State of Epicicity
Fractal Fanatic
Recently I went on a journey with my guitar's wiring. A scheme I couldn't make into a diagram became a valuable learning experience for me on many fronts, but perhaps the biggest thing I learned, completely tangentially, is that I really don't need a tone knob. For a long time now I've used 50s Les Paul wiring with low value caps, always trying to warm my tone with the high cut of the tone knob as I ride my volume knobs, compensating my volume roll backs with various degrees of high cut to add some soul to the tone, but in this rewiring project, I reconsidered my relationship to treble bleeds, which I had dismissed a long time ago as soulless and characterless.
But what I missed was that there are so many different bleeds out there, and with enough experimentation, you might just find the one that balances your guitar perfectly. I spent a ton of time wiring in different bleeds using breadboard jumper wire, and I discovered that, with a .82nF 150K parallel bleed on my guitar, the volume knob tends to roll back with no perceivable change in tone at all. I found that this bleed made my tone so simple and straightforward in the best possible sense, that if I dial in a tone for soul and character with the volume knob at 10, it tends to keep that soul and character no matter where I sweep that knob. I tried this particular bleed inspired by this incredible research.
To me this is the holy grail of knob riding and dynamic playing. When I first started playing I assumed that this is the way a guitar volume knob would sound and act, but in reality this is usually only the way an active volume knob acts. Here I have passive tone, but with the ideal volume knob interaction I had not thought possible.
But what I missed was that there are so many different bleeds out there, and with enough experimentation, you might just find the one that balances your guitar perfectly. I spent a ton of time wiring in different bleeds using breadboard jumper wire, and I discovered that, with a .82nF 150K parallel bleed on my guitar, the volume knob tends to roll back with no perceivable change in tone at all. I found that this bleed made my tone so simple and straightforward in the best possible sense, that if I dial in a tone for soul and character with the volume knob at 10, it tends to keep that soul and character no matter where I sweep that knob. I tried this particular bleed inspired by this incredible research.
To me this is the holy grail of knob riding and dynamic playing. When I first started playing I assumed that this is the way a guitar volume knob would sound and act, but in reality this is usually only the way an active volume knob acts. Here I have passive tone, but with the ideal volume knob interaction I had not thought possible.
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