Tone knob or not?

[Tretgeraet]

Hello guys,
Almost one year after I build my purpleheart guitar I came to the conclusion, that I would like to add a tone knob to it.

I planned the guitar without one, because I rarely use them on other guitars. One of those rare occasions is, when I wanna use an octavia (octave up fuzz), which sounds best with the neck pickup and a closed tone pot.

It would've been strange to build a purple guitar and not being able to play Purple Haze with an octavia, because the tone pot is missing.

So if you pull the volume knob, it "activates" a 22nF tone cap on the neck pickup, that was my solution at the time.

What I didn't think about then: A strat singlecoil in the neck position without a tone pot sounds much brighter than what I am used to. So now I wanna add one.

Luckily, the rear cavity is big enough for another pot, but I'm not sure if I like the position. What do you think?

This is without it:


And here I put a chrome knob where the tone pot would be:

That is about as far as the rear cavity goes into the "corner", maybe 1 or 2 millimeters further away from the toggle.

I want a tone knob, but I also like the controls now.

I am open for suggestions!

 

[JohnnyHardtail]

I would probably get a few 1M resistors and wire them across either the pickup selector or volume control. The guitar would be permanently toned-down, depending which pickup is selected. Probably I would try a 1M resistor across the volume control, and another one or two 1M in parrallel across the neck pickup. The total load added to the neck pickup would be at least 500k ohms, which is the same as a fully open tone control.

 

[Spud]

Concentric knob/pots?

 

[Tretgeraet]

I would probably get a few 1M resistors and wire them across either the pickup selector or volume control. The guitar would be permanently toned-down, depending which pickup is selected. Probably I would try a 1M resistor across the volume control, and another one or two 1M in parrallel across the neck pickup. The total load added to the neck pickup would be at least 500k ohms, which is the same as a fully open tone control.

This is an interesting idea! I will keep that in mind! Thank you.

 

[Tretgeraet]

Concentric knob/pots?

Another interesting idea!! How tall are those?

 

[rockandroller]

Yeah, stack-knob for the WIN...

 

[Spud]

Another interesting idea!! How tall are those?

about 1 inch I believe..............some may be 7/8" so ya they are taller than a single, but you have to accommodate the shaft. (That sounds bad I know)

 

[rockandroller]

These are less than an inch: https://nextgenguitars.ca/products/concentric-knob-fine-gold.html
(0.875 inch tall)

 

[Spud]

These are less than an inch: https://nextgenguitars.ca/products/concentric-knob-fine-gold.html
(0.875 inch tall)

7/8"

 

[Strat Avenger]

You just DON'T NEED a effing Tone control!

 

[Tretgeraet]

You just DON'T NEED a effing Tone control!

I thought so, too, yes and for the humbucker in it's position and for it's intended purpose, I still totally agree.

But finishing the Teilecaster and hearing what the right tone control can do, got me thinking: Maybe shitty tone circuits or wrong tone cap values were always the real problem.

However, I will look into both the concentric pot and the fixed resistor tone-down ideas, probably the latter one first, as it's so cheap and easy to install and reverse.