removing tone circuit

[dmraco]

I am doing a wiring and want to remove the tone circuit.  It was normally a Vol/Tone/three way with the volume being a push pull.  Would I simply remove the tone and connect the grounds normally on the tone to the volume?

 

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

I am doing a wiring and want to remove the tone circuit.  It was normally a Vol/Tone/three way with the volume being a push pull.  Would I simply remove the tone and connect the grounds normally on the tone to the volume?

You can either snip, or unsolder the leads + & - from the tone pot that connect to the ground of the volume pot and the output terminal.

If you've never done it before, snipping may be the ideal way, but only the wires that run to the tone pot, no others.

 

[dmraco]

I am starting from scratch.  So this helps.  Just eliminate the tone!! :icon_thumright:

 

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

I am starting from scratch.  So this helps.  Just eliminate the tone!! :icon_thumright:

Yup.

What pickups are you using?

I might have a diagram.

 

[dmraco]

a p90 and humbucker tapped to run as a single coil with a push/pull

 

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

Ixnay the tone pot, and you're pretty much there.



Change up color scheme on wiring if your wiring is different than Dimarzio's, but there's the principle of it.

 

[Cagey]

Regardless of what else you see in there, the tone pot and the tone cap are in series between signal and ground. Since the cap is easiest to identify, just clip one side or the other of that and the tone control is out of the circuit completely.

 

[Ace Flibble]

Just clipping out the cap isn't the same as removing/bypassing the whole control. The pot, even if it's left at max, will still be robbing a little output, especially higher frequencies. If you don't want a tone control in a guitar which already has one, clip/desolder the whole pot; if you don't want one in a new body you're wiring up, skip it entirely.

And welcome to the club. Big fan of no tone pots, right here. 15 guitars here, only 2 working tone controls between them, and those are only 'cause the guitars they're on are so old and sacred I can't bring myself to change 'em.

 

[Cagey]

If you clip the cap, there is no path for signal flow anywhere. There will be no effect.  But, you're right in that removing the pot from the circuit altogether will work. That works for the same reason - the pot and cap are in series. Removing either one will work, as you're opening the circuit. I mentioned the cap because it's easy to identify and only has two leads - cutting either one does the trick.

 

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

If you clip the cap, there is no path for signal flow anywhere. There will be no effect.  But, you're right in that removing the pot from the circuit altogether will work. That works for the same reason - the pot and cap are in series. Removing either one will work, as you're opening the circuit. I mentioned the cap because it's easy to identify and only has two leads - cutting either one does the trick.

Yup, gotta clip the connection from the tone pot to the volume pot, since most often the tone is wired up to the output lug of the volume pot.

Clip that connection, then your tone is free.

 

[Ace Flibble]

If you clip the cap, there is no path for signal flow anywhere. There will be no effect.

Nope. It still takes off some of the top-end and general output. I've gone back-and-forth testing this many times, specifically for the sake of working out every combination of volume & tone wiring and how to remove either without,m ideally, affecting the base sound. Having done it more times than I can count, I can conclude that ditching just the cap and ditching the tone control entirely do give two different—subtle, but different—results. Hence when someone likes the sound of their guitar with the tone control on '10' and doesn't like it getting knocked, I just remove the cap from the control; if they don't want the look of the control being there, it's moved to inside the control cavity. When someone doesn't like the tone control specifically because they want the most brightness possible, I remove the whole thing for them.

I would concede that people playing through particularly warm or dark amps, long cable runs, wireless, or with lots of distortion, are unlikely to hear any difference whatsoever. But whenever I test or make any changes I always check the raw signal via direct input (including less than 2' of cable) and clipping the cap off the tone control and removing the control entirely do generate slightly different signals.

See also: independent output controls vs master output controls.

 

[Cagey]

It's possible you've had some unusual wiring schemes where that could be true. However, with standard "Strat" wiring...

or with standard dual-humbucker wiring...

If you open the cap, you have removed the tone control from the circuit entirely. There is no way for whatever is left to have any effect on the output and/or tone of the instrument. Also, if you go to this site, you can see that the same is true for all the common mods done to guitar wiring schemes.

It's also possible that the power of suggestion is at work on some of your changes. I recently had a guitar where I thought I had wired in a feature of the Fishman Fluence pickups, and could swear I could hear it. Wasn't sure exactly what it was supposed to do - they had a funny name for it, like "tilt" or something. Anyway, the effect was "subtle, but different". My buddy was playing the thing and wanted to know what it did, since he couldn't hear any difference. We went back and forth with the thing until I finally opened up the guitar and saw I had never wired that switch in.

The imagination can do funny things to perception.

 

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

I've tried loads of wiring schemes in either my TFS6 or my RG7620.
The TFS6 has a regular LP Toggle setup.
The RG7620 has a blade.

After trying all of these various wire configs, I continue to default back to the simplicity of a simple 3 way config of Neck/Both/Bridge with just the volume, the toggle, & the truth.

For me personally, it's about quick recall, and more often than not, I'm using just the outside two options, and rarely the middle on the fly.
Just "flick, flick" and that's it.

I even had the 4 way with the series option for both pickups on the Bari-Tele below when I first built it, but even on that guitar I'm back to a 3 way blade, and even now that I've loaded it with the EMG Tele set, I still don't touch the tone knob at all, it's just there to round out the visual of the control plate.  I've thought of putting one of their other units in, like the tone circuits on the David Gilmour set, but I'd likely "set it & forget it" if I do.

To each their own though.

 

[Cagey]

In my experience there's just not enough time to think about or deal with complex/exotic/unusual control systems in the middle of a song when you're playing live. You want a guitar that's instinctual.

 

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

In my experience there's just not enough time to think about or deal with complex/exotic/unusual control systems in the middle of a song when you're playing live. You want a guitar that's instinctual.

Exactly!

Flick, done!


I remember back in the late 80's, I had a Kramer Voyager with three full size coil splitting humbuckers and On/off/On switches.  Was fine for recording, but not practical for live use at all.  I have no idea how Brian May has managed all of those options live on tours for so long, but his tones more than make up for it I guess.

 

[Wolfie351]

I've been using Steiberger's JackPot on all my new builds.  Takes the tone pot completely out of the loop but you still have it there if you want it and no additional switches or holes in the guitar.

 

[rgand]

I've been using Steiberger's JackPot on all my new builds.  Takes the tone pot completely out of the loop but you still have it there if you want it and no additional switches or holes in the guitar.

Sounds like a good item. Are they linear or audio taper?

 

[Cagey]

There are some switched 500K audio taper pots here at a substantially more reasonable price than the Steinberg parts, but they have long solid shafts, which would require you to cut them down and limit the knobs you could use.

At first I thought it was funny that those parts are at an antique supplier, because I remember lots of things having switched pots like that in them - radios, TVs, record players, etc. Then the more I thought about it, the more I realized it was a long time ago that those things were around. I can't think of anything around here that uses them today. Everything uses remotes or touch switches or the like.

 

[rgand]

Cool find, Kevin.