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My Tone Gets Bright When Volume Gets Turned Down


Daniel Sorbera

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when ever I turn my volume down to 9 or below it gets really thin and bright. But right when it hits 9 it like gets a boost and it sounds way warmer and just much better. So whats wrong? Do I need to add a cap or a resistor to my volume pot?

Could someone point me in the right direction? I have tried to find it searching and found something but dont really know what to make of it all...

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You probably have a hi-pass circuit installed in the guitar. Look for a little capacitor running from the center lug of the volume pot to the right lug. If it was installed at the factory it could be tucked away inside there neatly. Most likely, that's what's causing your dilema. There's a natural dampening of high frequencies when the volume is turned down, because they are the first to bleed to ground. This was designed to counteract that, and to go a step further so you could lower your volume and use it as a clean/crunch control without changing settings on the amp.

I don't like them. I have only a couple guitars out of 30+ that have them, and I have performed my mod to them. You can do a search to find my special hi-pass/tone bleed mod, but it sounds like you (and me both) prefer to remove it. You can snip one side of it just to see quickly what the sound difference is, without firing up the soldering iron. If you like it, just not so much of it, you can tame its effect with an appropriate resistor in series.

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This is on my guitar that I built. It's wired up with 2 p-90s and 1 volume and 1 tone (both 500K). It's wired prety simple. It's just like this only with P-90s

schematic

The reason I was asking about a resistor is my godin has a resistor from one outside lug to the other outside lug. I diddnt think this effected the tone though. I thought that was just for changing the value of the pot?

Edited by Godin SD
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ok you caught me! heres exatly what I used. It is wired up just like this (only the back of the pots and switchs have a ground wire running off them)

schematic

And yes it happens in all the pickups and in all the posistions on my other 2 switchs.

My cap is a .22 could this be screwing it up?

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:D Lord, what a rat's nest! I can't really tell what's going on there, so try this -

2xp90_fancy.png

You'll just have to remember that the series position is only active in the neck and both pickup toggle switch positions. And if the pickups are out of phase, expect the sound to be thin, shrill and quiet, regardless of your volume/tone settings, since most of the fundamental and lower harmonics will be removed. Might be good for something, though - if you like it, keep it. Hook the blue wire up to your SD diagram volume pot and you're good to go.

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