Tone Control Mods

[Jacob]

Hey guys,

How would I go about modding my strat's tone controls to be more like G&L's PTB System, where one tone knob cuts the bass, and one knob cuts the treble for all the pickups?

Jacob

[Greybeard999]

I don't know how accurate this is...............    http://www.guitarsbyleo.com/gldp/messages/78107.php3      

[Jacob]

I haven't modded any guitars before, so do I have to use any special type of pots?
What kind of caps should I use and what voltage?

Jacob

[diggum12]

Take the plate off and see what's in there now.

Most often, guitar pots have a knurled shaft that's often split, so keep that in mind for the sake of your knobs. 

I've had great succes w/ Allparts, which they stock in most guitar shops.  You're safe w/ just about any cap.  The smaller the better.  I do recommend NOT using metal film in guitars though.  They're too clean and "turn on" in an unpleasing way.  Use some nice poly's or similar. 

[antisyst]

i've reciently modded my mustang  for hb in bridge(on/ off /tap) and sc neck  with a master vol and concentic treb/bass cut tone knob  check out the g&l s500 schematic, thats what pointed me in the right direction...... 

[Jacob]

Hey,

I finally got around to doing this mod. I put a SD JB Jr mini humbucker in the bridge, put in the PTB system, and added an expander switch (basically all pu's on) and a coil split switch for the JB Jr.

I like it a LOT better than the stock wiring. Stock, the tone controls never sounded good when rolled off to me. I can now roll off the bass or the treble. The treble is a subtle roll off, but it sounds good. In the schematic for the PTB system, the bass pot is supposed to be a 1M reverse log pot. I used a 500k A. BTW, I got my pots from Weber Speakers.

Jacob

[Mark Abbott]

Cutting bass will be introducing a small cap in series with the signal, and treble cut will be business as usual.

If that helps.

Mark Abbott

[diggum12]

Hey Mark, can you elaborate a little more on that please?  Are you saying rolling off the bass knob yields characteristics of capacitance in this setup?

I had a G&L with this wiring, and never could find a happy medium, so off to ebay it went. 

Jacob, can you provide a link to the PTB schem?  I'd never really given it much thought.  BTW, if it were me, I'd still try to get my hands on a 1M pot.   

Thanks guys! 

[Jacob]

This is the wiring for the Legacy model: http://www.guitarsbyleo.com/PICS/HOWTO/92LEGEXP.GIF

I don't think I'm going to mess with it for a while since I just put in a killswitch and an onboard Sparkle Boost. And I don't use it very often, so the bass cut knob works good enough for me at the moment.

Jacob

[diggum12]

Ahh ok.  All questions answered now, thanks!