ShatnersBassoon Posted January 14 Report Share Posted January 14 Wondering how many on here have done this, and what the experience was? Slightly tempted to do it on the current build, it features an Artec Hotrails in the bridge position. I’ve heard it adds treble, but how much? Is it a piercing amount, or does it depend on the pickup? Cheers all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bizman62 Posted January 14 Report Share Posted January 14 Haven't done it, but addressing the potential treble issue is very simple: A resistor of 500k would equivalent a 5ook pot without the adjusting ability. At least in my understanding, but I may be wrong. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bizman62 Posted January 14 Report Share Posted January 14 You may also want to test with other values for a tone you like. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShatnersBassoon Posted January 14 Author Report Share Posted January 14 2 hours ago, Bizman62 said: Haven't done it, but addressing the potential treble issue is very simple: A resistor of 500k would equivalent a 5ook pot without the adjusting ability. At least in my understanding, but I may be wrong. Cool. I suppose I could do it and see how it goes. If it’s not to my liking then the resistor idea would be on the cards…or I could just add a pot . Clearance is an issue on this build, because the body is so thin. Another issue is the volume jump I keep hearing about. It’s already quite a hot pickup I believe, and would like to get a few nice clean sounds out of it along with the usual overdriven/distorted stuff. We will see. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
henrim Posted January 14 Report Share Posted January 14 Personally I wouldn’t want a guitar without a volume pot. I could very well live without adjustable tone though. And you can use a no-load pot if you want to temporarily disengage tone pot from the circuit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShatnersBassoon Posted January 14 Author Report Share Posted January 14 16 minutes ago, henrim said: Personally I wouldn’t want a guitar without a volume pot. I could very well live without adjustable tone though. And you can use a no-load pot if you want to temporarily disengage tone pot from the circuit. Just a thought at the moment . I pretty much never use the tone personally, if I was to be totally honest I would wager that’s the same for most players…could be wrong ofcourse. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
henrim Posted January 14 Report Share Posted January 14 Yeah, to me tone is usually one time adjustment. And in many guitars the adjustment is no adjustment at all. On others just a notch down. I know some people use it while playing but that’s not my thing. I guess a trim pot inside the control cavity would be enough for me. Anyhow I have made all my guitars with a tone pot. I’m not set with my current build though. It has only one humbucker. I know it will have a volume pot and a five-way switch for coil splitting and phase shifting. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bizman62 Posted January 14 Report Share Posted January 14 Heh, using/not the tone seems like using the zoom lens in a camera. Don't know about how people nowadays use their cell phones but at least back when I was more into photography they launched a pocket size dual lense camera instead of a zoom, just because it was only the extents that an average Joe would use. A switch for various pickup settings sounds just like that! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
henrim Posted January 14 Report Share Posted January 14 34 minutes ago, Bizman62 said: A switch for various pickup settings sounds just like that! It’s a gimmick. I don’t have much use for coil splitting but, phase shifting, on the other hand, is a useful tool. Having all the possible combinations on one switch doesn’t do much harm though. What comes to photographic gear, I’m more a prime lens guy. Zooms today are brilliant but I usually know what focal length I want to use so I rather change the lens. Only zooms I have are 70-200/F2.8 and 14-24/f2.8. In between and over those focal lengths all lenses are primes. In 35mm format. On other film/sensor sizes all lenses are primes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bizman62 Posted January 14 Report Share Posted January 14 27 minutes ago, henrim said: What comes to photographic gear, I’m more a prime lens guy That makes you a more serious photographer than the average Joe. Back then I bought a Nikkormat SLR and a wide range zoom, something like 35-105 with a poor lens speed, I soon swapped that to a slightly better Tamron 28-200. Most of the time I could have done with a good 50mm which I later found. And maybe something like a 150mm for more tightly cropped images. Same with guitars, I rarely touch the pots or even the switch and if I do it's not during playing, it's mostly during the "sound check" to find a setting that suits my mood - I'm not playing in a band so it's just me and my tiny amp and maybe a YouTube backing track. Back to the subject, I guess most amateur players only need a couple of settings. They may test everything but won't actually master anything - trying to find their voice might be the closest definition and the amount of owned or at least tested gear is comparable to the lures of a fisherman. As you know new lures aren't for more suspicious fish, they're for the fishermen. There's tons of recordings of brilliant guitar players to be influenced by but most players don't have the itch to actually study the instrument to reach the level that would take them into the same row. Skillful, yes. Musical, definitely. Determined... One can always say that they don't have the time to practice because they have to work for their living but the actual truth is that if the itch is strong enough there'd be nothing to stop them. One good sound is all that's needed if you can play like a god. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LostTheTone Posted February 14 Report Share Posted February 14 On 1/14/2024 at 4:41 PM, henrim said: Yeah, to me tone is usually one time adjustment. And in many guitars the adjustment is no adjustment at all. On others just a notch down. I know some people use it while playing but that’s not my thing. I guess a trim pot inside the control cavity would be enough for me. Anyhow I have made all my guitars with a tone pot. I’m not set with my current build though. It has only one humbucker. I know it will have a volume pot and a five-way switch for coil splitting and phase shifting. A couple of years back I rebuilt a very beaten up strat to just have a single volume control and a single humbucker, because I wanted a clean and smooth look, and the one thing I really regret is NOT having any way to trim the tone. The first time I played it the treble was just awful, way beyond needing to have it's own amp settings. Being fizzy and lairy is about the worst thing that an overdriven guitar can be. I did put a treble bleed in, which worked ok, but it still never quite sounded right. Eventually I just pulled the pickup out and put it in a guitar that I actually wanted to play (it was an SD Distortion, so I didn't want to just abandon it) and ran it through the regular 500k tone and volume, and now it plays great. It never even occurred to me to have an internal trim pot, but that really is the perfect solution. You don't need a huge amount of tweaking room, but you do need something to gently massage the top end and find a good base tone to work with before you start feeding it into any other hardware. I bet you can even find a spot on most builds to set the trim pot into the cavity and have an inconspicuous hole for a screw driver so you can adjust it from the outside. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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