2nd tone pot on a strat

[mwbjr13]

I'm working on an HSS strat and I don't know what to do with the second tone pot. Im going to use the first tone pot on the two singles and bypass the tone on the bridge. I really don't want to omit the pot mainly for visual reasons but I also would like to find something creative to do with it. Any suggestions?

Thanks

 

[line6man]

Do a HPF knob.

 

[mwbjr13]

A what knob?

 

[line6man]

A what knob?

High pass filter. Put a capacitor in series with the signal path, with a pot to vary the impedance across it.

 

[bagman67]

High pass filter.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_pass_filter

 

[mwbjr13]

That's an idea.

 

[line6man]

High pass filter.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_pass_filter

But don't pay any attention to those formulas, because it does no good with a complex impedance source whose resistance varies with frequency. It's best to experiment with different capacitors until you get the frequency cutoff where you like it.

 

[bagman67]

Yeah, for a n00b like me the only useful part is at the bottom of the post, where the article discusses applications.

 

[swarfrat]

Mid boost. I love my SPC

 

[mwbjr13]

Will that work with passive pickups?

 

[line6man]

Will that work with passive pickups?

Doesn't make any difference one way or the other. Capacitors and resistors do the same thing regardless of the nature of the impedance of the input signal. You will need to choose the appropriate value to get the desired effect, however. For a high impedance pickup, typically a value like 0.0047uF is used for bass-cuts. This is an order of magnitude less that what you would use for a standard tone control. The value of the pot will need to be high enough so as not to allow too much signal through at the full-cut setting, but low enough that the range of control remains usable. G&L uses 1M pots on their basses.

 

[line6man]

Mid boost. I love my SPC

By adding an inductor in series with the capacitor on a standard tone control (*capacitance adjusted accordingly), you can do a bandstop filter to cut mids. The concern, of course, is the volume loss. Boosting mids is not easy in a passive circuit, however, as it requires stealing energy from other frequencies. To boost any frequency band while the rest of the signal remains untouched, active equalization is usually the only option.

 

[swarfrat]

I think he meant the EMG SPC that I mentioned. EMG says no. I'd need to look to see how its actually configured. There are other boosters/mid boosts around though.

 

[mwbjr13]

I was talking about the EMG SPC because I've looked at it before and thought it said it didn't work with passives.

 

[line6man]

I was talking about the EMG SPC because I've looked at it before and thought it said it didn't work with passives.

In that case, compatibility is determined by two factors. Input impedance, and any special input stage characteristics that are meant to work with a particular impedance of a coil. The latter is rare, and would only apply to using buffered or low impedance coils with an input stage engineered to see a high impedance coil. The former is easy to determine, if you can find a spec sheet on the device in question. The typical input impedance spec for gear used with high impedance pickups is 1M Ohms. (Much higher input impedances are required to avoid loading with piezo elements, but these input impedances increase thermal noise with lower impedance signals.) I have seen some EMG products that claim a 500k Ohms input impedance. This is certainly fine for buffered (active) and low impedance pickups, but with standard high impedance pickups, it simply means there is a bit more loading against the coils. If this is the case, keep your volume pot value a little higher, unless you like a darker tone.

 

[Jumble Jumble]

There was an Eric Clapton strat that had an active mid boost on it. More powerful than the SPC, and that was in an otherwise passive system. Could be worth looking into. A mid boosted neck single coil pickup is a nice sound.

 

[greywolf]

I used a blend pot on mine , allows neck and bridge blend .. very handy

 

[swarfrat]

GFS sells a couple modules that could be interesting in there.

 

[Neo Fender]

Has anyone here tried a Deaf Eddie Switch?

http://www.deaf-eddie.net/switches.html

I'm working on an HSS strat and I don't know what to do with the second tone pot. Im going to use the first tone pot on the two singles and bypass the tone on the bridge. I really don't want to omit the pot mainly for visual reasons but I also would like to find something creative to do with it. Any suggestions?

Thanks

 

[line6man]

I used a blend pot on mine , allows nck and bridge blend .. very handy

The issue with blend pots is the additional resistive loading in the circuit, the insertion loss at the center detent, and blending irregularities between pickups of dissimilar output impedances. Does not seem like a good idea in a SSH setup.

Of course, it is becoming common to leave the grounds off of blend pots, such to only introduce a resistance in series with either pickup. This eliminates the resistive loading issue, and tends to help the pickups blend more smoothly, but there will still be insertion loss and dissimilar impedances being mixed.