example). Also placement of the controls is important as well, as it effects their turned down response ...
                      A hot pup with a scooped mid response would most certainly find use here as it would have more overall output and more bass and treble to play with as well. Much in the same manner that a hot midrangey pup works well with a variable mid control.
                      ::::To sound reinforcement engineer::::
                      ... What? ... ::::snicker:::: ...Yes, ... Right, ...
                      Could we please have everything louder than everything else ? ...

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                      • #12
                        Re: Designing my tone circuit...

                        Originally posted by Chi3f
                        it would be alot easier if it wasn't passive because then at least you could set the output to the right level
                        Preamp, ... if you want to go that route build a preamp (or buy a suitable one) and use the P.T.B. controls. Go pups to P.T.B., to preamp, to volume control (lower Z pot most likely), output jack. If you're only using it clean, then if your amp has plenty of volume crank the bass and treble controls, set the controls somewhere in the middle adjust you mids to get the your normal sound, pump the gain up a bit, and then you'll have some boost range and some cut range from the controls.
                        ::::To sound reinforcement engineer::::
                        ... What? ... ::::snicker:::: ...Yes, ... Right, ...
                        Could we please have everything louder than everything else ? ...

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                        • #13
                          Re: Designing my tone circuit...

                          Precisely
                          green globe burned black by sunn

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