Re: Tone control

[Charles Zwicky <cazwicky@earthlink.net>]

The tone control on a guitar is a simple first order (6dB per octave) 
low pass filter formed by a capacitor in series with a pot - and 
those two shunted across the pickup.  The corner frequency is 
determined by the position of the tone control knob.  In some 
combination of capacitor value and pickup inductance a resonant 
circuit can be formed by the capacitor and pickup (P-90s are 
particularly good for this).  The result is similar to a 'half 
-cocked' wah-wah pedal.



>There has to be some kind of capacitor, though.
>
>t
>On Apr 2, 2010, at 10:18 AM, William Walker wrote:
>
>>Most guitar manufacturers no matter how high end usually don't go 
>>the extra mile by including capacitor circuits on the their tone 
>>controls.  usually something like a.02 micro fared capacitor I seem 
>>to recall, but I'll find out for sure.  Rolling off Hi end doesn't 
>>have to be an all or none proposition. The guy who assembles my 
>>electric guitars used to live and work in Austin for people like 
>>Stevie Ray Vaughn and David Grissom, and knows all the tricks about 
>>wiring. My tone controls attenuate a bit of high frequency without 
>>muffling the sound. Playing technique can provide different shades 
>>of bright and dark simply by moving closer to the neck and away 
>>from the bridge, or using finger flesh rather than a pick, or using 
>>a pick out of a more neutral material than plastic. I use dunlop 
>>jazz 3 picks when playing with picks though these days i prefer my 
>>fingers. The jazz threes are very neutral sounding.
>>  As for flat wounds I'm glad there are people out there who like 
>>and buy them, but I won't, for me playing on flat wounds is like 
>>walking on ice, too slippery to really dig in to, and too rigid to 
>>bend. BTW why is it that many trad jazz players don't bend strings 
>>much? Seeing as there is a direct line between blues and jazz , is 
>>it because the strings of choice are too hard to bend?   I tried 
>>them for slide guitar thinking that the slickness would be an 
>>advantage but I couldn't stand how dull they sounded.
>>PS these where DAddario Chromes. I get a lot of life out of my 
>>strings but thats because I'm very diligent about keeping my hands 
>>clean before I play, and also wiping the strings down thoroughly 
>>when I'm done. I like the feel and sound  of round wound strings, 
>>and ultimately sound is more important to me than feel.
>>Bill the contrarian


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