Tone Control circuits. What's your favorite?

[will]

Hi,

Just wondering what your favorite tone control circuit? I started to play around with the Duncan tone stack calculator http://www.duncanamps.com/tsc/ and was surprised at how many of the tone circuits suck out the midrange of the signal. Very interesting! With careful tailoring it seems the big muff tone control can achieve the flattest response.

Perhaps the big dips in the midrange region makes the fenders, marshalls and Vox amplifiers sound so good. The simple big muff is often set at values that cut the mids. It also seems that none of the midrange controls really work very well. They change the mids somewhat but they seem to change the highs and overall volume even more.

The million dollar question is which sounds the best?

Comments Anyone!

Regards,
Will

[Peter Snowberg]

That's almost a trick question because it depends on the application, not to mention the rest of the circuit.

My favorite is the Fender topology, but with a 25K mid control, a 100K linear pot in series with a 33K resistor for the slope, and switchable capacitors.

For my playing which is 98% rythm, I like 330pf & two .022 or two .033uF caps. If you add a switch on the mid pot the disconnects the wiper and CW end of the mid pot, you can dial up a Marshall tone and everything inbetween too.

I like options.

-Peter

[Ansil]

for my playing thats easy.  a modded vox tone stack. i dont' rememeber the values exactly.  but anyway  i leave the bass all the way up at all times  and just use the treble knob to do what i want it to do.  (i also set up the bass on my amp a little higher to compensate)  when on full tilt. it has a nice  stair like stagger..   at around -15db for bass  -13 for mids and -9 for treble.   anyway as you turn the treble down it gives a nice mid hump  as well as some bass response  and it really doesn't take away the highs that much just cranks the mids and takes out some hiss

check out this is a graphic response of it.
www.geocities.com/cemaynard1134/help.htm

its called myq and is near the bottom