Vol/Vol/Tone/Tone - how do you use it?

[ErikH]

Long time LP / LP style player

#1 Bridge V on 10, Neck V on 0 = Toggle kill switch. I usually do that
- Also works in reverse for Sweet Child players...

#2 Bridge V on 10, Neck V on 1.1 (or whatever is barely on) = Switch to middle to go from full bridge to very clean/cleanish sound. Again, faster/easier than volume turning fiddling.
- Also works in reverse.

#3 Middle position clean playing (usually). Blend each pickup until you get just the right amount of each. = Many shades of clean from rounder softer with bite, to Biting with rounder / softer edges, and anything in between.
- Using my PAF/SuperD like this into an Acoustic simulator, I get some pretty cool acoustic tones. Just one example

#4 If you want to balance unbalanced pickups...example: Distortion in the Bridge, A2P in the Neck. You run the volume and treble full up on the A2P. Take the Distortion and run the volume down, and roll off some treble on the tone. Find the sweet spot where the pair matches up well. Leave it like that. But - if you want to go full range, you just open up the bridge and the tone, or the tone, and there you go. That's a good way - moving the tone only, to add a lot of bite to an A2P if you want more from the neck than the neck provides.

This. I do all of this with my Les Paul. In addition, when I split the neck pickup, I roll the volume back a little bit and can go from really sweet Strat-like sound to raging Les Paul in your face by flipping the switch to the bridge with the volume up full.

I disconnected the neck tone pot. It opened up the neck pickup a little bit. Like turning up the presence knob on the amp.

 

[Gtrjunior]

Turn the volume all the way down on the neck volume then whack the switch back and for to get that kill switch kinda thing, it was the rage in the 70s/early 80s, Randy did it, you should too.

j/k, I don't currently have any 4 knobbers, I do have a V/V/T on a Schecter Solo though, but yeah, that trick is old.

Ha! I still do that. Lol

 

[eclecticsynergy]

I'm pretty conventional and stay mostly on the bridge pickup, rolling back for cleans (core tone is crunch; lead channel for solos).
I do sometimes use middle position with the neck on around 7 for fuller rhythm tones.
And occasionally neck pickup by itself, rolled back for warm rhythm work or full up for a lead.

 

[some_dude]

Bridge on full for crunch, neck rolled back for cleans. I call it my hillbilly channel switcher.

I don’t really have set positions, just fiddle with them to get the sounds I need.

 

[zionstrat]

I've recently been experimenting with an OOP middle position and bass cuts instead of tone controls. Definitely a lot more flexible, but how many of the sounds are actually usable? I don't really know yet.

I've always been fascinated with clean verse crunch tones, so my most common four knob setting was the bridge volume backed off for cleanish rhythm and the amp set to go overdriven with the neck all the way up.

However I've almost moved completely to master volumes with a bass roll off because it gives me more in between sounds and the ability to use any pickup for rhythm or lead.

And it's ridiculously easy to set up.. I roll off all the bass and dial the amp down slightly below crunch.

So anytime I dial in more base, I get more crunch and it's really dynamic.. with the four knobs, I would flip the pickup switch only when I was moving from rhythm to lead and vice versa.

With the bass rolloff, I'm constantly tweaking a little more little bit less, and I really love having the knob on the upper bout so that it's really easy to adjust on the upstroke but unlikely to be accidentally hit.

Sent from my SM-G781U using Tapatalk