Goodbye Tone Knob. Hello Perfect Treble Bleed.

State of Epicicity

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.
 
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That reminds me I never finished doing TB mod on my S2 PRS 594. And yet to install my .022uf bumblebee tone caps in it too.
 
Joe Bfstplk said:
What value pot? 500k? 300k? 250k?
Click to expand...

And this does change the taper of this pot from log to somewhere between log and Lin, but it's fine with me; I get plenty of easy to dial in range still. I also installed a couple of numbered speed knobs to help for when I want a precise setting, something dual concentrics don't allow!
 
That's indeed a great work by JohnH. Led me to a lot of experimentation since I first read it many years ago.

My 2c to this thread is: there's no such thing as a "perfect" treble bleed.

I understand your definition of "perfect" refers to a tone that changes as little as possible, and is indeed a valid one.

I learned over time that depending on the pickups you have, the style you play, what you use your vol control for.... sometimes it's interesting to thin out the tone as you lower the vol control, or vice versa, you might want to make it a bit fatter. It all depends... so before looking for the perfect combination for the TB is important to define your own 'perfect'.

It took me some time to understand this, and of course, YMMV.

Cheers!
 
framos said:
That's indeed a great work by JohnH. Led me to a lot of experimentation since I first read it many years ago.

My 2c to this thread is: there's no such thing as a "perfect" treble bleed.

I understand your definition of "perfect" refers to a tone that changes as little as possible, and is indeed a valid one.

I learned over time that depending on the pickups you have, the style you play, what you use your vol control for.... sometimes it's interesting to thin out the tone as you lower the vol control, or vice versa, you might want to make it a bit fatter. It all depends... so before looking for the perfect combination for the TB is important to define your own 'perfect'.

It took me some time to understand this, and of course, YMMV.

Cheers!
Click to expand...

Totally; the thing I didn't understand is that a treble bleed can have a range of effects, from too bright to just mild treble retention. The cool thing is finding what fits your style. You're right that for me, right now at least, maintaining the same tone different volume levels is the best option. I didn't know that 'till I tried, because I had been leaning toward a 220pF cap only for more brightness on the roll back.

I know for a while I would've preferred an increase in brightness when rolling back, but that's when I was trying to get humbucker and single coil tones out of the same amp settings. These days I'm getting into setting vastly different amp tones that are tied to one pickup wiring (series or parallel), then setting the amp to the maximum gain I'd want for that wiring, and just using the volume knob to change the gain as I play.

It's all contextual. The big thing I think is dangle some wire outside your guitar and spend some good time experimenting. I took a whole day just to experiment, then another to verify that I prefer this particular bleed in all contexts. It only depends on what serves your style best.
 
State of Epicicity said:
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.
Click to expand...
Many, many, moons ago I learned about treble bleeds, and wired my Les Pauls and Strats with them, and haven't looked back. It's so nice being able to roll back the volume and have the quality of the sound remain the same, it just gets quieter.

All my presets are basically set to treat the amp as if it's a single-channel. I have a clean scene and various crunch and lead scenes, but I usually park it on a lead scene and roll back the volume for my cleans/crunch then roll back up for lead. And, the nice thing is it also adds some extra volume as I do that to make the solo stand out, and I don't have to step on a button to make it happen.
 
Greg Ferguson said:
Many, many, moons ago I learned about treble bleeds, and wired my Les Pauls and Strats with them, and haven't looked back. It's so nice being able to roll back the volume and have the quality of the sound remain the same, it just gets quieter.

All my presets are basically set to treat the amp as if it's a single-channel. I have a clean scene and various crunch and lead scenes, but I usually park it on a lead scene and roll back the volume for my cleans/crunch then roll back up for lead. And, the nice thing is it also adds some extra volume as I do that to make the solo stand out, and I don't have to step on a button to make it happen.
Click to expand...

That single-channel amp goal is something that really stuck with me for a while. I found my ideal for that situation was with a low output single coil neck tone for low gain and a PAF beyond that, and you can cop that transition with the right bleed.

But over the years I did that, I found I was always compromising too much in one way or another, because I was going for too Vox-y of a chime on one end and too chunky of one on the other. And I kept kicking myself for having an Axe-FX III / FC12 and comprising on the extremes of my tones for no good reason!

So where I am now is with several different amps and cab/speaker types, just optimizing each one for what it does, and being able to ride the volume expressively no matter what character of tone I'm using.

