tone controls on guitar

[southtown]

do we have a effect to do this... what i want is that i like my guita tones with the tone knobs rolled off for chords but when moving up to solo i want them rolled up... now is there a easy way to do this rather than having to adjust knobs?

[Harry]

Like on your guitar or a stomp box? Well for guitar you could use a toggle switch to change from low-pass filter (tone rolled down) to bypass (no tone change for lead work). Or you could make a real simple passive box with the same thing only switch'd be a foot switch. Don't think you'd really need a full-blown "effect" for this simple idea.

[d95err]

You'd need is two jacks, one SPST footswitch, one cap (e.g 0.047uF) one pot (e.g. 250k). Connect input to output, connect the switch to input, the cap to the other side of the switch, and the pot wired as a variable resistor from the cap to ground. Perhaps a pop-stopping 1M resistor from input to ground could be useful as well.

While you're at it, add a volume pot as well. This would enable you to lay back on the guitar volume as well as tone and then with a stomp go to full volume and tone.

[Mark Hammer]

I wired up my nephew's metal-approved Charvel for something like this years ago.  We used a standard 5-way switch, and the last two positions were for bridge pickup with and without the tone control.

The question to ask before deciding what pethod to pursue is "What pickup arrangement do you currently have?".  I don't need to know the makes of pickups, simply how many, and what sort of switch is in there now.

[bwanasonic]

Craig Anderton's *Electronic Projects For Musician*s had just such a circuit (passive tone control). With some pickup arrangements you can set independent tone settings for each pickup. My personal advice is to get better at quickly adjusting the guitar's knobs. I consider it a fundamental skill, and allows you a wide range of tones instead of just on/off. Ideally it shouldn't take any more thought than stomping on a footswitch.

Kerry M