PSA - Check your guitar tone knob...

In a similar vein... Must have trodden on my Wah pedal getting onto a dark stage once. Spent the first 3 songs madly dialing top end off the amp. Then first time I clicked the Wah for a guitar break, the sound all went kind of dark. Told my then girlfriend what happened after the show. She hadn't even noticed there was anything amiss for the first 4 songs.

Liam
 
I don't think I ever have my volume or tone knob on 10 most of the time these days. They are so useful as quick controls for changing gain and how bright/dark the tone is. Set your amp model too bright with tone on 10 and you get a good range to set it darker or brighter.
 
FarleyUK said:
Obviously only relevant if you have tone knob(s) on your guitar

Last night at rehearsal, I was becoming increasingly frustrated with the sound I had; no matter what I did on the AFX3, it was muddy, woofy and muffled. Nothing like the tones I dialed in at home.

After 2 hours, I suddenly realised why.... I'd turned the tone knob to 0 by accident, thinking it was the volume knob while we were all having a chat at the start.

D'oh.

On the plus side, with the tone at 0 and using a plexi model, I nailed Gary Moore's tone on 'Murder in the Skies'.
Click to expand...
I use those washers you put under the tone knob to make it difficult to turn. If you really want to turn it, you can, but it won't move accidentally. And, because it has different friction than the volume knob, you won't confuse them for each other.
 
LiamH said:
In a similar vein... Must have trodden on my Wah pedal getting onto a dark stage once. Spent the first 3 songs madly dialing top end off the amp. Then first time I clicked the Wah for a guitar break, the sound all went kind of dark. Told my then girlfriend what happened after the show. She hadn't even noticed there was anything amiss for the first 4 songs.

Liam
Click to expand...
This happened to me at a gig where the wah was engaged for half the first song - it actually sounded better and I went missing in the mix once I turned it off. It was a quietish dinner gig so perhaps the treble helped climb up the equal loudness curve! 😂
 
I had a really weird opposite experience once. I have this PRS wood library custom 24, stunningly beautiful, and no matter what I did/tried, it had this high pitched, unpleasant glass-like frequency that I couldn’t dial out. I assumed it was simply the stock pups (PRS \m/), so I swapped them out with a pair of BareKnuckle Holy Divers. Still there. Tried another set of BareKnuckle pups, Ragnarok’s. Still there. At this point I was convinced it was the guitar and that’s the way it is…it’s gotta go…

turned out it was a bad cap across the tone control. So I swapped it out with an Emerson 0.022μf paper in oil cap…BINGO!!!! High pitched, annoying frequency banished….

That was a first for me in my 40 years of playing.
 

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FarleyUK said:
Obviously only relevant if you have tone knob(s) on your guitar

Last night at rehearsal, I was becoming increasingly frustrated with the sound I had; no matter what I did on the AFX3, it was muddy, woofy and muffled. Nothing like the tones I dialed in at home.

After 2 hours, I suddenly realised why.... I'd turned the tone knob to 0 by accident, thinking it was the volume knob while we were all having a chat at the start.

D'oh.

On the plus side, with the tone at 0 and using a plexi model, I nailed Gary Moore's tone on 'Murder in the Skies'.
Click to expand...
You made me flash back to starting playing guitar. I used to just keep volume and tone wide open, so clueless. Now I live on them.
 
FractalAudio said:
Same here which is why I moved my volume knob to the middle position on my strat. The knob closest to the bridge is a dummy knob.
Click to expand...

Have you ever tried removing the knob altogether? I've always liked Strats but I can't stand how close the volume knob is to the bridge pickup. Moving the Volume knob to the 2nd knob position and only wiring in one Tone knob changed the whole guitar for me.
 
fcs101 said:
You made me flash back to starting playing guitar. I used to just keep volume and tone wide open, so clueless. Now I live on them.
Click to expand...
I managed my first 30 years or so of playing guitar with volume and tone controls in general dimed. It has only been in the last 10 years that I have figured out how effective they can be - I think my first 50's Les Paul Junior also helped me realise that volume control can also be used as tone control, and vice versa.

