Strat humbucker tone control wiring

[micah_jm550]

Hey everyone,

Since I'm in the process of researching upgrades and mods for by Blacktop HH Strat, I'm getting the itch to mess with my tone control pots. I found out you can get a reverse tone knob that rolls off lows instead of rolling off highs.

So I'm wondering if you could wire one tone knob to essentially be a treble control and the other to be a bass control, and have it going straight into one pickup. So instead of having one knob for neck/bridge pickup tone control, both would be going into one pickup. I'm thinking that with the 5 way switch would be wired so that this would work on each pickup position.

I guess the purpose would be to be able to EQ the guitar itself for a wider range of tones.

Is this possible and has anyone tried anything like this? Thanks!

[Mincer]

Usually this sort of thing is an active EQ, which would use a battery. So a passive system would be really interactive and only cut what is there already. I've never tried a system like this, so I am curious if it would be possible and/or useful.

[freefrog]

So I'm wondering if you could wire one tone knob to essentially be a treble control and the other to be a bass control

It is possible and even relatively easy to do with one or several pickups, and has been done (by brands like Reverend or G&L) but there's reasons why it is not more popular.

1)It's a "moody" circuit: the pot with a series cap cutting the bass MUST be wired AFTER the regular low-pass / hi-cut control or they won't work properly together.

2)A passive hi-pass / bass-cut filter changes the behaviour of some drive effects. A fuzz for instance.

See the following link, where you'll find a schematic (with components in a proper order) and a video in which one can hear what the filter does to a simple drive effect (by killing its gain, after 0:55)...

https://tonefiend.com/guitar/two-ban...cheap-awesome/

Now, the choice is up to you. In the vid above, Joe Gore does a creative and musical use of the circuit, after all. One's man trash is another man's gold, as usual with guitar devices. :-)

[GuitarDoc]

Use a single TBX tone control/pot to do treble cut and bass cut. There's a center detent for full treble and bass...roll it one way and it acts like a normal tone pot rolling off the treble, turn it the other way and it keeps full treble but rolls off the bass.

[GuitarDoc]

I think maybe the Fender TBX tone pot is the same as the PTB control? Is it just two different names for the same thing?

[freefrog]

I think maybe the Fender TBX tone pot is the same as the PTB control? Is it just two different names for the same thing?

They are initially different things. The original TBX Fender wiring is explained there: https://guitarnuts2.proboards.com/th...x-tone-control

But IMHO, it's a very good idea to use a TBX to cut either the bass either the hig frequencies, since the two parts of the pot have the required values and because it avoids any conflict between the two parts of the BT control circuit. Who needs to cut bass AND treble in the same time, anyway?

That said, I personally prefer to use the TBX with other things than series caps. I wire the 1M part as a blender between neck and bridge, or as a splitting solution for HB's, or to put the pickup(s) in parallel with non typical components - a pair of diodes emulating the "black ice" passive distortion circuit, or a Q filter, or some resistor(s) + inductor(s) lowering the DCR + inductance: it sounds more "natural" IME/IMHO than circuits involving series caps. YMMV. :-)