Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
Forum Ringside => Guitars, Amps and Effects => Topic started by: gwEm on September 08, 2017, 10:23:10 AM
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I've been experimenting the last couple of evenings with a bass cut control in one of my guitars. Its taken a bit of playing to get it right, but I thought I'd share my results.
The best so far is to use a 1M pot wired in parallel with a 470pF (0.47nF) capacitor. I've put this in series with the pickups, before the volume control.
I like the effect it has on the Les Paul style guitar I've put it in. When the pot is set to zero ohms, there is no bass cut. When its set to 1M, there is maximum cut.
I tried a 500k pot first, which worked ok, but I saw G&L use a 1M pot so I tried it and it does work better.
For the capacitors I've tried a few values between 4.7nF and the 0.47nF I am using now. The smaller the value, the more the cut. Values around 4.7 to 2.2nF are only really audible on the neck pickup I found.
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Very interesting. Never really thought about such a control, or whether it was even possible.
So, does this mean the following:
a) resistor + capacitor in series, wired in parallel to the signal is a low pass filter - if the resistor is variable, gives us the standard tone control we're used to.
b) resistor + capacitor in parallel, wired in series to the signal is a high pass filter - gives us this bass control.
Is that right?
I might be tempted to try this at some point... though right at the moment I can't imagine me wanting to use it!! (Although, I suspect that's just because I'm so used to the simple "set the amp for X, use the tone to take the top off")
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what you say is right
for b) if the resistor is variable you can adjust the bass cut
the guitar i've installed it in is a rather thick sounding LP type guitar. at rehearsal the amp was an orange and I was having trouble cutting, even with the bass of the amp set on zero. so that was the motivation to try this.
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This is a great control to have on any guitar. There's a really good post about it over on MG.org with various ways to wire it up either variable or just on a switch.
http://www.metalguitarist.org/forum/guitar-tech-electronics-and-diy/773-tight-control-simple-passive-bass-cut.html
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Yeah. Definitely have enjoyed a passive bass cut, but the dialed back tones ended up getting a bit thin for my tastes. I landed on using a dual gang 1M pot. One wiper wired for the volume control and then the other wired to cut bass as I'm turning the volume up. Maximum bridge pickup volume is also the most percussive/cutting with things getting squishier as I roll down. I haven't tried on a neck pickup.
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This sounds like a great idea. I certainly have one guitar on which I've never been able to tame the muddiness. This could be a solution. Certainly worth a try!