Liam
 
bdrepko said:
I find that as I play my hand hits the volume knob and slowly decreases as I go. I have to keep checking it to make sure it is all the way up. Especially live.
Click to expand...
This is why pots should have a little friction to them.

Some years back, i picked the lowest-friction pot I could find for the volume knob on my Ibanez S-540. Mistake. I was bumping that sucker down all the time. I don't have that problem with other guitars.
 
LiamH said:
I managed my first 30 years or so of playing guitar with volume and tone controls in general dimed. It has only been in the last 10 years that I have figured out how effective they can be - I think my first 50's Les Paul Junior also helped me realise that volume control can also be used as tone control, and vice versa.

Liam
Click to expand...
Rex said:
Red-letter date in a guitarist's life: the day he discovers, "Hey! My guitar has a tone knob!"
Click to expand...
If you want to see a master at it, pull up a live Joe Bonamassa video. Even (especially) during a solo he makes lightening fast adjustments and doesn't miss a beat.
 
I mainly play Ibanez RG guitars and the first thing I do is cut the wires to the tone pot to remove it and then move the volume pot down to where the tone was because I always hit the volume with my hand and I never use the tone knob.
 
Rex said:
This is why pots should have a little friction to them.

Some years back, i picked the lowest-friction pot I could find for the volume knob on my Ibanez S-540. Mistake. I was bumping that sucker down all the time. I don't have that problem with other guitars.
Click to expand...
I found a little trick where I take the foam from one of my Dimarzio pickup cases and cut a disk out of it. I then put the disk on the post of the volume pot and put the knob on top. This gives me a bit of friction to help prevent turning so easily. It does help. Felt washers work great also.
 
GreatGreen said:
Have you ever tried removing the knob altogether? I've always liked Strats but I can't stand how close the volume knob is to the bridge pickup. Moving the Volume knob to the 2nd knob position and only wiring in one Tone knob changed the whole guitar for me.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the stock Strat volume knob position is great for Jeff Beck style volume swells. Other than that, it's a pain in the ass.
 
stink said:
I had a really weird opposite experience once. I have this PRS wood library custom 24, stunningly beautiful, and no matter what I did/tried, it had this high pitched, unpleasant glass-like frequency that I couldn’t dial out. I assumed it was simply the stock pups (PRS \m/), so I swapped them out with a pair of BareKnuckle Holy Divers. Still there. Tried another set of BareKnuckle pups, Ragnarok’s. Still there. At this point I was convinced it was the guitar and that’s the way it is…it’s gotta go…

turned out it was a bad cap across the tone control. So I swapped it out with an Emerson 0.022μf paper in oil cap…BINGO!!!! High pitched, annoying frequency banished….

That was a first for me in my 40 years of playing.
Click to expand...
Oh! I have a guitar I should really, really try that with! I've had a bad tone cap in a PRS before, and I have this one 594 Singlecut that has the glassiest, most piercing tone I've ever heard in a bridge humbucker. I'd been dicking with resistors on the volume knob without much luck, but I have an RS guitarworks cap in my parts box and should just slap that in to see if it helps.
 
FarleyUK said:
Obviously only relevant if you have tone knob(s) on your guitar

Last night at rehearsal, I was becoming increasingly frustrated with the sound I had; no matter what I did on the AFX3, it was muddy, woofy and muffled. Nothing like the tones I dialed in at home.

After 2 hours, I suddenly realised why.... I'd turned the tone knob to 0 by accident, thinking it was the volume knob while we were all having a chat at the start.

D'oh.

On the plus side, with the tone at 0 and using a plexi model, I nailed Gary Moore's tone on 'Murder in the Skies'.
Click to expand...
Been there!
 
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