This is especially helpful because I am stuck on noiseless single coil emulation on one end, and with my neck humbucker in parallel I can take, e.g. the Rocket, really crank the treble control, dial back my volume knob, and balance with bass to get a nice Strat emulation, but it will sound like garbage with either humbucker in series. So this becomes my "Strat" amp, very expressive. Now I can get another Strat amp going for a different response and feel, then a "Les Paul" amp for my humbuckers in series, with it's own range and goals, but always setting each amp so I have those dynamics I like controllable from the guitar itself.
 
xrist04 said:
Great post, and thank you for surfacing this fantastic research from 10+ years ago. I'll be checking my guitar herd this week!
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Thanks! The Guitar Nuts 2 forum is the pinnacle of competent tech talk about guitar wiring. I think it's the best place to learn and ask questions when you're either interrogating basic concepts for deeper understanding or examining the deep end of what is possible!
 
Greg Ferguson said:
Many, many, moons ago I learned about treble bleeds, and wired my Les Pauls and Strats with them, and haven't looked back. It's so nice being able to roll back the volume and have the quality of the sound remain the same, it just gets quieter.
Click to expand...

Which one(s) are you using? I’ve tried them all and mostly using the parallel resistor cap, 150k and .001uf. The 180pf single cap like PRS uses is pretty good and none are perfect from my experience.
 
State of Epicicity said:
And this does change the taper of this pot from log to somewhere between log and Lin, but it's fine with me; I get plenty of easy to dial in range still. I also installed a couple of numbered speed knobs to help for when I want a precise setting, something dual concentrics don't allow!
Click to expand...
The cap and resistor value will change to work the same way on a lower value pot. Halve the pot value, halve the resistor, double the cap to keep the same results on a 250k pot....

The one on my CS Strat works well, but is wrapped to look like up like a vintage cap, so you can't grab the values. I have read somewhere that a small series resistor added to the parallel cap/resistance works nicely, but haven't tried it yet....
 
Joe Bfstplk said:
The cap and resistor value will change to work the same way on a lower value pot. Halve the pot value, halve the resistor, double the cap to keep the same results on a 250k pot....
Click to expand...

Sweet. I was wondering about that. I looked recently on info on bleeds for 250k pots and didn’t find much. Most info seems to be one size fits all and the math says that’s not true.
 
skolacki said:
Most info seems to be one size fits all and the math says that’s not true.
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It's definitely not true. Pickups have differing amounts of treble response, such as a PAF humbucker vs. something really hot vs. a late 50s single-coil or 60s or P-90s.
skolacki said:
Which one(s) are you using?
Click to expand...
I've used several different ones, depending on the guitar pickups, the pots in the guitar, and what seemed right to my ear.

Play with them using a couple wires with alligator clips on the ends and swap caps and/or resistors and experiment with the various wirings and see what appeals to you.
 
Greg Ferguson said:
It's definitely not true. Pickups have differing amounts of treble response, such as a PAF humbucker vs. something really hot vs. a late 50s single-coil or 60s or P-90s.

I've used several different ones, depending on the guitar pickups, the pots in the guitar, and what seemed right to my ear.

Play with them using a couple wires with alligator clips on the ends and swap caps and/or resistors and experiment with the various wirings and see what appeals to you.
Click to expand...

Well I’m getting older and solder work isn’t as much fun for me anymore. It’s sad but it takes me twice as long to do a job nowadays. I have a guitar opened up on the bench right now that I keep putting off. So when I put in a bleed I generally just live with it. They’re all acceptable and none are perfect. All are better than no bleed.
 
skolacki said:
Which one(s) are you using? I’ve tried them all and mostly using the parallel resistor cap, 150k and .001uf. The 180pf single cap like PRS uses is pretty good and none are perfect from my experience.
Click to expand...

The one I ended up with was .82nF 150k parallel bleed. I tested this with a 500K log volume pot with modern wiring connected to a 500K log tone pot, but then I switched to a 250K volume pot after I ditched my tone, to simulate a 500K tone pot on 10 at all times.
 
Joe Bfstplk said:
The cap and resistor value will change to work the same way on a lower value pot. Halve the pot value, halve the resistor, double the cap to keep the same results on a 250k pot....

The one on my CS Strat works well, but is wrapped to look like up like a vintage cap, so you can't grab the values. I have read somewhere that a small series resistor added to the parallel cap/resistance works nicely, but haven't tried it yet....
Click to expand...

Holy shit, I forgot that I read a bit about pot value changing your bleeds. So it's really that simple, to halve the resistor and double the cap? I've not been able to spend a bunch of time playing, so I hadn't tested how the bleed works on the new 250K pots!
 
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