Rolling off volume for clean tones....LP issue

[Chuck H]

But i don't understand how disabling the tone and adding a bleed would make it less bright when rolled off, which would be the case if it climbs to 18k which is un hearable.

Not 18k. 18dB for the treble peakcompared to 6dB when the volume is on 10. Each 3db represents a fold in output. I'll post an image here in a sec...

[Chuck H]

...

[daz]

I'm getting old and probably spaced on yet another thing, dB where i thought i saw 18k. Anyways, i don't hear what that graph show. theres a lot more cut and brightness on 10, but then i think it's mostly the nature of humbuckers in a LP. In strat they react a ot differently but i haven't used HBs in any thing for years. I don't think theres any way to get it where i want but i think the bridge has a lot to do with it and i will likely try a new one. But the issue of the clean tone never getting very clean till it's at 2-3 isn't gonne be fixable. tho i wish i could find a pot that would get me the same tone i get on 2.5 at 5 on the knob. But that would be on the other side of audio taper from a linear pot. I don't know if i can find one thats at abut 90k at 5 on the dial, and thats what it would take after measuring mine and reading around 90k at about 3 on the knob. (yeas, measured it out of circuit)

[Chuck H]

Joe Satriani uses a butt ton of gain. His signature series guitars are outfitted with 5% audio taper volume pots. I don't know if these are commercially available. It's a pretty extreme taper but whatever gets the job done. Works for Joe.

[Chuck H]

Hey, are you still using digital amps? I've been reading that some guys are having trouble with rolled off tones using some POD products. Since digital basically "senses" what your guitar is saying and then receates it with a program, rather than actually amplifying what your guitar sounds like as it were, there's room for error there. Maybe this anomaly with the treble bleed is a result of digital encoding errors. Maybe try the guitar through a tube amp. If you haven't already.

[daz]

Yes, but trust me thats not the issue. I have 5 guitars and i get better rolled off cleans than i did with most of my tube amps that i bought or built. In fact thats probably the most important thing to me and one reason i DO use digital. There are no doubt ones that aren't good at it same as some tube amps aren't. But i went back to playing gigs a while back and the amp is killing it with all my guitar in all ways. Even this LP is great but for that one issue. I think i may know whats going on tho and i will find out probably saturday. (more on that in a moment) I think the tone has a ton of low mids and when i turn it down there just so much in that range that it overpowers the high end and as you know low mids don't clean up well. I've been replacing some hardware but not the bridge. So tonite i started investigating the ABR1 type bridge and i noticed the saddles were sorta loose on the screws and i pushed the retaining wire up and out of the way and push them back so the werent sitting loose ad only in place by string pressure That brought out some better higher end in the tone. Then i started considering the saddles and that on a nashville bridge they all fact the same way with the flat side facing the pickups unlike on my ABR1. So i ordered a Gotoh nashville type thats got the saddles all facing one way and screws//saddles held in place without a retaining wire.. There are other reasons i think it will sound better and possibly fix the volume issue to some degree at least. We shall see.

[Helmholtz]

18dB for the treble peakcompared to 6dB when the volume is on 10. Each 3db represents a fold in output. I'll post an image here in a sec...

With voltage level each 6dB means a factor of 2. So +3dB is only 41% more.

[Chuck H]

With voltage level each 6dB means a factor of 2. So +3dB is only 41% more.

I'd read many times here that an increase of 3dB in speaker efficiency is the same as doubling an amps output power. Which I know doesn't mean double in volume but I guess I mistook that for being equal with respect to the signal chain. Thank you for the correction.

Then it would be a three fold increase in treble compared to the stock circuit and more than double even with the tone control disabled. So why should the turned down guitar have sounded less bright with this arrangement than the stock circuit?

[Helmholtz]

I'd read many times here that an increase of 3dB in speaker efficiency is the same as doubling an amps output power.

That's correct.
With power 3dB means a factor of 2.
With voltage (or current) 3dB means square root of 2.

[Helmholtz]

Does the cap have an effect at all?
Maybe it's bad.

[daz]

Yes, the cap does what it's supposed to do but not to near the degree i usually get. Usually it makes it brighter as i rol the volume down than it does with the volume on 10, but not in this guitar. Its brighter then with no treble bleed but nothing like usual on other guitars. I tried several caps of various values under 1uf and even with no cap at all, so i know it's not a bad cap issue. But at this point hardware mods have made the point about brightness pretty much a non issue. My problem now is that i can't get very clean at all unless i turn the amp's gain down lower then i usually need when on 10. The extra brightness and clarity i've gotten helps a bit but it's still quite dirty on 2 or 3 ad it shouldn't be because i'm not using much gain. I suppose i can live with it as is, but i can't deal with having to turn the pot almost all the way down to get a reasonable amount of clean because in live situations it's hard to ride the volume w/o missing notes, especially when singing which i do about 50% f the time. I'm used to having my clean to scream range between 10 and 5, 4 at the lowest.

[Chuck H]

I'm used to having my clean to scream range between 10 and 5, 4 at the lowest.

We must have a different definition of "scream". Using my HSS strat and switching to the single coils I have to turn down to 1.5/2 for cleans. My amp has about the same gain as the 68 Marshall plexi circuit with the extra bypass cap (think EVH). and I do crank it. No way I could get clean on five even with singles.

I'm starting to understand why you're writing though because something does seem to be wrong with the circuits behavior as per your observations. I'm thinking on it but looking at your diagram (which looks fine) I got nothin' right now.

[The Dude]

Just to be sure: Is there any compressor or expander on the patches being used in your modeler?

[daz]

No compressors, nothing but a slight touch of delay. Anyways, i think the problem is my descriptions don't translate to what you guys think i mean. It's no one fault, just that theres no way anyone can really understand what is happening due to the impossibility of describing tone and dynamics in words. I can tell by the replies im getting that my descriptions aren't clear and/or the words i am using to describe things aren't understood in the way i intended them to be. So lets just leave it there because i can see that it's futile. Don't take it the wrong way.....absolutely nothing about you guys. Just too hard to describe. Thanks for tying tho as always.

[Chuck H]

FWIW at the usual gain level I run I don't even try to get clean with humbuckers by rolling the volume down. And when I say "I don't even try" it's because I have. And it didn't work. (<period). Some guys do it with Les Pauls. Ok but I've never figured that out for myself. Different srokes.