Wiring questions - 1 Humbucker, 1 Volume.

[LostAlone]

I am very much a novice when it comes to guitar wiring. I've done drop in pick up replacements, but I'm working on my first project where I'll be doing the electronics from scratch.

I acquired a garbage tier HSS strat copy and am stripping pretty much every non-wood component, including the finish, to rebuild it just with a single humbucker.

Frustratingly, I've been finding some conflicting advice about how to wire this arrangement exactly. Some say that without a tone pot you'll get a serious change in tone, and that a treble bleed is needed to prevent this. However, I have looked at official wiring diagrams for the 1H, 1V arrangement and none have a cap/resister shown.

I'm not immediately inclined to add a tone pot, in part because I have never knowingly turned a tone knob, but also because the 1H pickguards typically only have 1 hole. However, I don't want to trash the pickup tone either. In the future I'll put a tasty pickup in there, but if the electronics screw up the tone that's not going to be a wise investment.

So, residents of this fine forum - What is the "correct" way to wire up 1 humbucker with 1 volume, so that the wiring doesn't overly impact the sound? Is the treble bleed thing a necessity? Is it a myth?

[mozz]

With no tone control, if anything you will have more treble, slightly. A treble bleed only helps with the volume turned down, does nothing when on 10. I would wire it up with 1 vol, if needed you can add the treble bleed later, but i think it's opposite of what you are going to find out.

[Chuck H]

Regarding the term "treble bleed". Unfortunately there is no standardized nomenclature across amp and guitar mod genres so sometimes terminology gets confusing. In the amp world we might use the term "treble bleed" to indicate a low pass filter. That would be a circuit that dumps HF to ground making things less bright. In the guitar world the term "treble bleed" is commonly used to indicate a capacitor in line with the volume pots signal resistance. This would be a high pass filter allowing HF signal to bypass the volume pots resistance.

So what you heard is correct, or not. It depends on who was giving the advice and how they were using the terms. I really wish the guitar guys would stop using the term "treble bleed" in place of the old name for that circuit. "Bright cap" We still use the term "bright cap" in the amp genre to indicate the exact same circuit when used on amplifier volume controls and it was also used to describe that circuit on guitars all the way back to the 50's. Now "bleeder cap" has been a common term in audio electronics of all kinds to indicate a capacitor that "bleeds treble signal to ground". And I think this is how the amp guys have come to sometimes use the term "treble bleed" in place of the term "bleeder cap" It's all mixed up so just ignore everything you've read before.

Chances are good that when it was suggested you add a treble bleed that they meant you should add a simulated tone pot. That would be just a capacitor and fixed resistor that simulate a tone pot on ten (full up). Since nearly all guitars have a tone pot and even on ten there is an affect on the sound (rolls off a little treble) it may have been assumed that you must have such a circuit in place for your guitar to sound "right" or "proper" or "correct" as it were. Pretty sure they weren't talking about the "treble bleed" that increases brightness as the volume is reduced because, as explained by mozz, that would have a further brightening effect.

Tracking so far? I know this is running long but it was obvious a full explanation of the circumstances was in order.

You're building a special purpose guitar. A strat with a single humbucker. This doesn't have a vintage precedent to be emulated. You wouldn't be doing anything incorrect by simply having one pickup and one volume with no other circuit in the guitar. In fact, this is exactly what Eddie Van Halen did. Not a lot of people talking about how crappy his tone was There are also modifications for tone pots and manufactured tone pots that are designed specifically to remove the tone pot circuit from the guitar when the control is set to ten. Does everyone doing this sound "wrong"? And what is "wrong"? As far as I know tone is, and always has been subjective.

So build your guitar with one humbucker and one volume. If you like the way it performs and sounds then you're done. It's good. (<period) If you want to change the way it sounds you can look into other circuit options at that time.

[LostAlone]

Thanks for the explanation - Long in helpful when you don't know the background!

I think you're probably right that I'll just build it and see what happen. I'm more concerned about going shopping for an expensive pickup which has a certain sound and then finding that it's very different. Yes, it's always a risk because different woods and set-up create different sounds, but dodgy wiring is something I can control (in theory...).

As you say, this is a guitar I have a particular use for - It will really be a knockabout practise guitar but for down tuned metal. It's not really aimed to be perfect for tone and it doesn't need to be versatile, but I would like it to sound as one would expect it to, if that makes sense. I want the output to sound as if it were wired any other way.

[Chuck H]

Thanks for the explanation - Long in helpful when you don't know the background!

