Treble Bleed Volume and No Load Tone Control - thoughts?

Mr Grumpy

Mr Grumpy

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In my never ending endeavour to avoid actually playing guitar, I'm thinking about wiring... What are your thoughts on:

1) Treble bleed on volume.

2) No load on tone.

(Especially with regard to SGs)

Some explanations I've read (which I like):

A “Treble Bleed” circuit is added to the volume pot/s to improve taper and remove the unbalanced roll off. This keeps your clean tones clean and the high end frequencies consistent when turning the volume up and down through 1-10. This is the perfect upgrade if you use manual volume swell as an effect. Or if you are using your guitar volume pot to react with and against overdrive, distortion, or fuzz effect pedals.

A “No-Load” pot works like a standard tone control when used between setting 1-9. Once set to 10 it is then activated to true bypass. This essentially “removes” the tone control and capacitor from the circuit. This will give you a cleaner audio path and the tinniest increase in clean volume.
 
These are marginal mods. I have experimented with both out of curiosity.

Do you reall find that either your tone knob on 0 or rolling the volume down to 5 kills your high end to the point where your tone went from good to unacceptable?
 
RVA said:
These are marginal mods. I have experimented with both out of curiosity.

Do you reall find that either your tone knob on 0 or rolling the volume down to 5 kills your high end to the point where your tone went from good to unacceptable?
Click to expand...

The tone knob on SGs has a lot of affect, certainly affects the high end dramatically - it's quite nice to have the wide range of options, so I'm not sure whether the mod would be an improvement or take something away. But, if it just balances the taper that'd be nice as long as all the options are still there.

I don't find that turning the volume knob down affects the high end overly. On P90 SGs, the volume doesn't overly affect the volume for at least half the taper, but rather cleans up an OD sound (nice to be able to use the volume as an OD).

I find the controls on the SG Junior very nice. Here's a pic:

19.JPG

If the Special had equally good controls I'd be happy. Actually, not. The Junior has a huge range of sounds from one pickup - that's its thing. The Special just needs 3 good sounds via the switching with the option to use the volume control as an OD/Drive/Clean controller between 10-7 then a volume knob thereafter. The Tone needs to be flexible with steady taper within a narrower range, imho (on the Special).
 
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RVA said:
These are marginal mods. I have experimented with both out of curiosity.

Do you reall find that either your tone knob on 0 or rolling the volume down to 5 kills your high end to the point where your tone went from good to unacceptable?
Click to expand...

I once bought an all singing and all dancing harness for an SG: had both of these mods, push-pull for split coil, out-of-phase and something else that I can't remember... I didn't like it at all, and promised myself not to buy such an absurd contraption again! :)
 
I have a no-load tone pot on my Strat. It came stock that way. I do like having it, but to be honest, I don't notice a great deal of tonal difference between just before the knob clicks into the no-load position and the actual no-load position. I mean, listening carefully enough, there is a difference, but not especially huge.

Of course, if you do want to be able to completely remove the tone circuitry, a no-load pot is the way to do it. Contrary to much misconception, setting the tone to "10" does not eliminate the tone capacitor; it only places the maximum value of the tone pot in series with the capacitor, which minimizes the effect of the cap. The greater the resistance value of the tone pot, the lesser the influence of the tone cap with the tone set to "10". However, the capacitor is still always in the circuit. That is why the no-load pot was created. It truly does eliminate the tone circuit.
 
The no load tone pot is nothing special. Any pot has a contact point with the connection outward, and the strength of this contact increases as you spin it. That is why a pot is also known as a variable resistor. With a no load tone pot, the remove the contact point under the "zero mark" (all the way left) so there is no capacitance.


 
Unless you are using really dark pickups and amps like Iommi used in the 1970s there is no need to disable the tone pot on an SG. They are naturally bright guitars.

I have treble bleeds on my Schecters with the Bare Knuckle Black Hawks but I thought it was a cheap mod so why not? I really don't use the volume control much though.

Some places sell the treble bleed for you but I made my own from resistor and capacitor, it was like $2 instead of $10

I used the darker values recommended for single coils instead of the brighter ones for humbuckers. I find it's enough
 
RVA said:
These are marginal mods. I have experimented with both out of curiosity.

