Do you use your guitar's tone knob?

[Unto The Sky]

If i'm playing my fender strat, I'll use it quite a lot, i really enjoy using it on a clean/light over drive sort of tone.

Heavy distortion, I never use it.

 

[mountainjam]

Havent touched it in 15 years of playing. Not sure why I never thought of bypassing them until now

 

[Mettle209]

When I play cleans, I like it a little brighter for that extra bite so I tend not to use my tone knob to roll off some of the high ends. With distortion or overdrive, I only use the volume knob. However, I will force myself to experiment a little more with my tone knob given some of the positive experiences pointed out here on this thread.

 

[Infamous Impact]

Nope. I switched out my tone for an EMG Afterburner.

 

[leonardo7]

Yes very rarely for recording and depending on which guitar it is and for what part its being used for. Never when jamming or live cause its a hassle and not needed

 

[Aerospace274]

In clean channels, yeah. I roll it back a lot and it gives a great tone (imo) for legato and arpeggios, which make up most of my clean playing.
With overdrive it varies on application and with full blast distortion I usually don't use it much at all, I like my distorted tone to be pretty jagged and aggressive.
Voted yes!

 

[GuitaristOfHell]

Depends on my style. Metal= all the way up.

Jazz= down 3/4 of the way or a bit more.

Blues, down a bit.

 

[daniboy]

mostly on cleans to mellow the tone down. i found the tone control really useful on a single p-90 guitar. i got pseudo neck single coil and bridge humbucker tone just from fiddling with the tone control.

 

[StupidDav]

Used to use it but then started using it less and less to the point of not using it, so I replaced it with a coil tap switch for the bridge, which I use all the time with the neck p/up in parallel for clean or quacky funk sounds. I do sometimes miss it, but not nearly enough to replace my coil tap or even get a push/pull pot. Might see if I can get neck/coil tapped bridge parallel on a super 5 way switch, but cba with the hassle right now

 

[TomParenteau]

I almost bypassed one yesterday while I was putting a Duncan JB into my newly-aquired alder guitar. On second thought, I decided to leave it until I try the guitar more.This thing might be too bright, and I might actually use the tone control for a change.

As many people are saying, it depends on the guitar.

EDIT: I can't vote because I don't have a "yes" or "no" answer.

 

[Fred]

Yup - use them pretty much the entire time and would be very unlikely to buy a guitar without one... I find them totally indispensable for Opeth-style low-to-mid-gain leads in particular, and also love the smoothness they lend more distorted leads. I don't really use them on the bridge pickup, other than if I'm trying to get a specific clean sound, but love them for neck pickup work.

 

[ShreddyDjents]

I use the tone control for some mellow soloing, as in when i drop the tone knob about a little less than half, my tone becomes real pick sensitive, so my leads come out more to how i try and express it, if that makes sense?

 

[Cyanide Assassin]

bridge and i always use the tone knob. ill roll it back a bit when i want a cleaner distortion. when i dont use it(off) my tone gets muddy as all hell.

 

[Explorer]

My main guitar doesn't exactly have one tone knob. I can control the exact mix of neck and bridge p'ups, and have treble, bass and mids level controls.

My Parker has tone, magnetic and piezo levels, and coil tapping.

I use every setting my instruments provide.

----

Perhaps a relevant question, and one addressed by a few posters, is what kind of musics are being made by those who *don't* ever use their tone controls.

 

[Gemmeadia]

I dont use it at all, but for some reason i like seeing on guitars..

 

[Cookiedude777]

Yeah I use it. I think it is useful thing on a guitar because you might what to get a more "bass-y" tone (very good for live performance) whist keeping the setup of the amp or something. I use it a lot when I want to compose a tone like this:
Listen from 1:06.

 

[Miek]

My main guitar doesn't exactly have one tone knob. I can control the exact mix of neck and bridge p'ups, and have treble, bass and mids level controls.

My Parker has tone, magnetic and piezo levels, and coil tapping.

I use every setting my instruments provide.

----

Perhaps a relevant question, and one addressed by a few posters, is what kind of musics are being made by those who *don't* ever use their tone controls.

I'm primarily a metal player I suppose, but my lack of tone knob usage is due to not liking how it sounds with my pickups than not liking how it sounds period. The EMGs in my guitar are nice enough, don't get me wrong, but I don't really like the way they sound with the tone rolled off.
Maybe some peoples' lack of use is due to the equipment rather than the nature of their music.

 

[sonofabias]

Just curious how many people actually take advantage of the tone knob/control on their guitar.

Me = nope.

I have to use it constantly. I'm the only guitarist in my band and every song's in a different style so the tones vary greatly .

 

[sonofabias]

You aren't fully utilizing of all the tones available if you don't . It can be as simple as a one tone knob on a guitar ( my horizon) or complex like my Ken Smith which has a pup pan pot instead of a switch , hi and low pass band filter, pre amp (+ 10 or 20 db ) switch, phase switch, coil tap switch . It also walks and chews gum LOL. I love playing both guitars but the ken has so many sounds available , I'm still finding new ones and it was made for me 25 years ago. They're both my main guitars and I couldn't do without them.

 

[Explorer]

SoB, I agree completely. I always think it's interesting to find so many threads where people discuss the tone of different pickups endlessly, but no discussion of onboard electronics which can give even more control and variation in tone....