I think you're probably right that I'll just build it and see what happen. I'm more concerned about going shopping for an expensive pickup which has a certain sound and then finding that it's very different. Yes, it's always a risk because different woods and set-up create different sounds, but dodgy wiring is something I can control (in theory...).

As you say, this is a guitar I have a particular use for - It will really be a knockabout practise guitar but for down tuned metal. It's not really aimed to be perfect for tone and it doesn't need to be versatile, but I would like it to sound as one would expect it to, if that makes sense. I want the output to sound as if it were wired any other way.

Well the metal genre has absolutely no standards or stringencies WRT pickups or wiring. Some guitars use active EMG's, others passive EMG's, some just plain ol humbuckers made by DiMarzio or Duncan and some guitars have preamps with the standard pickups while others don't, etc., etc. It's all over the map. And certainly metal has no pretense of "properness" regarding how any of this should be wired or what the circuits should be. That's the sort of thing you see mostly with the vintage guys trying to sound as good the vintage players, but they can't so they attribute some magic to the specifics of the gear in the hope that when their tone is right they'll suddenly be able to play their guitars as well as they'd like to... Oh crap! Did I just say all that out loud?

I think you're good. You can't ruin the pickups tone with the wiring because you can always change the wiring. But IMHO what could be more metal than just a raw, unadulterated signal into the dirt box or amp. Pretty soon everybody will be doing it

[LostAlone]

Well the metal genre has absolutely no standards or stringencies WRT pickups or wiring. Some guitars use active EMG's, others passive EMG's, some just plain ol humbuckers made by DiMarzio or Duncan and some guitars have preamps with the standard pickups while others don't, etc., etc. It's all over the map. And certainly metal has no pretense of "properness" regarding how any of this should be wired or what the circuits should be. That's the sort of thing you see mostly with the vintage guys trying to sound as good the vintage players, but they can't so they attribute some magic to the specifics of the gear in the hope that when their tone is right they'll suddenly be able to play their guitars as well as they'd like to... Oh crap! Did I just say all that out loud?

I think you're good. You can't ruin the pickups tone with the wiring because you can always change the wiring. But IMHO what could be more metal than just a raw, unadulterated signal into the dirt box or amp. Pretty soon everybody will be doing it

It's funny you say that because the online metal community can be seriously snooty about their pickups. I don't know exactly how much I buy into the voodoo. Certainly I can't hear how this wood impacts the tone of that pickup the way some claim to. However, not all are created equal, and in the metal world you pay a premium to get something which is supposed to throw out a particular balance of mid/low/high.

That's why it bothers me - If my wiring results in more highs than intended, and throws off how a £150 pickup is supposed to sound then I may as well not bother.

And to be fair, not bothering is an option. As long as it plays alright then that's fine! But having said that, it would be nice to have it play well with others; so it will sound reasonable with the same amp settings I have for my fancy guitars.

To some degree, if I have to change the EQ back and forth to balance off higher highs then that's more annoying that soldering on a bleed circuit and having done with it.

[Chuck H]

The amount of brightness in a guitars tone will be influenced more by how bright or thin it sounds acoustically than by the existence of a tone circuit. But I'll just tell you what to do in case it comes up that you'd like this guitar to be "correct" and still not have a tone knob.

From the left, ungrounded volume pot lug (looking at the back of the pot in the guitar or on the pickguard) you would solder a 500k resistor in series with .022uf capacitor to ground. That's it. Just like you have a tone control that's always on ten. Since 500k isn't a standard resistor value just use two 1M resistors in parallel. like this:

[big_teee]

If you used a push pull volume, you could wire Chuck's cap to the switch.
When normally open, no cap, when closed you would have the tone caps.
Just a thought.
On a strat with no tone on the bridge pickup, I usually put a very small cap in parallel.
It takes the bite off of it.
GL,
T
**BTW, I didn't read all the other posts, so disregard if my idea has already been expressed.

[LostAlone]

The amount of brightness in a guitars tone will be influenced more by how bright or thin it sounds acoustically than by the existence of a tone circuit. But I'll just tell you what to do in case it comes up that you'd like this guitar to be "correct" and still not have a tone knob.

From the left, ungrounded volume pot lug (looking at the back of the pot in the guitar or on the pickguard) you would solder a 500k resistor in series with .022uf capacitor to ground. That's it. Just like you have a tone control that's always on ten. Since 500k isn't a standard resistor value just use two 1M resistors in parallel. like this:

That's awesome, thanks for all the help!

