Do we really need...

[gui_tarzan]

Tone controls? I've built guitars in the past and I left the tone control out on a couple of them and they sounded great. If we were to configure an amp the same way, what if any benefit to the tone be? My thought is if there were a channel for bright sounding guitars and a channel for darker sounding guitars, what would be the drawbacks? I realize there is a myriad of different tonal aspects to guitars but if I'm building an amp for myself, I could tailor the sound that I want.

Is this even feasible? I know it's do-able, and it would be like having all the tone controls on 10, no?

[Tom Phillips]

My thoughts...
I would want tone controls on my amp. One reason would be to compensate for the different response of the human ear at different volume levels (Reference Fletcher-Munson curves) For example, I may want to increase the bass when playing at low volumes or solo at higher volumes. I would want to back off on the bass when playing with a full band. Even more as the band got louder. I would also want control of the mids. There are other situational examples but overall, I would want tone controls because the amp is part of the production of the music and the tone controls make it a more versatile instrument.

[Jazz P Bass]

Add to Tom's reply that different rooms will require different eq's.

[The Dude]

Every one of my axes was either built without tone controls, or has had them bypassed. Not a fan. That said, there are those who find them useful and I have no beef with that modus operandi. Different strokes for different folks.

Edit: (forgot to finish)

So,............I prefer to have tone controls on the amp for adjusting to room, guitar, speaker, etc.

[mac dillard]

A lot of the early amps had only volume control. Fender Champ 5F1, early Gibsons, early Rickenbackers come to mind.

[Leo_Gnardo]

A lot of the early amps had only volume control. Fender Champ 5F1, early Gibsons, early Rickenbackers come to mind.

Got a late 30's Rick lunch box, and it has one control: tone not volume. I found that surprising then had a thought the steel player would probably be dialing the volume onboard the guitar, or in later years with a pedal.

One of my customers asked me to remove tone controls from his Gibson 335, no problem. Later he got Gibson to make him one special with just volume controls. He told me "sometimes people come up to me and ask 'where's the tone controls?' I show 'em my hands and tell 'em 'I got ten tone controls right here!' " Good answer!

[Regis]

I have seven or eight guitars, only one has a tone control, my Junior, and i don't use it on that one. I started with my Strat many years ago, and one day I was swapping out a bad volume control and decided to take out the tone controls because they got in my way of using the volume. Never looked back.

[gui_tarzan]

I guess it makes sense to have them on an amp to adjust to room conditions, I hadn't thought about that.

[Chuck H]

Amps need tone controls. For all the reasons stated and at least two others I can think of. One is, if you use a vintage type amp you only have one channel for both clean and overdriven sounds. For a clean tone it's often desirable to have more bass and treble and/or a bit of cut on the mids. A bright switch is a nice thng to have also for cleans. Then you crank it up and it starts grinding, but it's hollow and the treble is piercing and the bass is flabby! So you push the mids up, turn the bass way down and trim the treble a bit. Now you're overdriving frequencies that don't make your tone sound like a flatulent cow. The other reason is that you will almost certainly need at least slightly different EQ for different mix conditions with different bands or when recording. From a purely artistic perspective it's nice to be able to change the tone to get a different perspective on a riff, melody or hook. Sometimes you might want a jangly 60's VOX sort of thing and other times you may want a boxy jazz tone. You may be able to fake some of this to some degree with your hands but not nearly as well IMHE.

[tedmich]

I have never EVER used a volume or tone control on a guitar, preferring to use my amps to change my tone. I finally removed the 4 volume tone controls and 2 dual/single coil and 1 phase switches and 3 way PU selector switch and neck PU off my old Carvin DC150, my only guitar for the last 32 years.

I do like a kill switch though!

of course I never "back off the volume" to "clean up my tone" either since I have zero use for clean ever

[gui_tarzan]

See that's what I was thinking when I first thought about not needing tone controls on an amp but in reality it makes more sense to have the tone control on the amp instead of the guitar. I don't use my Jazz volume controls for anything but turning it on and off. They're both wide open all the time, I can control my volume and to a certain level my tone with my fingers so I don't usually touch that either.

[überfuzz]

My take on this is that EQ is nice to have, specially while recording.

Some amps have the level of control very narrow, I guess to keep the 'soul' of the amp and that's ok to, I guess.