'Family Portrait' of my current guitars

[gingataff]

Nice guitars.

Interesting choice, taking direct wiring to jack. Trying to get the purest tone possible?

I'd like to philking do this. One guitar at a time  :twisted:

I've got a guitar with a mini switch that can bypass the volume & tone circuit and I have to say I generally prefer the tone in bypass mode (but its also nice to roll the tone or volume down and then use the switch like a pickup selector)

[Muzzzz]

^ So - tonally speaking - what's the difference, anyway?

[gingataff]

It's like turning everything up up to 11.

 

[TwilightOdyssey]

Thanks for all the replies.

To clear things up re: "the Kamikaze Controversy"

The guitar was originally a bone stock ESP Kamikaze 4 Limited Edition. Hardware was swapped from black to chrome, push-pull pot was replaced with a mini-toggle for pickup selection, and the neck was replaced with a Gajic J Frog replica. That neck had a birdseye maple fingerboard. The neck developed a twist and the guitar now has a Warmoth all-maple neck on it with a both a standard tusk nut as well as a locking nut. That greatly impoved the tone!

To clear things up re: "The Tone Control Controversy"

I'm not anti-volume control or anti-tone control. In most cases, however, I've found that adding pots to the signal robs the guitar of tone. I now strive for the purest signal chain I can get. Oftentimes this results in the pickup being soldered directly to the output jack. There is "zero" resistance to the tone when you play this way and takes some getting used to it, as you can't mute, roll off, or otherwise do anything short of shunting the signal if you don't want to feedback, remove handling noise, etc.

Re: "Where's Wayne?"

You might also ask: where's my JEM, M1 Tiger and '79 Strat. They are all gone due to one reason or another. I am 10x happier now that all my guitars (less the Blue Meanie) have the identical neck.

[noodleplugerine]

To clear things up re: "The Tone Control Controversy"

I'm not anti-volume control or anti-tone control. In most cases, however, I've found that adding pots to the signal robs the guitar of tone. I now strive for the purest signal chain I can get. Oftentimes this results in the pickup being soldered directly to the output jack. There is "zero" resistance to the tone when you play this way and takes some getting used to it, as you can't mute, roll off, or otherwise do anything short of shunting the signal if you don't want to feedback, remove handling noise, etc.

Could have a mini toggle SPST inbetween the pickups and the input as a literal "Switch off pickups" switch. Or even put the middle selection of a 3 way as no pickups, which I've been thinking of doing since I never use middle.

[TwilightOdyssey]

^ I have that on Blue Meanie. The 'pickup selector' is actually a selectable tone circuit (Fender & Gibson) with a bypass. The pickup selector is a mini toggle on the bottom bout of the guitar. (I rarely switch pickups when I'm playing live)

HOWEVER, you can hear a difference between direct-to-jack and through the bypass, at least through my rig.

[dave_mc]

I've got a guitar with a mini switch that can bypass the volume & tone circuit and I have to say I generally prefer the tone in bypass mode (but its also nice to roll the tone or volume down and then use the switch like a pickup selector)

interesting, i must try that. I use the volume (and to a much lesser, i.e. no, extent the tone control, but i'm too much of a wuss to remove it, just in case i might use it in like 2014) too much to take it off, but a bypass switch might be cool.

I know the little cornell romany amp i tried a while back had a switch to defeat the tone controls, and the difference in tone was palpable (for the better).