It's the cable capacitance causing the roll off. If you can keep the capacitance of the cables and true bypass pedals down, you probably can get by without any mods.
On a sort of similar note, guitar mods, any of you experimented with dummy coils with your single coil guitars? I've got a really noisy power line going down the side of my house which gives off some tremendous 60 cycle hum.
Guitar Volume Control Improvements for High Gain Wrecks
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Jackie Treehorn
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geetarpicker
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Re: Guitar Volume Control Improvements for High Gain Wrecks
In my experience cable capacitance does create some roll off (which I actually like) but I haven't noticed any difference in how much roll off change occurs when working the knobs with different cables. I notice the same basic effect (a little high end roll off at first, then the highs actually come back UP when even lower on the knob) no matter how much overall capacitance the cable has. Seems to me the cable capacitance just effects the overall high end loss, but not the ratio of tonal changes when working the pots...
That said I do run a SUHR hum cancelling back plate on my Relic Strat which works quite well.
That said I do run a SUHR hum cancelling back plate on my Relic Strat which works quite well.
Re: Guitar Volume Control Improvements for High Gain Wrecks
The phenomena described by guitarpicker is also echoed by Joe Bonamassa in a little known video on Youtube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPiPqV28EY0 .
You have to watch for it but he mentions it while discussing his vintage LPs and in particular the volume pots on the vintage LPs and what happens when you roll the volume pot down.
For me, I find the .001 too much in any guitar. I also find a cap unnecessary on the bridge pickup of the LP, but I do use a 500pf on the neck pickup.
I watched Joe up close in concert (the same concert mentioned in the video) not too long ago and he pulled out some of his vintage LPs - a boatload to me! Of the five he played, he only once went to the neck pickup on one of his LPs and only then for a brief moment. (Which for me, speaks to adding a cap on the neck pickup, actually!) The guitar he owns that killed on the neck pickup was his cherry red ES335 (1964?), and here he hung out most of the time on the neck pickup actually.
You have to watch for it but he mentions it while discussing his vintage LPs and in particular the volume pots on the vintage LPs and what happens when you roll the volume pot down.
For me, I find the .001 too much in any guitar. I also find a cap unnecessary on the bridge pickup of the LP, but I do use a 500pf on the neck pickup.
I watched Joe up close in concert (the same concert mentioned in the video) not too long ago and he pulled out some of his vintage LPs - a boatload to me! Of the five he played, he only once went to the neck pickup on one of his LPs and only then for a brief moment. (Which for me, speaks to adding a cap on the neck pickup, actually!) The guitar he owns that killed on the neck pickup was his cherry red ES335 (1964?), and here he hung out most of the time on the neck pickup actually.
Most people stall out when fixing a mistake that they've made. Why?
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vibratoking
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Re: Guitar Volume Control Improvements for High Gain Wrecks
He talks about it at about 9:15 to save you some time.
I don't like the volume pot caps. I find that lowering the neck pickup on a LP is the way to tame it. It's like limbo...how low can you go.
I don't like the volume pot caps. I find that lowering the neck pickup on a LP is the way to tame it. It's like limbo...how low can you go.
Guitar volume control
Something you might want to try is measure the impedance of your pickups. If your pickup is 9k or above use a 1 meg pot. It will sound a lot better and you won't have that treble roll off.