[olddawg]

Back in the day we used to snip the tone control circuits out of our factory HB equipped guitars. The idea was to get every bit of signal and treble out of the pickup to slam the amp preamp as hard as possible in the absence of a pedal. Also used 1m pots. A lot depends on the amp. A darker amp would work the best and it helped if the pickup was well potted. It’s not such an important thing anymore with 100s of quality high output pickups and boosts to choose from. Just remember the magic is in your hands.. not the pickup, amp, or dirt box.

[eschertron]

I'm surprised no one has suggested skipping any and all controls completely in the amp. If the desire to to get the hottest, boldest sound out of the pickup, there's no substitute for a single wire, no load, from the guitar. (just playing the purist's advocate here)

Thinking about this a bit more: for myself, when playing a bridge bucker into a high gain preamp, I always roll the tone back to almost zero (maybe 2..3 on the dial). I find the spot where I can control the resonant peak and go with it from there. The way to control the harmonics being generated in the amp is to limit/control the frequencies being fed to it (in my world, at least!). I think I'd prefer a tone control and no volume if I had to choose. Just my wacky thoughts on the subject.

[Chuck H]

I'm surprised no one has suggested skipping any and all controls completely in the amp. If the desire to to get the hottest, boldest sound out of the pickup, there's no substitute for a single wire, no load, from the guitar. (just playing the purist's advocate here)

Thinking about this a bit more: for myself, when playing a bridge bucker into a high gain preamp, I always roll the tone back to almost zero (maybe 2..3 on the dial). I find the spot where I can control the resonant peak and go with it from there. The way to control the harmonics being generated in the amp is to limit/control the frequencies being fed to it (in my world, at least!). I think I'd prefer a tone control and no volume if I had to choose. Just my wacky thoughts on the subject.

At the gain levels I sometimes use you'd have to have an off switch in the absence of a volume control if only to have a way to keep things quiet during breaks. There's also a whole genre of neat harmonic affects and techniques that tanking a tone control would make impossible. I'm with olddawg. When we were going for big tone we snipped tone pots and used 1M volume pots. Preamps are different now than they use to be so you don't need to slam into the amp to get saturation and harmonics. I see guys playing metal stuff with strats using single coils and it kind of blows my mind. When "we" (the old regime ) wanted big dirty tone it was a hot humbucker or go home.

I did start a project with an Ibanez Iceman guitar that I was planning to outfit with a Floyd, a single hot humbucker and just a volume control. I had even worked out a way to modify a dual ganged pot to make it a no load volume control so that on ten the pickup was wired straight to the amp. I never got past the body modifications before I had to shelf the project when life happened to me. But I think you can see the ideal here.

[LostAlone]

I'm surprised no one has suggested skipping any and all controls completely in the amp. If the desire to to get the hottest, boldest sound out of the pickup, there's no substitute for a single wire, no load, from the guitar. (just playing the purist's advocate here)

Of course the tonal purity depends on the tone coming out being good...

And of course we live in a world where I have one amp and more than one guitar. I can certainly appreciate the sort of tone-zen of letting a guitar be as much of itself as it ever can be, and then doing something interesting with that. But then I just want to have a cheap guitar to tune down and play along to songs I like.

[Chuck H]

You might be surprised at just how much you like it A stripped down strat is very comfortable (my own is entirely tung oil body and neck). And light, by design and with no extra shizzle. And simple in a way that's not going to be so much limiting as liberating. I wouldn't be surprised if you throw vanity out for using a "classier" instrument in public and end up using it at gigs.

[LostAlone]

You might be surprised at just how much you like it A stripped down strat is very comfortable (my own is entirely tung oil body and neck). And light, by design and with no extra shizzle. And simple in a way that's not going to be so much limiting as liberating. I wouldn't be surprised if you throw vanity out for using a "classier" instrument in public and end up using it at gigs.

Truth be told, whether I use it anywhere public is probably going to come down to how well my new finish ends up being.

My main gigging guitar is a somewhat singular Explorer which was home made by someone (not me) and I bought about 15 years ago for an outrageously low price. It is a genuinely gorgeous thing, in unfinished mahogany. So, it's red-brown wood without even a clear coat in the way. I put in new pickups and it's been my primary guitar ever since.

This strat I will be attempting to refinish to be a sibling to it - So staining the wood then lightly top coating it and that's that. If it comes out well then I'll be very much open to playing it in public, at least in tandem. If it doesn't look pretty then, well, I have a Les Paul to renovate to, and I'll be leaving that black finish alone