Be honest: Do you use your tone knob?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Aaron Cheney
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I move it around from time to time, but I'd be not to far off to say I usually have it at zero rather than ten (or eleven)...
 
Most guitar players use their volume knob as a tone knob without realising it.Listen carefully as you roll the knob back.At about 7 or 8 you begin to hear the highs departing.There is a simple mod using a capacitor across the vol pot to ground that will eliminate this resistance-based problem.
Yes,I use my tone pot as I play to tweak my sound.I play in a cover band and so I have to emulate lots of different tones.

Tom
 
At zero? You're talking the most "treble-less" setting?
Interesting.

You must be a jazz player and dig that cool tubby clean sound. I do use the EQ's on my classical guitar and electric bass. Never on my electric guitars.

I did play a Grosh once that had some kind of special tone control that was more like a filter sweep. I really dug that a lot, and I could see myself using that.

Aaron
http://www.aaroncheney.com
 
Gernally I keep my Heartfield EX at "5." However, it's active and 5 results in an unboosted, uncut tone.

My ESP Custom doesn't have a tone knob. Thus, I can't set it to 10. ;)

Somtimes I'll fiddle with my other axes' tone knobs to get a smooth tone, but rarely. Nugent might have done this in "Stranglehold."
 
I hardly play guitar, but if I do, when I need to lay down a line for a recording, or when Iùm just fooling around, I use it as part of setting my tone. However, my axe is a strat, which can be quite trebly, and I do like the mellow jazzy tones too...
 
Yeah, I do tend to favor that tubby jazz sound :) And the purring distorted Disreali Gears-like "woman tone"...

I find that the treble on most guitar amps and guitars is like ice picks in my ears. I keep it around 5 or so on most amps, and down on the guitar almost all the time.
 
Studio I use it alot
Live on 10 don't touch it
I just hit it and stuff when I play live!
 
I might in the studio...But for live never..I play a strat, for me I use the pickup selector for tone control.


Don
 
Guitar is not my main axe, but on my guitars (Strat, Tele, SG) I almost always have the tone on 10 and leave it.

Actually, I learned that from talking to guitar players I worked with - almost all of whom set it to 10 and leave it.
 
I use it both live and studio -- in live settings, it's great to mellow out slightly loud levels without shifting volume too much.

In studio settings it helps zoom in on the tone...

Bruce
 
I keep it at 7, just to cut some of that high end "grain" from my dist sound.
Sometimes on 10 for acoustic.
I also use two different pickups on my RG550 to change the tone.

Keijo
 
Of course I use it (or them)...that's what they're for, to get different sounds........otherwise, you'd be compelled to strum or pick at the freaking 12th fret or at the top of the bridge like some kind of banjo player....duh....................not to say that playing up on the neck is a bad thing, hendrix did it often for that "sound", but he didn't do it for chording.......the knobs are the only things that can make chording do what you want...or at least what I want.....

I middle-of-the-road it on the amp tone knobs, though......the main function of an amp is volume, if ya really get down to it....if the instrument doesn't have the tone to begin with, it's hard to fake it................just my opinion...........gibs
 
When I have it on anything less than 10, it feels like something is lacking.. I have to have all the grit.. On all my guitars..

In fact I'm so used to it that I totally forget the knobs are there.. unless I'm speed picking and my hand accidentally bumps them down..

If I can remember, I'll play around with them a bit next time I'm recording..

Cy
 
three ingrediants make a song interesting, memorable, and fun for me--variations in tempo, levels and "tone"--I view "tone" as the catalyst variation that "enables" variations in tempo and levels...even subtle changes in tempo, say from 72bpm during the verse to 71bpm for the chorus--like Blue on Black from Kenny Wayne Sheppard, become interesting when accompanied by not-so-subtle tonal changes--here, the verse tells a story with subtle tones from the vocalist over the quiet 4 chord progression of mostly acoutistic guitar, then the chorus introduces the heavier tones of more than one vocalist along with electric guitar playing the same 4 chord progression and a 2 power-chords turn-around...the more dramatic tempo changes, such as the stop-beat genre of blues songs like Since I've Been Loving You by Zeppelin, make use of even more dramatic tonal changes--here, Page moves seamlessly from slow, clean and quiet to blazing, not-so-clean and loud and back again, while Plant moves from a clean whisper to a screaming falsetto and back again...songs with soft quiet parts that eventually call forth crescendos obviously require variations in tone...therefore, tonal variations are "the stuff of" tempo and levels variations...YES, I use my tone controls--one tone pot for each pick-up, one vol pot for each pick-up, the toggle-switch, the "location" of my pick-hand relative to the bridge and pick-up(s), a vox wah-wah, and a SovTek BigMuffPi, not to mention various psycho-active pharmaceuticals;)
 
I think some people are thinking amp tone knobs, and some are thinking guitar tone knobs. Clarify.
 
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