How come guitars get darker as resistance goes up?

['59]

I understand that this is a basic and unavoidable fact of life, but how come the more resistance you have in a pot the brighter the tone. You would think that more resistance would bleed of more of the "fragile" high end from your guitar, but in reality it is the opposite.

Does the higher resistance block treble frequencies from running off to ground or something?

 

[JB_From_Hell]

Re: How come guitars get darker as resistance goes up?

Yes to the ground thing basically. The higher resistance blocks more signal altogether from ground.

 

[Artie]

Re: How come guitars get darker as resistance goes up?

Resistance equates to electrical "load". The more resistance, the lighter the load. Resistors resist current. Not voltage. The greatest load you can put on a circuit is a "short". Zero resistance. Sparks fly.

Make sense?

 

[Adieu]

Re: How come guitars get darker as resistance goes up?

The part that confuses me is where people explain that "pots" (variable resistors) set to "10" (their minimum, near-zero) affect circuits differently depending on their MAXIMUM value

 

[Jacew]

Re: How come guitars get darker as resistance goes up?

Pot are practically two resistors. At 10 signal to ground resistance is at max and signal inline resistance is zero.

Halfway it's 50/50 in linear pots and something else with audio taper. At 0 signal to ground resistance is zero, so all the signal shorts to ground and no output.

 

[AlexR]

Re: How come guitars get darker as resistance goes up?

The part that confuses me is where people explain that "pots" (variable resistors) set to "10" (their minimum, near-zero) affect circuits differently depending on their MAXIMUM value

But the maximum resistance value is to ground......and its the value resisting any signal leaking to ground that will affect how the pickup sounds.