In Defense of the Tone Pot

[marnold]

In my life I've owned five electric guitars. Of those, two had tone pots, my current Jackson DK2M and my first guitar: a Charvel Model 7. Until recently, I found no need for a tone pot. I didn't particularly miss it on my other guitars. It stayed at "10" on my old Peavey Fury P-bass. My guitar heroes were mainly from the one-humbucker-and-one-volume-pot school of guitar construction. I thought there was no point to its existence, other than to give me another place to put a push-pull pot for mods.

When I saw Joe Bonamassa in concert a couple years ago, he was constantly fiddling with his tone pots, almost to the point of dementia. I saw a couple videos where he talked about the importance of it and learning to use it.

Enter my DK2M and its partner in crime, my "Thesis 96" OD. All of the sudden, I've got a use for the tone pot! In TS-808 mode, my OD is very bright. Way brighter than stock. I tended to keep the pedal's tone knob well on the left. Then I had the bright (ha!) idea to put it at noon and roll back my guitar's tone knob. There it was! The tone I was looking for. Roll it back a bit for the neck, a little more for the middle. The OD's extra brightness is still welcome to cut through with my AD30VT's higher gain models which became somewhat dark with the addition of a Ragin Cajun.

Of course, the tone knob will remain dimed for all metal activity, but that's the kind of guy I am

Before DVM chimes in, I will add that switching the tone switch on the pedal to "Full" or "Fat" does make it less bright, but it doesn't sound the same as cutting back on the tone control. It just adds to the sonic palette.

 

[ibanezjunkie]

i usually keep my tone control pretty high for some shriller high end and definition, but since ive been playing alot more clean stuff recently, i often find myself rolling it back and boosting the mids with my EQ.

tone pots are pretty useful imho.:dude:

 

[wingsdad]

Since the earliest guitar amps, like the Fender Champ, had no tone pot, just a volume (output gain) pot, the tone pot on an electric guitar was always intended to play a vital role in processing the signal (controling the tone) from the pickup(s).

 

[Plank_Spanker]

I finger dance all over the volumes and tones when I play the Germino, not so much with the rack rig since I have the patches set up for dimed out tone.

 

[markb]

The tone control on my tele is used all the time and being a Fender Delta pot it can even be defeated.

 

[Spudman]

I used to be an either wide open or totally closed tone pot guy. I'd never use anything in between. As I got more finicky about my tone I started playing with the tone pots more and discovered all these subtle differences that really do make a difference. So now I am a tone knob twiddling picker.