Any other uses for Tone pot??

[evh_slash]

Hey,
I disconnected my tone pots from the circuit in both of my guitars because I never use them and keep them maxed on 10 all the time and hate accidentally moving it down to 7 or something whilst playing .... 1 of the guitars has a standard 500k tone pot, the other has a push-push for coil splitting...

I love the look of the extra knob in the guitar and will be keeping them in the guitars cavity still unused, unless there is something else I can use them for.

Other than a high cut or spin a split is there any other cool uses I can get out of them ?

 

[Psykel]

Re: Any other uses for Tone pot??

Built in effect of some sort, perhaps?

 

[koshikas]

Re: Any other uses for Tone pot??

well u can keep the tone pot and use it as a wah as demonstrated here

or if u have got rid of the tone pot, there is always the possibility of putting a kill-switch. or maybe a blower switch.

 

[beaubrummels]

Re: Any other uses for Tone pot??

Pickup blender

 

[Artie]

Re: Any other uses for Tone pot??

If you don't need a normal tone control, make it an abnormal tone control. Change the cap to .001uf, or maybe even 470pf. That will give you a very subtle tone shaper. Maybe use a linear pot too. That way, you won't even notice if you accidentally bump it to "7".

 

[kramersteen]

Re: Any other uses for Tone pot??

I never really thought i needed it as i play mostly metal. But then one day i was on here and i posted a video of this song i like with the caption ''i wish i knew how to get this tone'' And forum member Edgecrusher replied and told me that its because he is playing with the tone knob rolled off.

From that day my life was a little bit better and i realized why i need the tone knob.

 

[Little Pigbacon]

Re: Any other uses for Tone pot??

I just reconnected the tone pot in one of my guitars with EMG's. Yeah, I need it, mainly for warming up the neck pickup while playing clean.

 

[Petie]

Re: Any other uses for Tone pot??

You can still find the Firestorm if you look hard enough. That'd be a cool use for the spot where the tone control used to be.

http://www.seymourduncan.com/products/duncan-designed/progressive-2/geq1/

 

[jacksen]

Re: Any other uses for Tone pot??

killswitch??

 

[blueman335]

Re: Any other uses for Tone pot??

Use it for a spin-a-split for a neck HB. You can dial in any amount of unbalanced coils to clean up that PU. Very useful, much more so than a typical coil cut.

If you have two single coils, or an HB and single coil, use a push-pull to link them in series (PU's are normally linked in parallel). That'll make them louder and warmer.

 

[925SS]

Re: Any other uses for Tone pot??

Use it for a spin-a-split for a neck HB. You can dial in any amount of unbalanced coils to clean up that PU.

Pardon the off topic, does this have a slightly "brightening" effect? I'd imagine it would, dialing more toward one coil operation.
I have a VM studio that has always given me fits, trying to brighten up the neck some. I have a custom wound bucker with 7.22k output, & .015 cap, & I could still wish it a lil bit brighter

 

[DreX]

Re: Any other uses for Tone pot??

Other than a high cut or spin a split is there any other cool uses I can get out of them ?

A low cut circuit, they're great for getting a cleaner similar to rolling back the volume, but losing the bass more than the treble. They're great for cleaning up muddy tone.

 

[blueman335]

Re: Any other uses for Tone pot??

Pardon the off topic, does this have a slightly "brightening" effect? I'd imagine it would, dialing more toward one coil operation.
I have a VM studio that has always given me fits, trying to brighten up the neck some. I have a custom wound bucker with 7.22k output, & .015 cap, & I could still wish it a lil bit brighter

Yes! That's why I have spin-a-splits on most of my neck HB's. Unbalanced coils let some single coil sound come thru (blending it in with the HB sound), which adds more high-end and thins out the mids. I don't like dark/muffled/boomy neck HB's, and spin-a-split is the cure.

There's online diagrams for spin-a-split, maybe on this site too. Basically you just convert a tone pot into a additional volume pot, but only for one coil. That gives you total control over how much, or how little, you get of the second coil. No parts needed, use the existing tone pot, wire it the same way as a volume pot (which means clipping off the capacitor and the hot wire than comes from the volume pot; leave the ground wire between them connected).

Looking at the pot from the bottom:
- The lug on the left goes to ground, on the pot casing (just like on your volume pot).
- Solder the two taped-off wires (red and white on Duncan's) to the middle lug.
- Nothing on the right lug.

