How many have tried their pickups with the tone pot disconnected?

[Hank-]

Re: How many have tried their pickups with the tone pot disconnected?

I never found the need to turn the tone knob down with the neck pickup, even with the stocks pickups in my Korean PRS. I did connect the tone pot directly to the bridge pickup though, that way I can turn the treble down on it when needed. The neck however I don't see a need for me to have one there anymore. I also found the guitar sounding more lively with no tone pot.

I wouldn't remove it out entirely from the body of the guitar though unless it was obtrusive to the playing. It's easy to reconnect it back if you leave the wires in and tape them off to prevent them from getting in the way of the others.

I haven't tried connecting the pickups directly to the output. I'd like to try that as well for just some fun experience, any harm in doing that?

[esandes]

Re: How many have tried their pickups with the tone pot disconnected?

what gilmourd said..

i'm in the process of removing all of the tone pots from all of my guitars.

[CountFeedback]

Re: How many have tried their pickups with the tone pot disconnected?

I had a guitar that was sounding a bit thuddy to me and I disconnected the tone and found that didn’t help. My guitar lost its vibrancy as soon as I backed off the volume. I’ve realized the way I use the volume knob in my playing that I need my tone knob wired to my volume in what I believe is the vintage style, before I had the tone wired to each pick-up then the volume. Maybe a treble bleed mod would work for me, but I haven’t tried that, I like the way I can change the behavior of my volume sweep with tone pot the way it’s wired now

[IMENATOR]

Re: How many have tried their pickups with the tone pot disconnected?

For those that have disconnected them, do you still leave the tone pot in the hole, or do you take the whole darned thing out? I unhooked mine on single humbucker strat (1 vol, 1 tone setup) and decided to just yank the whole thing out so there's just a hole in the pickguard now. Luckily it's a black pickguard, so it's not too obvious. Even if it was, it's rock and roll, so who cares--right?

I used only 1 tone pot when I was using a HSH configuration in my strat. The extra hole I used for a switch to put neck and Bridge HBs together ala LesPaul. I like versatility.

[LonePhantom]

Re: How many have tried their pickups with the tone pot disconnected?

Definitely noticed the difference. All of my guitars now only have 1 volume and no tone. If there is a hole where a tone control may have been its been filled with a DPDT mini switch set up to engage a blower switch wiring mod.

[tubecrunch]

Re: How many have tried their pickups with the tone pot disconnected?

No load tone pot. I went through a phase where I used a push pull to bypass vol and tone on everything.

[blues]

Re: How many have tried their pickups with the tone pot disconnected?

My guitar is a tribute to the les paul junior with some very nice appointments. The pickup that is installed is from the Seymour Duncan custom shop a 78EVH made to fit on a p-90 plate complete with custom made dog ear cover, so there is no extra routing. You can pull the tone control up and its like bypassing the contol and you a going direct to the jack.

[Grindspine]

Re: How many have tried their pickups with the tone pot disconnected?

I disconnect all passive tone pots.

On my old bolt-on Warlock, I discovered that I liked the tone pot disconnected back in like '95. I think I read something in a guitar magazine about how Stevie Ray Vaughn disconnected his tone pots but used high capacitance cable or something like that...

My Washburn had the tone pulled when I tried a Bill Lawrence Keystone L500MS. The tone was converted to a spin-a-split control. That guitar still has the spin-a-split, but now with a Dimebucker.

My USA Warlock and Ibanez RGD both just have volume and a toggle. The Warlock did have a tone control once, but I ditched that when I rewired it in '98.

The only one of my guitars with a working tone control is my B.C. Rich Virgin with EMGs as active tone controls do not sound nearly as dull to me as passive tone controls.

[greekdude]

Re: How many have tried their pickups with the tone pot disconnected?

No load tone pot. I went through a phase where I used a push pull to bypass vol and tone on everything.

+1, plus, its so easy to mod any pot to become no-load, by scratching the metal on the 10 dial position, and thus making the resistance to ground practically +infinite. Note however that this will add a rather unpleasant (but short-lived) "scratch" whenever the pot is moved from 10 to the lower positions, thus going from infinite resistance to some actual resistance. There are no-load pots available in the market that behave better.

Also, some note here, in one of my strats, equiped with Dimarzio fast track 1/2, and 500K pots, i notice that basically their effect is only between 1-3, above 4->10 they sound almost the same. IIRC they are expensive "tone" CTS's. So, in practical terms, not so much of an issue in hot HB guitars. With weak SC, and 250K pots, no-load might add something. Fender have a bypass button on their deluxe models that bypasses all the volume/tone circuitry all together. That might be an option as well.

[marcello252]

Re: How many have tried their pickups with the tone pot disconnected?

In my guitars, with single coils, the tone pot is important, depending on the rig they are connected to the ability to trim off a little of shrill is sometimes useful (I always use 250K for Volume pot). My Tele for example (alder body, maple neck, vintage bridge with brass saddle) without the tone control gets too much spikey.
I've found that with humbuckers the need of a tone pot is less important, maybe the natural highs roll off is just enough.

Edit: I forgot I have one guitar with a switch to cut the tone control out with single coils, my Jaguar, the sound is indeed lively without the tone pot but the spikes are sometimes 'hurting'

[greekdude]

Re: How many have tried their pickups with the tone pot disconnected?

^^^ I agree. I also think that a tone pot with strat-type guitars is mandatory. In a strat i have i (Fast Track 1/Generic/Fast track2) I have added tone control to the bridge, and the fast track 2 bridge pup in coil split mode, and with the tone rolled to about 2, it can do this Pink Floyd "Shine on you crazy diamond" tone! Having the neck tone to 10, all it takes for the next tone in the main riff, is push down the push-pul pot and switch to the neck pup.