Do I need a tone pot?

A

Antony75

New member
Hi all,

I'm in the middle of modding my jackson dinky and am replacing the stock pup with a SD Distortion Trembucker. I'd love to get away with just having the volume knob on the guitar and not put the tone pot back on but will this affect the tone in any way? I always have the tone pot turned right the way up anyway and am assuming that this is what it will sound like without a tone pot but am I right?

Any help is greatly appreciated as I've just finished the body work and would love to start the electrics tomorrow.

Oh yeh, this is my first post on the forum, so hi to everyone :)

Antony
 
Re: Do I need a tone pot?

welcome to the forum!!

even a tone pot full up effects the tone. without a tone pot youll get a more high end in the sound.
 
Re: Do I need a tone pot?

Wow, now that was a quick response, thanks!

Will it be by much, or is it something I could dial out through my eq pedal?

I forgot to say, I've got a coil tapping volume pot as well, so not sure if that will make any difference either?
 
Re: Do I need a tone pot?

More than likely you'll be ok without it, especially if you never turn that knob.
If for some reason you don't like the sound, you could always re-install a tone pot and leave it in the control cavity. That way it'll look like you're only using the volume knob, but the tone pot will be in the chain.

I suppose another option would be to use a fixed value resistor with a capacitor...would take up less room in your control cavity.
 
Re: Do I need a tone pot?

So let the tonepot out and get a 1megohm Vol pot for the Distortion Trembucker (The PATB-2)...
You are going to be a heavy hitting chug machine after it ,with lovely screaming harmonics!
Have fun!
 
Re: Do I need a tone pot?

Nah, it'll just stop some treble-bleed and make the guitar sound a bit brighter.
 
Re: Do I need a tone pot?

Antony75 said:
Hi all,

I'm in the middle of modding my jackson dinky and am replacing the stock pup with a SD Distortion Trembucker. I'd love to get away with just having the volume knob on the guitar and not put the tone pot back on but will this affect the tone in any way? I always have the tone pot turned right the way up anyway and am assuming that this is what it will sound like without a tone pot but am I right?

Any help is greatly appreciated as I've just finished the body work and would love to start the electrics tomorrow.

Oh yeh, this is my first post on the forum, so hi to everyone :)

Antony
Click to expand...

The tone may be brighter without a tone pot, unless you were using the Fender no-load tone pots (tm), in which case no difference.

Maybe you should try playing with the tone pot some time....

EDIT: that wasn't meant to be rude, just a recommendation. I'm saying I think it would be better to leave it wired up, in case you DO need it, versus removing it but then if you need it you don't have it.
 
Last edited:
Re: Do I need a tone pot?

Jackson Distortion said:
So the 1 meg ohm vol. pot will make it a little louder?
Click to expand...

Not really since the midds come allways thru.But the highs get dampend.And the PATB-2 is not a bright PU. a 1 Megohm pot will be a good compliment ,and make the harmonics and highs come better thru!:cool:

I have tried it ,and was really pleasent!
 
Re: Do I need a tone pot?

Jackson Distortion said:
So the 1 meg ohm vol. pot will make it a little louder?
Click to expand...

The pot changes the amplitude of the signal, i.e. "how loud". However, the amplitude changes most around the resonant frequency, so it will make pickups with high resonant frequencies (read "vintage" or "low output") sound brighter. There used to be a page on SD's website that went into what that does, but it's no longer there (HINT HINT).
 
Re: Do I need a tone pot?

Thanks guys, this is all really helpful and much appreciated.

So I guess I'm safe in assuming that I should be ok getting rid of the tone pot and maybe replacing my current 500 volume pot with a 1 meg one?

Antony
 
Re: Do I need a tone pot?

Yep, i also think this is the best way to go with PATB-2, since it is the official pup of the Dark Side Metal Zone.
 
Re: Do I need a tone pot?

As mentioned, a tone pot at 10 is still not the same as no tone pot.

However, if your goal is to get rid of the actual potentiometer without changing the sound you can replace the pot with a resistor. Just put a 500 Kohm resistor in series with the capacitor and you get the same sound as with the pot at 10, and you don't need to have a pot stick out the top of your guitar.

You can also hide a little trimmer (min-pot) inside the guitar.
 
Re: Do I need a tone pot?

You don't need a tone pot. The difference between a 500k tone pot at "10" and none, is fairly small. And I don't think that a 1M volume pot will make a difference either. With only a volume pot, the volume pot is just acting as a variable voltage divider, and there is no tone control that treble is bled to indirectly (as the volume knob is rolled back).
 
Re: Do I need a tone pot?

I'm not sure I agree. I can clearly hear when, with the pot at 10, a ceramic capacitor is switched to a high-quality capacitor. Didn't directly compare to no tone pot yet, but with a 500 Kohm pot there is some effect from a tone pot even at "10".
 
Re: Do I need a tone pot?

I've always used a 250K volume pot in my strats with a humbucker in the bridge. No tone control, as I don't use it with a humbucker. It's supposed to be the same load as a bucker with a 500K volume pot and a 500K tone, as that load would be 250K.

So just think of those Gibsons that come with 300K for volume and tones. The load is only 150K for a humbucker!

Having no tone control does make a difference in clarity.
 
Re: Do I need a tone pot?

No tone, 1 meg volume, trembucker? You might want to get the high end on your ears checked...

I jazz/blues occassionally in ways that make me want the tone pot.
 
Re: Do I need a tone pot?

Do you really need all that brightness?

I'm not trying to be a jerk, im seriously asking that question.

I have guitars WITH tone pots, and without them, no big diff to me.
 
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