Swap tone controls for treble/bass controls?

thebigcheese

thebigcheese

"Hi, I'm in Delaware."
I have an older Gibson with stock pickups and electronics, but I'm wondering if it's possible to add at least active electronics (if not active pickups, too) so that I can swap the two rather useless tone controls for a master treble and bass control. Has anyone done that before? My bass has that, and my G&L Legacy has that (well, they just roll off, they can't boost), so surely there must be some way to get that in there...
 
Maybe the tone cap need's replacing.

Next, my recommendation would be to install a passive system that works.
 
Rather useless tone controls? You mean they don't make much difference in tone or you don't use them?

Any electric is just a hunk of wood with electronics stuffed in it. Find the schematics for some arrangement you like and do it up.


lou
 
thebigcheese said:
I have an older Gibson with stock pickups and electronics, but I'm wondering if it's possible to add at least active electronics (if not active pickups, too) so that I can swap the two rather useless tone controls for a master treble and bass control. Has anyone done that before? My bass has that, and my G&L Legacy has that (well, they just roll off, they can't boost), so surely there must be some way to get that in there...
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I believe Craig Anderton published a design years ago for an onboard preamp that would fit in the cavity space on a Les Paul.
 
I built active electronics for my guitar but it has no tone controll but still sounds great ....

All Passive tone controlls cut frequencies and to me degrade the sound , thats why most guitarists don"t use their tone knob much ......

I haven"t seen any active tone controll setups for electric guitar only bass , but I"m sure it could be done .....
 
I think we're not on the same page here. I'm not saying it doesn't work, I'm just saying I've never had any desire to use the tone controls. What I want is less bass and more brightness, neither of which are possible with standard tone controls.
 
thebigcheese said:
What I want is less bass and more brightness, neither of which are possible with standard tone controls.
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Yeah, full on is as bright as you'll get. I don't know shit about active pups so no help there but I think you're gonna have to get "brighter" pups at least. That'll take some looking around research. The old standby was DiMarzio Super Distortions. Those were pretty freakin' bright. I don't think you can add a treble boost circuit onboard to your existing pups. (?) Bass cut tone cap? Dunno.


lou
 
If you have a knack for electronics you could build an active setup with a filter to boost the highs ... there are also active Tone Chips that can be set up to boost and cut certain frequencies , but without some electronics knowlege this info won"t do you any good ....

Good luck
 
Might be useful to bypass the tone control altogether. You'll a little added brightness. Also, Adjusting the height of you're bridge pickup to get it as close to the strings as you can will get you a little bit. Just don't get so close that the magnets interfere with the string vibration.

What kind of amp are you using? The right amp and appropriate speaker(s) will get you much closer to whatever tone you're looking for than modding your guitar will.

This isn't me saying you shouldn't try any reversible mod you think might help. If you can put things back to original have fun with the mods.
 
thebigcheese said:
I think we're not on the same page here. I'm not saying it doesn't work, I'm just saying I've never had any desire to use the tone controls. What I want is less bass and more brightness, neither of which are possible with standard tone controls.
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Nothing that you can do to your guitar's tone controls will make up for the lack of proper EQ controls on your orange amp. That's exactly what I was trying to explain in your other thread. You are trying to put a band-aid on a bullet wound.
 
ocnor said:
Nothing that you can do to your guitar's tone controls will make up for the lack of proper EQ controls on your orange amp. That's exactly what I was trying to explain in your other thread. You are trying to put a band-aid on a bullet wound.
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You just like hating on Orange. On my Night Train, for instance, I only moved the EQ controls very slightly from the middle to get the sound I wanted; it was just brighter to start with, but I probably didn't even need the mids control on there. An EQ pedal would also do what I want, but I was just wondering if there would be a way to do it on the guitar instead.

Milnoque: It's a dark amp, a dark guitar, and, apparently, a fairly dark speaker, but I think the results I'm after are achievable with an EQ pedal. I was just curious to know, since basses often have active circuits with treble and bass boost and cut if it was something that can be an option on a guitar. It would seem like, given the fact that EMG makes pickups for both instruments as well as the necessary circuits, that they would have some sort of option, but I couldn't figure it out from their web site, so I thought I'd see if people here know. And if, one day, I wanted to swap out the pickups on my Legacy for something less noisey (like an active pickup), I want to make sure they can be properly wired to the treble and bass cut knobs on the guitar.
 
thebigcheese said:
I think the results I'm after are achievable with an EQ pedal.
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How is saying the exact same thing as you "hating on orange". You bought a $1200 amp that lacks eq controls so you need to use an eq pedal just to make your guitar sound right. That just seems backwards to me. Call me crazy but I would buy an amp that sounds good with the guitars that I plan on playing through it, rather than buying one that required external devices and/or guitar modifications to achieve the desired results. But hey it's your money.
 
Well, it wasn't nearly that much. I work at GC, so I got it for a lot less. Something like a Mark V wouldn't been at least twice as much. I agree that more tone controls would be ideal, but the TH30 was more affordable and an all around better choice than the other options. And in some ways, it seems like having a 10-band EQ pedal and an amp with no controls makes more sense. More flexibility than most amps, anyway.
 
Picked up an MXR 10-band EQ to see if my theory was right. It brightened up the amp just fine, but I didn't like the EQ for the dirty channel or with the Legacy, so I thought I'd just see what would happen if I just cut some bass out on the clean channel of the amp. It adds some midrange back in, but it also sounds brighter, somehow. I was thinking, for some silly reason, that there should just be one magic EQ setting that would work for both guitars, but now that I've gotten over that, I can get a good sound with just the controls on the amp. Might still swap the tone controls for bass roll off instead of the normal treble roll off, though.
 
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