how to wire for treble bleed

[souljunkie]

I saw the mod on the SD website and it says to use a 100k resister and a .002 capacitor. It also says this is commonly used on single coil pickups. I'm installing a JB humbucking pickup on my bluesbird and want to know if this is the proper way and recomended values for a humbucker.

 

[Kent S.]

Re: how to wire for treble bleed

The values are personal taste, depending on the effect you want to create (it's also more correctly known as a treble bypass, not treble bleed) ... If you want to keep the volume control's normal taper (assuming you have an audio taper here), then try a 181 (180pF), 150pF to about 220pF with no resistor.
Depends on if you are trying to create an actual boost of treble frequencies or just offset the loss at lowered volume control settings. You'll have to try what works best for you, I don't recommend running a resistor in parallel with a cap though, as it linearizes an audio taper pot's taper a bit; most certainly wouldn't do it with a linear pot. Also, this is only for conventional wired volume controls (pup to hot lug, and wiper to jack or selector switch), pups wired to the wiper won't receive much benefit at all.

 

[kingbee]

Re: how to wire for treble bleed

From www.kinman.com:
VOLUME Control control: (Treble Bypass filter -or- treble bleed filter)
It is simply a .0012uF (1.2nF) 630* volt Polyester capacitor in series with a 130K Ohm resistor (1/4 watt) that is wired across the two hot terminals of the volume pot (*any voltage cap will work fine but 630 volt caps have thick wires that are easy to work with). Rule of thumb is the *amount* of brightness that is gained is determined by the resistor's value (less Ohms = more brights) but the frequencies that are present is determined by the Cap value (lower the value the higher the frequencies, the higher the value the lower the frequencies).
By the way, this design works better than a 'capacitor' only -or- the parallel 'resistor/capacitor' design that some makers fit to their guitars

I use this with my Duncans in my PRS McCarty and it works great!

 

[Kent S.]

Re: how to wire for treble bleed

From www.kinman.com:
VOLUME Control control: (Treble Bypass filter -or- treble bleed filter)
It is simply a .0012uF (1.2nF) 630* volt Polyester capacitor in series with a 130K Ohm resistor (1/4 watt) that is wired across the two hot terminals of the volume pot (*any voltage cap will work fine but 630 volt caps have thick wires that are easy to work with). Rule of thumb is the *amount* of brightness that is gained is determined by the resistor's value (less Ohms = more brights) but the frequencies that are present is determined by the Cap value (lower the value the higher the frequencies, the higher the value the lower the frequencies).
By the way, this design works better than a 'capacitor' only -or- the parallel 'resistor/capacitor' design that some makers fit to their guitars

I use this with my Duncans in my PRS McCarty and it works great!

Bear in mind that Kinman also has that set up for *his* rig, and a such you still have to adjust it accordingly ... again it's all personal taste, the way he explains the cap's role there isn't really accurate, but i think he gets the point across. Still, a cap alone can just offset the amount of highs lost if chosen carefully, but that's *if* you can get enough high boost from it to offset the high end loss without getting the cap value large enough to create more treble boost than needed, and the lower you go with the volume, the more treble boost ... that's with all three forms of a RC HPF.
Still, most people tend to find the range of 100pF to 470pF to work well.
The 300pf to 470pF range starts to get a little boosty,which is fine as long as that's what you want. You can even get a faux single coil like clean from a HB under moderate gain with it if chosen correctly. Experiment a bit to see what suits you.