Simple guitar tone control

[TimWaldvogel]

Has anybody used a simple guitar tone control in a pedal that's brighter. Does it work well? Played with cap values? Truthfully I have used a tone control period on any of my pedals. My Les pul junior is brighter than others with it's p90. But I  back off the tone and sound amazing. I was thinking about doing this in my smash drive 

[Quackzed]

sure, why not. lots of pedals have some treble bled off to remove harshness, a pot would just give some controll over how much. for a set amount of treble cut you'd just use a capto ground, to  adjust it , you could put a pot inbetween the cap to ground like a tone pot.

[Mark Hammer]

The guitar-type tone control provides for variable bleed-off of signal above some designated rolloff point.  If you know what the optimal point is, you're in good shape.

In contrast, the SWTC circuit provides for the same amount of rolloff but at variable rolloff frequencies.  Jack Orman extended the basic premise and has some clever-but-simple circuit suggestions here: http://www.muzique.com/lab/swtc.htm  Very much worth a read.

[1878]

I've used a guitar type tone control on a couple of effects for myself and others & they work great. Try a couple of different caps and see which one you prefer. One thing though, try it through a couple of different amps if you can.

[TimWaldvogel]

I am gonna tr it out on the smash drive I'm building. Is the smash drive relatively bright for some people?

[zombiwoof]

I've used a guitar type tone control on a couple of effects for myself and others & they work great. Try a couple of different caps and see which one you prefer. One thing though, try it through a couple of different amps if you can.

I would think that different pot values would also be a consideration.

Al

[TimWaldvogel]

is there a way to wire a push pull pot to go between two caps? like maybe a .022 cap and when you pull it out its a .047 cap and one can be labeled bright or something? idk how the poles on a push pull pot are connected

[stringsthings]

is there a way to wire a push pull pot to go between two caps? like maybe a .022 cap and when you pull it out its a .047 cap and one can be labeled bright or something? idk how the poles on a push pull pot are connected

yes .... this is very possible .... a typical switch on a push-pull pot is DPDT on-on ....

i'm not sure how you would label the pot ..... personally, i would just wire the caps up and leave the knob stock .....

[Paul Marossy]

I've used a guitar type tone control on a couple of effects for myself and others & they work great. Try a couple of different caps and see which one you prefer.

I have also done the same thing. The circuits I put them in were plenty loud and could handle the "insertion loss". You can mess around with the pot & cap values to find what you like the best.

[TimWaldvogel]

What type of circuits have you guys put these in? Out of curiousity of course.

[newfish]

I've used one to control the frequency range going through a pair of clipping diodes.
The pedal itself (Op-Amp distortion) wasn't horribly bright, so I was OK for 'normal' range.

A simple tone control can be useful all over the place - as long as you have enough signal to get away with the loss.

Buffered FX loop with a 'Range Send' would also be handy - sending all the bottom-end (or top-end) through an FX loop, leaving the other frequencies un-affected.

Hmm.  Time for a Breadboard methinks...

[Mark Hammer]

Easier and cheaper than a push-pull pot is to simply use a larger-value pot (e.g., if you were planning to use 100k, use 250k, if 250k, use 500k), and wire up two different-value caps, one in each direction.  The midpoint of rotation now becomes the no-cut position.  Works great.  I install them on my guitars.

[zombiwoof]

Easier and cheaper than a push-pull pot is to simply use a larger-value pot (e.g., if you were planning to use 100k, use 250k, if 250k, use 500k), and wire up two different-value caps, one in each direction.  The midpoint of rotation now becomes the no-cut position.  Works great.  I install them on my guitars.

That's interesting, so on your guitars the mid point of the control would be what normally was the control on "10" with the smaller value pot, and then turning in either direction cuts or boosts treble?.  I've never heard of anyone doing that!.

Al

[Mark Hammer]

Moving it in either direction from the midpoint results in one of two different kinds of treble cut.  I use one smaller cap value to provide degrees of gentle "rounding", and a larger value to provide degrees of more traditional muting.  I still think that an SWTC-type circuit would accomplish more of what Tim wants, because it provides a variable rolloff point.  The bidirectional treble cut I described simply provides varying amounts of cut at two different frequencies.