Low tech fix. Takes about a minute to do. Costs nothing.

 

[ehdwuld]

Re: Any other uses for Tone pot??

Add a phaser or distortion

*(Sent from my durned phone!)*

 

[Hank-]

Re: Any other uses for Tone pot??

I have no tone pot on my HSS, its been converted to a 3 vol guitar,no caps, 5way switch. The volume for the middle pickup is a push/pull pot, giving me three extra positions:neck+bridge in series,neck+middle in series,neck in series with [(middle+bridge)in parallel]

I've found that i like the simple volume scheme, turn the volume down a notch & the highs go down & mids come forward. Yup, works just fine for me, i wasn't using the tone knob much either, besides it seems i can get the effect of having the tone knob turned all the way down in some position when using two pickups by turning the volume down on either one of them.

 

[sloby]

Re: Any other uses for Tone pot??

I don't usually use the tone either, but what I like to do is mount a sweet switch. I find it way more useful than a tone pot because after dozens of experiments I know how much high end I want out of my tone in certain situations. So I'm using a .005uF / .01uF cap for that; it depends on guitar and pickups.

I'm no expert on this, but I think a switch that emulates the rolling off of your volume pot would be nice. In that way you can clean up the sound just the right amount in an instant without having to go to the pedalboard/effects processor. On super high distortion situation that will have too less of an effect though.

Other option would be a switch that engages the neck/bridge pickup on a 3 pickups config and thus creating two new pickup combinations(all 3, and bridge+neck).

@Hank- I'll definitely try your suggestion; it sound awesome.

Sent from my GT-I9105P using Tapatalk

 

[925SS]

Re: Any other uses for Tone pot??

Yes! That's why I have spin-a-splits on most of my neck HB's. Unbalanced coils let some single coil sound come thru (blending it in with the HB sound), which adds more high-end and thins out the mids. I don't like dark/muffled/boomy neck HB's, and spin-a-split is the cure.

There's online diagrams for spin-a-split, maybe on this site too. Basically you just convert a tone pot into a additional volume pot, but only for one coil. That gives you total control over how much, or how little, you get of the second coil. No parts needed, use the existing tone pot, wire it the same way as a volume pot (which means clipping off the capacitor and the hot wire than comes from the volume pot; leave the ground wire between them connected).

Looking at the pot from the bottom:
- The lug on the left goes to ground, on the pot casing (just like on your volume pot).
- Solder the two taped-off wires (red and white on Duncan's) to the middle lug.
- Nothing on the right lug.

Low tech fix. Takes about a minute to do. Costs nothing.

Well, the pup is 4 con, & I'm not doing anything with the split wires anyway, I'll give this a shot.
Thanks for the quick rundown on the hookup blueman335.
Just as a side note,( since the tone pot has now become a vol pot) what would you're thoughts be about applying a treble bleed to the original vol pot to further brighten things up when in full hb mode, or would that just be overkill

 

[DreX]

Re: Any other uses for Tone pot??

"Spin a split" is an awesome mod, it's like getting a third pickup IMO, because you have the full blast series mode, the often too wimpy split mode, and then a third spot in between that's like another distinctly usable pickup.

I didn't have an extra knob, but I did have an extra push pull, so I had to figure out a fixed amount of resistance to apply when the pot was pulled up in lieu of variable resistance, and it seemed that a resistance value that was a bit less than twice the DC resistance of the humbucker in series made for a good value that would fall right between the series and split tones, so if the DCR of the pickup was 10k ohm, an 19k ohm resistor was perfect. I think with a spin a split you might find a sweet spot remember where it is, like "3" on the dial, and go back to the same spot often to avoid having to find it each time.

 

[blueman335]

Re: Any other uses for Tone pot??

Well, the pup is 4 con, & I'm not doing anything with the split wires anyway, I'll give this a shot.
Thanks for the quick rundown on the hookup blueman335.
Just as a side note,( since the tone pot has now become a vol pot) what would you're thoughts be about applying a treble bleed to the original vol pot to further brighten things up when in full hb mode, or would that just be overkill

The more you trun a spin-a-split down, the brighter it gets. I don't think you'd need a treble bleed. It's like a tone control in reverse.