Removing tone controls altogether?

[Lezard]

I've been looking through Tuck Andress(Check him out, he's fantastic)'s website and I found this article.

http://www.tuckandpatti.com/tuck_tone.html

Specifically this section.

Long-story short, Do away with guitar tone controls.

A bit tone obsessive and anoraky I know, but If not here, then where?

Thoughts comments suggestions?

Tone settings: On guitars that don't have built-in preamps, tone controls only subtract, and this is conceptually the wrong point at which to do it. Therefore always run the tone control wide open. Better yet rewire your guitar to bypass it. It's amazing how much it colors the tone even when it's on 10.

This also applies to the switch that combines the two pickups. At the risk of throwing away functionality of the guitar, bypassing that switch (and thus losing the use of the second pickup) will also clean up the tone somewhat. You'd have to experiment by rewiring back and forth to discover how much and where the tradeoff should be. The principle of minimum signal path, including wire and switches, is important as long as the signal is high impedance, which virtually every pickup is.

It is tedious to do this kind of experiment, but it's worth it because you learn a lot from it, and your tone improves. We've made ourselves do countless A/B tests of pickups (at least 20 different ones), cables, power cables, etc., all the way down the line to the speakers the sound finally comes out of. Patti has the golden ears and good sense, and I get to be the patient scientist.

For guitars, one approach is to temporarily install RCA jacks everywhere inside your guitar so you can just reconnect them to bypass pots, switches, etc. Once you decide what internal signal path works best for you, hard wire it, getting rid of the RCA jacks, which introduce their own degradation and unreliability, unless you decide that you want to be able to rewire easily to play with a band by replugging internally (still a pain; it's a lot easier to have two guitars). If you try a buffer preamp, this would also make it possible to mock up what it would sound like built into the guitar by taping it to the guitar and connecting it to the pickup output via the RCA jack you would add before the pickup goes to anything else.

[darkbluemurder]

I agree to the fact that tone pots do color the tone even when they are on 10. This depends on the cap used. Some caps, e.g. Xicon MPPs color little if any whereas e.g. the Luxe, Mallory M150 or Orange Drop 715s all have their own coloration.

I disagree with the switching. The switch itself should be transparent. The difference is mainly the wire going to and from the switch. If you really have bad sound, just taking out the switch will not get you excellent sound (unless it is broken and needs replacement anyway). I believe it is more effective to address such difference elsewhere in the sound chain rather than to intentionally limit the functions of the instrument.

Cheers Stephan

[AndyR]

I kinda knew about this already. But...

"At the risk of throwing away functionality of the guitar"

Well, yes... I tend to use tone controls to, er, colour the tone...

Always have done. I regard them as an integral part of the system that gets me what I want.

So, I probably won't be doing this to any guitar in the near future :lol:

However, if I didn't use tone controls like this, and always had it on 10, then I can see how having the thing in the circuit could be "in the way".

[jpfamps]

The tone pot can add extra loading to the pickups, even when "off", so you may get more treble if you remove it (them).

[Philly Q]

Although I always say "the simpler the better", I must confess I like tone controls.  Even if they do "only subtract", I like what's left after the subtraction!

I have one guitar with just a single pickup and a volume control (plus coil split), and it's pretty bright.  I am sometimes tempted to drill it for that extra pot.... but that would be foolish.

[AndyR]

Actually yeah... I once had a guitar with no tone control, and I couldn't use it without serious messing with the amp - because my amp is set for (what were once) gigging guitars. Plugging that thing in took the top of yer head off!

And I'm not convinced I like that sound! :lol:

Using the tone controls is an integral part of how I play an electric guitar. I'd be somewhat lost if I didn't have that control on-board. Mebbe it would be better if I learnt to use one with no tone... but I'm too old to be bothered doing it :)

[BigB]

As far as I'm concerned, the tone control is mandatory on F-type SC pups and bridge vintage 'buckers, and still useful on bridge hi-output 'buckers. I could live without it on neck 'buckers, but then I'd need a treble bleed (to replace the 50s wiring) to avoid the treble loss when using the volume pot, and I've never been happy with treble bleeds so far.

wrt/ "only substract" meme, well, I just fail see how it's a problem - I mean, unless you also states that the volume pot should be removed to because "it only substracts and this is conceptually the wrong point at which to do it" (not to mention the load on the pickup causing treble loss). The point is : neither electric guitar's electronic nor electric guitar's amps are hi-fi, nor are supposed to be. Most of the tones we love here come from imperfections, coloration, weird interactions, well, "inferior" technologies artifacts really.

Not to say a good buffer is something useless, nor that bad pots / caps / cables / etc are the way to good tone... But instead of "removing the tone control" (let's not talk about the pup switch) I'd rather add a switch to bypass the whole volume/tone part (if I was to go that way I mean).  

My 2 cents...

[AndyR]

Yep, that's kind of how I feel...

Not to say someone can't really get on with a guitar with no controls, after all, the amp has got some too, it's just not for me.

For me it's a little bit like if someone took the handle off my carving knife and went "there ya go, carve the sunday joint with that"... I'd probably have a spot of bother doing it!

[Philly Q]

As far as I'm concerned, the tone control is mandatory on F-type SC pups and bridge vintage 'buckers, and still useful on bridge hi-output 'buckers. I could live without it on neck 'buckers, but then I'd need a treble bleed (to replace the 50s wiring) to avoid the treble loss when using the volume pot, and I've never been happy with treble bleeds so far.

I'd miss the tone control most of all on neck pickups, because I love that woolly tone!  :lol:

And I don't mind the lack of a tone control for the bridge pickup on a vintage Strat, because there are four other sounds to muck about with.

[BigB]

I'd miss the tone control most of all on neck pickups, because I love that woolly tone!  :lol:

;)

And I don't mind the lack of a tone control for the bridge pickup on a vintage Strat, because there are four other sounds to muck about with.

First thing I do on a strat is to rewire it to have tone 1 on neck & mid and tone 2 on the bridge - which is where a tone is most needed.

[Miek]

Found a diagram recently that allows you to have a push/pull or push/push act as a volume knob in one position and a tone knob in the other. It's handy for people like me that want minimalistic controls, don't want to do any drilling of new holes, or don't like the position of their volume knobs.

http://www.stewmac.com/tradesecrets/newsletter/ts0112/ts0112volumetone.jpg

Quite a handy idea, especially if you don't like concentric pots! If only I could get one in 550k  :lol:

[Toe-Knee]

The tone control being removed is the first thing that happens with any guitar that I ever get my hands on followed shortly by the volume pot being replaced with a 1m.

I really don't like the way that tone controls just mush up the tone even when on full.

If I could get away with having no controls whatsoever I would do purely because it sounds so much clearer and precise.

[TheyCallMeVolume]

Exactly why I love this!

[Philly Q]

The SE One is a cool guitar.  :D

[TheyCallMeVolume]

Definitely, I love it alot. Great playing guitar and no distractions, just a straight up rocker.