Using guitar tone controls as integral part of tone?

[Smittefar]

Practice controlling it at practice and you should be fine. Think of it like practicing using a pedalboard way before you play a show.

But I just got to a place with the Axe, where everything is nicely programmed, so I never have to do the tap dance

 

[japri]

On my single coils, I have the tone around 6-7ish. Humbuckers I run at 10 and I can use the same amp settings for both that way. Even without the humbuckers in the picture, I prefer the tone rolled off a little. Tone and volume at 10 has a resonant peak in the treble. Around 6-7ish on the tone is where that peak is smoothed out.

Kinda like this picture I found:

View attachment 90483

whoah this is eye opening, i just look down at my guitar, it's at 6. with jcm 800 it's just too bright. so i always tune it down a bit.

 

[guitarnerdswe]

you can't have a bad too-dark tone, just a bad too-bright tone

What? I found people set their tone way too dark than bright most of the time. So I don't follow.

 

[la szum]

That's my concern too, but I find that no matter how good my tone is wide open, it's better dialed back a hair.

Yup.

I feel like live it is constant listening to the entire context of the band and where I am sitting
in the mix relative to the vocals especially. One of my greatest pet peeves is listening to
guitar players who run their rig/guitar like they are playing a solo.

Hey, bud.... might want to back off a bit in the verses.

For me, intro, verse, chorus, bridge, solo all require some adjustments at the guitar end to not only
make me sound my best, but to also allow the band and the song to sound their best, too.

 

[Roland]

When playing with a band I’m constantly adjusting volume and tone controls to suit the song. l‘ll also use partial palm muting if I haven’t got time between phrases to adjust the volume or tone settings.

 

[Bruce Sokolovic]

If I could have every tone control unwired, I would.

 

[la szum]

Unless you have an active tone stack on a guitar (or an amplifier for that matter)
then isn't it true that all guitars and amps are attenuating treble??

 

[Dave Merrill]

Unless you have an active tone stack on a guitar (or an amplifier for that matter)
then isn't it true that all guitars and amps are attenuating treble??

A few have a bass cut control, like Reverend.

And a few have a high cut that's actually more of a mid-high cut, like some Bill Lawrence stuff.

 

[LiamH]

Unless you have an active tone stack on a guitar (or an amplifier for that matter)
then isn't it true that all guitars and amps are attenuating treble??

Almost, but remember the pickup inductance and resistance, the volume pot, and the tone capacitor and pot form an LCR network, so it has some additional subtlety that is hard to replicate further down the line. I used have them all on 10, all the time. Then somehow, over 30 years into playing guitar, I figured out how much more they can be. I'll blame my first 50's Les Paul Junior, when suddenly I started using the controls in creative ways - tone as volume, volume as tone - and always left a little more bite and drive on tap in the amp controls than I necessarily needed. Everything on 10 is never a starting point for me now, and is seldom a finishing point, whatever guitar I am playing.

Liam

 

[giantslayer]

Unless you have an active tone stack on a guitar (or an amplifier for that matter)
then isn't it true that all guitars and amps are attenuating treble??

I wouldn’t say so.

1) On the one hand, you are correct in that a standard, passive tone control is attenuating, not adding, treble. However, the way I see it, the resonant peak is adding treble and requires a degree of compensating on the tone control to reach neutral (see the graph I posted earlier).

2) Plenty of amp tone stacks add treble. At that point, it is less about “adding” and more about “shaping.”