A little less Treble

[scottp]

I have a Tele that I recently built. I want the bridge pickup a little less treble.
I really like the neck pickup with the tone full up.
I know 1 solution is a dual concentric pot.

What other options do I have?

 

[Wired]

What type of pickups did you use? Have you played with the pickup height?

 

[skolacki]

And therein lies the problem of two knobs. I have a concentric pot for my 2 knob PRS. I hate the look of it. Installed it without wiring it to get a look. Wasn’t in a wiring mood that day so still haven’t installed it. My guitar is wired weird but it works for me. Both knobs are volumes. My tone is a treble cut on a pull switch. A trim pot and a cap. I want a real tone control and that’s what I bought the pot for.

For your guitar with one volume and tone you can’t have two tone controls, because you need to give them some isolation. Which you get from separate volumes. If you could find a 3 position super switch you could switch in another tone cap or a trimpot or fixed resistor to give you a cut on bridge only. Could use a 5 position switch and have same as you have now and another position with bridge only with a fixed cut. Could even use the last position with another value of cut for bridge only. I have looked for a 3 pos superswitch before. Not a lot of luck with that but a 5 way you can get everywhere.

 

[skolacki]

Another option is to wire your tone to the bridge pickup upstream of the selector switch. In the bridge position there's your cut. In neck position you're wide open as you like. But the middle position would have the tone connected to both pickups. There might be other options but these are all I can think of at the moment.

 

[pauly]

HI @scottp

Have you tried lowering the pickup? That can sometimes remove some of the bite - Depends how bad it is I guess.
Thanks
Pauly

I have a Tele that I recently built. I want the bridge pickup a little less treble.
I really like the neck pickup with the tone full up.
I know 1 solution is a dual concentric pot.

What other options do I have?

 

[JoKeR III]

You can add a lower value capacitor, .047nf (47pf) to .220nf (220pf), in parallel with the bridge pickup leads to tame the high end.

 

[Alek]

You can always buy another guitar that will have the proper treble coming out from bridge pickup. I am sure that many will agree with this solution.

 

[skolacki]

You can always buy another guitar that will have the proper treble coming out from bridge pickup. I am sure that many will agree with this solution.

So if you don’t like the tone of the pickup buy a new guitar. Seems practical.

 

[Budda]

So if you don’t like the tone of the pickup buy a new guitar. Seems practical.

Many guitarists who spend time on forums are not practical.

 

[la szum]

Many guitarists who spend time on forums are not practical.

No kidding! It's a debilitating sickness and none of us are immune it seems.

I have seen threads where players are looking for replacement pickup suggestions
before they have received their guitars and can hear what it can, or cannot do.

Same with a combo amp. I am just gonna assume that stock speaker needs to be replaced.
Love to get some recommendations.

 

[Petrocelli]

You can add a lower value capacitor, .047nf (47pf) to .220nf (220pf), in parallel with the bridge pickup leads to tame the high end.

Definitely the cheapest solution and with the most options.
You could also measure the resistance value of the tone potentiometer, where the treble damping suits you best. Solder this value, e.g. 82Kohm as a fixed resistor with a 22nF capacitor (or the value that is built into your tone pot) parallel to the bridge pickup - voila!

 

[scottp]

What type of pickups did you use? Have you played with the pickup height?

New Seymour Duncan Five Two's.
The current height of the bridge pickup is 4/32 of an inch. Measured from the bottom of the 1st string to the top of the pickup.
Haven't tried lowering the pickup yet.

 

[scottp]

You can add a lower value capacitor, .047nf (47pf) to .220nf (220pf), in parallel with the bridge pickup leads to tame the high end.

I appreciate the tip!!

 

[scottp]

HI @scottp

Have you tried lowering the pickup? That can sometimes remove some of the bite - Depends how bad it is I guess.
Thanks
Pauly

The Five Two's by design are supposed to be less treble heavy on strings 1, 2, 3.

 

[Wired]

I’ve been playing my tele through the 5F8 Tweed model. I like the bright switch on with the neck pickup, and definitely prefer the bright switch off with the bridge. Way bright.

 

[skolacki]

Beautiful thing about the Fractals. I have scenes for pickups lol.

 

[Dave Merrill]

Beautiful thing about the Fractals. I have scenes for pickups lol.

Lately a lot of my presets have 4 scenes that are amp channels, different gain levels mostly. They also have 2 drive blocks, often 1 each for neck and bridge pickup, with their 4 channels tweaked for the 4 amp channels. Drive 1 is most often for the neck pickup, adds a bit of brightness, maybe a touch of gain. Drive 2 is for bridge, adds low mids, cuts treble.

Dealing with the natural difference between bridge and neck pickups is one of the major challenges of my life, has been for 50 years. What weirds me out are the people who somehow manage not to have this problem. They just change their pickup selector, nothing else, and sound great everywhere.

I don't get it.

 

[GM Arts]

+1 on the low-value capacitor, that's what I use. Maybe start with 220pF first, which should be quite audible, the go down or up from there.

Connect it from ground to the unused solder lug on the side of your switch that connects the neck pickup. That way, it's only in use when the bridge pickup is on its own. No change to neck on its own, or to the middle position with both pickups.

You can experiment with lots of options here, but try the cap alone first, because it just lowers the resonant freqency a little.

A resistor, instead of a cap, will lower the "intensity" of the resonant frequency "spike".

And of course a bit of both in parallel makes both changes.

As above, you could use a resistor that (instead of connecting to ground) connects to the tone-pot side of your existing tone capacitor to simulate a lower tone setting when using the bridge pickup alone.

Best thing with Teles is that you can experiment with these changes while playing your guitar!

 

[scottp]

+1 on the low-value capacitor, that's what I use. Maybe start with 220pF first, which should be quite audible, the go down or up from there.

Connect it from ground to the unused solder lug on the side of your switch that connects the neck pickup. That way, it's only in use when the bridge pickup is on its own. No change to neck on its own, or to the middle position with both pickups.

You can experiment with lots of options here, but try the cap alone first, because it just lowers the resonant freqency a little.

A resistor, instead of a cap, will lower the "intensity" of the resonant frequency "spike".

And of course a bit of both in parallel makes both changes.

As above, you could use a resistor that (instead of connecting to ground) connects to the tone-pot side of your existing tone capacitor to simulate a lower tone setting when using the bridge pickup alone.

Best thing with Teles is that you can experiment with these changes while playing your guitar!

Thank you!!!

In my case, I have a custom control plate. I use a LP style toggle switch that I rotate at a slight angle that I really like. For Neck, both, bridge.
Looks like I'll need to get out some paper & pencil to start sketching out some of these ideas.

 

[unix-guy]

I don't get it.

Playing technique?

Your pick attack and where on the string you pick contribute a lot to the tones.