Treble loss with no tone cap?

[cb9501]

I have 3 guitars (90s Gibson Les Paul Studio, 2000's Dean Evo Special Les Paul Clone, and Gibson SG Future Tribute). All 3 guitars have the same jb sh4 and jazz sh2 pickups in them, and I'm trying to get them to sound as similar as possible. I noticed that my Dean seems to sound a little less bright compared to my other two. This guitar has a single volume knob, a single treble knob, and push pull on each to split each pickup. To verify I wasn't imagining the difference in tone, I clipped an output jack to where the neck pickup wire lands on the pickup selector and also ground. This effectively disconnects the guitar's wiring after the pickup selector when it's switched to the bridge pickup. As I suspected, treble was significantly less with the guitar's wiring in the loop. I tried removing the tone capacitor hoping that my tone knob was just bleeding, but still have the same results. I suppose next I should remove the tone knob completely out of the circuit. The wiring circuit I'm using is attached, as well as some sound clips of the problem. Any ideas? http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/wiring-diagrams/schematics.php?schematic=2h_1v_1t_3w_2pp

 

[El Supremo]

Re: Treble loss with no tone cap?

Your Dean could just sound darker by nature, but...

I assume you have the same value pots in all your guitars and have played around with pickup height. 500K pots all around? If so, measure them all anyway (the do deviate in value) and put the highest values in your Dean.
Pickups in your Dean could be wound a tad hotter. You could measure them all and put the pickup set with the least resistance in your Dean.

If you've got all that sorted and nothing helps, your last resort would be to remove the tone or try another pickup.

 

[AlexR]

Re: Treble loss with no tone cap?

Different guitars are different. You can adjust the rating of the pots (more K passes more treble to the output) if you want more bite.

My thought is.....why???

Enjoy the guitars for the nuances they posses naturally.

 

[cb9501]

Re: Treble loss with no tone cap?

Thanks for the replies. I think I may have put too much info in my original post. All guitars have the same pickups which are pretty much the same height measured with a stack of guitar picks . Did you guys listen to the sound clips? I guess my real question is about the tonal difference when I bypass the wiring in my Dean.

Forgetting about the tonal difference between guitars, am I wrong in assuming that the wiring in a guitar with knobs wide open should sound the same as the pickup wired directly to a jack? Shouldn't pot resistance values only affect the tone when the pot is not wide open? I see I didn't explicitly mention that the pots are were wide open in original post. The sound clips are of the same (dean) guitar with volume and tone pots(tone cap removed) enabled and bypassed.

 

[Gibson 1964]

Re: Treble loss with no tone cap?

Forgetting about the tonal difference between guitars, am I wrong in assuming that the wiring in a guitar with knobs wide open should sound the same as the pickup wired directly to a jack? Shouldn't pot resistance values only affect the tone when the pot is not wide open? I see I didn't explicitly mention that the pots are were wide open in original post. The sound clips are of the same (dean) guitar with volume and tone pots(tone cap removed) enabled and bypassed.

You are wrong on that point. Putting a different value pot changes the sound with everything on 10. Your pots on 10, unless no load, will function as a filter on the high end. Also, 2 Pots, vs 1 Pot of the same value will effect the sound. I am an on 10 user most of the time, but no change I have ever made matched swapping out the pots in my '84 LPC. With the knobs wide open it was night and day. (Now realize the stock pots on that were not a value you see all that often in electric guitar wiring.) But yeah, never underestimate the pot value's contribution to your sound. IMO it is the biggest bang for buck revoicing change you can make since high end pots are like $5 each, or $8 or so for a push/pull.

 

[idsnowdog]

Re: Treble loss with no tone cap?

The guitars volume control at 100% bleeds more treble than a tone control at 100%. If you are looking for more treble change the volume control to a higher value like 1 meg rather than removing the tone control.

 

[cb9501]

Re: Treble loss with no tone cap?

I measured the pots on my les paul and the Dean and they're both 500k. It sounds like I can get 1M pot for my Dean to get a little more treble. I guess I need to evaluate the sound of the guitars against each other and decide if I want to make a change since the bypass test I did didn't actually indicate a problem. Thank you guys for the advice/lesson

 

[DreX]

Re: Treble loss with no tone cap?

My guess: the Dean is inherently darker, and might not seem dark if not for the fact that you switch between the two or three guitars. You might just turn up the treble on your amp and never have noticed, but since you do notice, 1meg pots will bring out more trebles. I'd replace both the volume and tone with 1 megs (why screw around?).

The guitars volume control at 100% bleeds more treble than a tone control at 100%. If you are looking for more treble change the volume control to a higher value like 1 meg rather than removing the tone control.

I don't advocate removing the tone control, but removing it would make the guitar a lot brighter.

 

[cb9501]

Re: Treble loss with no tone cap?

I removed the tone cap so currently the tone knob is still hooked up, but signal is going to the center lug and neither of the outside lugs are hooked up to anything. I would assume that this is effectively the same as not having any tone knob. I didn't notice much of a difference in tone by "removing" the tone control. I'm not sure why, maybe it's just because I couldn't A-B it like I did with bypassing the whole circuit.

 

[DreX]

Re: Treble loss with no tone cap?

So you've taken out the tone pot, if you disconnect the ground from the "zero" lug of the volume, then you'll have a "no load" guitar, similar to how two 1 meg pots would sound on the vol and tone. If it's still too dark for your tastes at that point, you're pretty much out of luck, you'll have to look to new pickups. Having said that, I've never heard of a guitar with a JB/Jazz combo being so dark that 1 meg pots couldn't save it. That's a little strange.

 

[Gibson 1964]

Re: Treble loss with no tone cap?

So you've taken out the tone pot, if you disconnect the ground from the "zero" lug of the volume, then you'll have a "no load" guitar, similar to how two 1 meg pots would sound on the vol and tone. If it's still too dark for your tastes at that point, you're pretty much out of luck, you'll have to look to new pickups. Having said that, I've never heard of a guitar with a JB/Jazz combo being so dark that 1 meg pots couldn't save it. That's a little strange.

I can see a really dead body/neck being that way, but if 1 meg pots don't work, I'd pack it up and call it a day. But like Drex, I would use a pair of 1 meg pots right out of the gate.

 

[eboogieboogie]

Re: Treble loss with no tone cap?

For the love of God, please stop trying to have all your guitars sound the same.

 

[EDX]

Re: Treble loss with no tone cap?

you could change the wiring from modern to 50's wiring, it's a popular mod for les paul type guitars, it makes things brighter

 

[SGDLutherie]

Re: Treble loss with no tone cap?

The value of the pot matters because even when on 10, the resistance of the pot is connected between the signal and ground.

This resistance loads the pickup and lowers the resonant peak and reduces the treble frequencies. So a 500k pot will sound brighter than a 250k pot.

Also, two pots in parallel will increase this load. If you have two 500k pots, the total resistance is 250k. Two 250k pots will give you 125k!

A Duncan JB has a pretty high impedance and DC resistance. So the larger the value pot, the brighter it sounds. No pot removes the resistance load. A 1M pot would sound similar.

Also, tone caps only affect the tone when you turn the pot down lower than 8 or so. Otherwise it's the resistance of the pot. This is why it makes no difference what type of cap you use as long as they are the same value. So paper in oil caps will sound the same as film or ceramic.


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