Volume control bleeder, again

[cc_thunko]

I know about the typical capacitor across the hot and center tabs and I know about the addition of the 150k resistor in parallel. I also know the little problems that each circuit causes. John H had a thread at another site where he used a dual ganged pot to improve performance and that is better, but still not good in some ways. If all I did was turn down a little any of these circuits would probably be ok. I use a really cranked tone and I like to turn down a little for less distorted sound and turn down a lot for a clean sound. I might be asking about something that doesn't exist but I still want to ask if there are other alternatives to try.

Thanks

cc

[olddawg]

Back in the day and I was buzz bombing a couple of Marshall... I would completely disconnect the tone controls. It gave you a bit more brightness and gain straight in. Using 1meg pots can make a difference too. Lately I don’t play as many large venues with large gear and need to be more versatile. I find using a 2 channel amp helps a lot . One Marshall voiced preamp and one Fender voiced preamp... also a boost and a fuzz pedal depending on how much dirt I want. It gives you a lot of combinations. AND.. I use a footswitchable speaker attenuator. I don’t have a sound man riding levels as much as I once did. So I set the attenuator just to take the edge off and when I need to get on top of the mix I turn it off. You can do a similar thing with a switchable boost or attenuator in an effects loop but imho it doesn’t work as well. Too finicky. I had compensation caps on a couple guitar volume controls a while back... but with this set up I just leave everything stock anymore. Just remember there is more than one way to Egypt and your mileage may vary. Hope this helps. Honestly... I’ve found that you make more of a difference practicing technique than looking for the “magic mod”. Tone really is in the hands..

[cc_thunko]

Thank you for the detailed post! Very kind to take that time. I have done the multiple preamp thing and the pedals thing. It all works and I can get a gig done just about any old way. I'm interested in the attenuator option if you're foot switching it. My attenuators don't do that. But really I'm most interested right now in this one thing. A volume control for a guitar that is better at following normal pot taper and not changing the tone of the instrument so much. For over 60 years we've been using volume controls that change the sound at every level setting. We can use buffered pedals instead of the guitars pot or on board pre amps to convert to a low impedance signal but that doesn't sound the same as a guitar into an amp. You have the pickup, or pickups, then the tone control, the volume control and then a 10' or 20' cable that has a capacitance that makes a resonant circuit with the pickup. Turned all the way up it sounds like we expect it to. Turn it down and everything changes. How did we get more than a half century into this without a solution? This is the kick I'm on right now I guess.

[alexradium]

If you're talking about guitar volume treble bleed,I found my best usable combination with a 150k in series with a 1nf cap,nice taper and constant brightness.

[cc_thunko]

Thanks Alex. I did a spice simulation of your circuit and I think it's interesting. The actual frequency curve of the signal is very different from the volume up shape. With the volume up there is the resonant peak. That gets lost as the volume is reduced and the peak becomes very much more rounded. But what's interesting is that the knee stays more in the original place than with other treble bleed circuits. That makes me wonder if keeping the knee frequency the same may be more important than keeping the resonant peak shape. I haven't tried it yet. That will have to wait for a string change since I have to remove them to access the volume control on this guitar.

[eschertron]

The resonant peak, or 'formant', is the mechanism with which we (among other things) tell vowels apart by their sound. It's data that the brain has been trained to distinguish clearly, and we are very sensitive to it. IMHO keeping the knee 'stable' through pot travel is a good thing.