Should a treble bleed mod change your tone with the volume maxed?

[FuelGTRX]

I put a 180 Pf capasitor on both of the volume pots in my LP last night and noticed a difference in tone today. This is with all the knobs maxed out. I know a treble bleed mod makes a difference when turning down the volume knob, but should it make a difference with the volume knobs maxed? It sounds great now, alot clearer and alot less muddy. This is making me want to keep the LP now .

 

[Artie]

Re: Should a treble bleed mod change your tone with the volume maxed?

If a treble bleed mod is installed properly, its completely removed from the circuit with the volume pot on "10". Are you sure there's a difference, or could it be placebo affect? If you installed the cap across the wrong two terminals, its possible that it would darken the tone slightly, but a 180pf cap shouldn't be very noticeable.

 

[Zerberus]

Re: Should a treble bleed mod change your tone with the volume maxed?

A treble bleed mod DOES minimally "open up" the tone even with the controls maxed, but most never notice because the effect is quite subtle

 

[Artie]

Re: Should a treble bleed mod change your tone with the volume maxed?

A treble bleed mod DOES minimally "open up" the tone even with the controls maxed, but most never notice because the effect is quite subtle

Really? I won't say you're wrong, just that I can't visualize that. In any treble-bleed mod I've seen, the cap and resistor are across the wiper and counter-clockwise lug of the vol pot - which would be shorted out at "10".
I suppose that if you had a cheap-ish volume pot, there could still be some resistance even at 10, but even that would be tiny. Velly interesting.

Artie

 

[Zerberus]

Re: Should a treble bleed mod change your tone with the volume maxed?

In theory they´d be shorted out at 10... but if you´re not running a "no load mod" on teh volume pot, there will still be a minimal amount "bled off"... with a "No Load" pot aou´re absolutely right

 

[FuelGTRX]

Re: Should a treble bleed mod change your tone with the volume maxed?

I used what PRS uses on their guitars. After I soldered on the 180 Pf cap, my Gibson was sounding much more like my PRS CE 22. The tone has opened up and now I can roll off my volume without my signal getting muddied up. I'm pretty sure the tone has changed, I like I changed the pots in a guitar from 250K to 500K pots. It's pretty noticeable. I might remove the caps to see the difference and then put them back. I'm pretty satisfied with the results.

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: Should a treble bleed mod change your tone with the volume maxed?

There's no technical reason why the guitar would be brighter when the volume is on "10" if you have a volume kit installed since on "10" it's as easy for highs to go through the pot to the middle terminal/out as it is for them to go through the cap and then go through the middle termincal/out. But I can believe it "seems" brighter. Whether it's a placebo effect or not: I DUNNO! I think what happens is that the guitar just feels brighter overall because it IS brighter than a normal guitar when you turn down the volume control and because of that, we get the sense that the guitar is just plain brighter than it was even when the volume is on "10". Most of the time (when ever the volume is turned down) it IS brighter so that gives us the feeling that it's just plain brighter...even on "10". Maybe it is...maybe it's not. There's no technical justification for thinking it would be though...as Artie pointed out.

 

[Zerberus]

Re: Should a treble bleed mod change your tone with the volume maxed?

Admittedly also possible, but remember that in parallel circuits (like the Pot/ cap setup here) electricity ALWAYS flows through both paths, not like water where it generally all takes the path of the least resistance...

I´m almost certain you could measure a difference, whether one can actually hear one or I´m just thinking it is admittedly debatable