Do you reall find that either your tone knob on 0 or rolling the volume down to 5 kills your high end to the point where your tone went from good to unacceptable?
Click to expand...

Try a 0.01uf capacitor
 
IMO, if a guitar is going to have a tone control, then it should have the ability to completely remove its tone circuit from the rest of its circuit. The change in the guitars audio response will be subtle, but nevertheless you'll know what it's completely capable of.

Justifiying treble bleed mods has many variables affecting it:
Each and every pickup's response.
Potentiometer resistance and taper.
Volume pot and tone pot interactions.
Capacitance of the chosen cable.
Type of amp and its gain and EQ settings.
The treble bleed circuit itself... like the values of the cap, or a cap parallel with a resistor, or a cap in series with a resistor!

A slight Pandora's Box, wouldn't you say?
 
I like both the treble bleed and no load pots, at times anyways. If I mod a tele with a 4-way switch there is a good chance it will end up with a no load pot. Just depends on what the end goal is, but I do like the option to have a pot removed from circuit and if I'm cracking a a pot down thinking where'd the life go I may add a bleeder of some sort. But, neither are on auto-mod for lack of better words.
 
RVA said:
Would you be comfortable with a guitar without a tone control?
Click to expand...

I'd be good playing a department store ukelele if the money was right.

Never use tone controls live. Just leave them WFO. Now, in the studio, where you have time to fiddle about, i have played with them a little, but TBTH, its really just not something i think about.

But, think about this...most guitars turn to sonic mud at anything below 5 on the tone knob, which always made me wonder why all the fuss over it.

I think EVH had the right idea when he bypassed it altogether.
 
Drumoid said:
I like both the treble bleed and no load pots, at times anyways. If I mod a tele with a 4-way switch there is a good chance it will end up with a no load pot. Just depends on what the end goal is, but I do like the option to have a pot removed from circuit and if I'm cracking a a pot down thinking where'd the life go I may add a bleeder of some sort. But, neither are on auto-mod for lack of better words.
Click to expand...

I used to sit and listen to playbacks of different tone caps or strings...and spend hours trying to dial in some magical tone.

Then i realized i spent way more time fiddling around than playing, so i just dropped that practice cold turkey. My recent PC crash further reinforced the notion i did nothing but waste time and energy on nuances you will never hear live in a mix.

I can walk into any Guitar Sinner, pick up ANY Jackson or Schecter, and plug into just about any amp there, and get a great tone out of it that i would take onstage without hesitation.

Once i set my rig, i have two tones. Clean and dirty. Any more concern than that takes too much time.

I'm glad i quit analyzing everything and just started playing. Now, all my gear works great and i dont need any new stuff...

IMG_9907.jpg
 
I'm going to try some linear taper pots for tone controls in one of my Gibsons when I get the time. I don't like how the audio taper works for tone, so they stay on 10. I do play with the volume quite a bit and usually blend the front and rear together.
 
Mr Grumpy said:
In my never ending endeavour to avoid actually playing guitar, I'm thinking about wiring... What are your thoughts on:

1) Treble bleed on volume.

2) No load on tone.

(Especially with regard to SGs)

Some explanations I've read (which I like):

A “Treble Bleed” circuit is added to the volume pot/s to improve taper and remove the unbalanced roll off. This keeps your clean tones clean and the high end frequencies consistent when turning the volume up and down through 1-10. This is the perfect upgrade if you use manual volume swell as an effect. Or if you are using your guitar volume pot to react with and against overdrive, distortion, or fuzz effect pedals.

A “No-Load” pot works like a standard tone control when used between setting 1-9. Once set to 10 it is then activated to true bypass. This essentially “removes” the tone control and capacitor from the circuit. This will give you a cleaner audio path and the tinniest increase in clean volume.
Click to expand...

I kind of agree with the initial sentiment in your post...It's just a distraction and while it might make some difference it's not a big enough one to bother with. I say that as a recovering serial guitar modder. I used to basically gut every guitar and replace every part on it, but finally weaned myself off of the practice as the results never justified the time, money and effort involved.
 
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