Treble bleed or 50's mod?

[stevie_bees]

I have just been having a look in the vault. I have a G&L Legacy, with what I believe are vintage staggered pups wired in the traditional strat setup. I intend to add a jumper mod to give me tone control over the bridge pup. My question is this, does the 50's mod have the same effect as fitting the treble bleed mod. I am noticing a considrable drop off of treble as I decrease the volume so am looking to put that right. Any opinions as which mod you guys think is best would be gratefully received. The hints, tips and schematics around here are fantastic. I currently work as a radar tech, so have a grasp of electronics and the info available is superb. Keep up the good work fellas, and thanks for your time.

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: Treble bleed or 50's mod?

Both sound differant. I prefer the 50's mod. Others prefer a cap or cap and resistor across the volume control. Personally, the cap only method sounds a little to crisp to me...basically the treble frequencies are "full on" regardless of where your volume control is set with that method. But you absolutely must try both methods and see for yourself which gives you closest to what you want to hear and feel most comfortable with. Lew

 

[stevie_bees]

Re: Treble bleed or 50's mod?

I figured I would try the 50's mod 1st as I don't need to add any additional componants. Thanks for that Lew

 

[stevie_bees]

Re: Treble bleed or 50's mod?

I have been thinking, my tone pots might not be 250K, but 500K and 1M. Would that make a difference with the 50's mod? Haven't had chance to open her up and confirm the values yet.

 

[Artie]

Re: Treble bleed or 50's mod?

Not really, although, if its actually a 1 meg pot, you probably won't notice much, if any, difference. Whatever pot value you have now establishes your tone "base-line". With the 50's mod, the highs will gradually go up, as you turn the volume down. The higher the initial tone pot value, the lesser the affect.

With a no-load tone pot, the 50's mod has no affect at all.
(You can't increase above infinity.)

 

[stevie_bees]

Re: Treble bleed or 50's mod?

Makes sense. Could I swap the 250k vol pot for the 1 meg? I am thinking that if the vol pot was higher then when it was at max the higher impedance would "force" more through the pickup itself.

 

[Artie]

Re: Treble bleed or 50's mod?

Sure, you can. There does get to be a point where you lose affect. Depending on the other electrical aspects of your guitar, you could end up with a tone control that doesn't do much 'til you get it down around 3 or 4, or worse. Just try one out.

btw - it doesn't "force more through the pup", it shunts less highs to ground.

 

[stevie_bees]

Re: Treble bleed or 50's mod?

Cheers Artie, I'll give it a try.