Is a tone knob necessary?

[Murdstone]

The way I see it, it's more of a useful device when you're playing clean. If you've got a distorted tone I could definitely understand not wanting to touch it. When I play clean though I like a really nice warm sound, where the notes seem to flow into each other. When I play clean I tend to roll the tone knob almost all the way back to get what I'm looking for.

 

[anne]

Well, that's why I said in my opinion.
I don't like what it does.

You are 150% entitled to your opinion! But labeling something "opinion" doesn't mean no one can respond to it.

 

[SirMyghin]

It's useful on humbuckers when gain's not at a zillion.

I still use it a lot with buckers, for sure, but with the ASAT I could not live without it, especially through my buddies fender supersonic (albeit I love how jangley the highs get on that thing).

I think the thread should be ammended 'is the tone knob necessary and what genre do you play primarily?'

 

[guitarister7321]

Mines either cranked to 10 at all times or non-existent.

 

[technomancer]

I use my tone knob quite a bit.... but from a functional standpoint there is no reason you have to have one. As somebody already said the guitar will sound a but brighter than it does with a tone knob with the tone knob turned all the way up.

 

[Andromalia]

I usually do cleans with brights off and saturated rythm with brightest possible so yes I need one.

 

[Sephael]

I hate when I see people, like my one friend, who thinks the tone knob has two settings: all or nothing. A little roll off can make a huge difference IMHO. One of the reasons I use it is when doing palm mutes if it is full and my hand is a little too far forward I get really shrill metallic sounds, rolling back even a quarter reduces how noticeable these are. And when I play more blues type stuff I actually like the darker sound of a 50-75% roll off.

 

[Djdnxgdj3983jrjd8udb3bcns]

I can't see any point in reducing your options tonally. Unless you have to choose between 2 vol or 1 tone 1 vol and you really want to do the "3 way switch killswitch" thing it seems unnecessary. Furthermore, you could probably go for stacked pots and get 2 tone 2 vol the majority of the time...

 

[robotsatemygma]

im the only person who likes to use the tone knob then haha

Nope.


I was actually very anti tone knob and removed them on my guitars for a long ass time. Then I started playing bass again and remembered how useful the tone knob really is... now I'm back with tone knobs on my guitars.

 

[Lorcan Ward]

On some guitars with passives I found setting the tone knob at about 8/9 gets rid of this slight hiss and cleans up leads a bit. Theirs a small but noticeable difference to my ears when playing through a small practice amp.

 

[thedonal]

I think that the other thing is that most guitars come with really cheap, characterless capacitors.

Without getting into the 'are tone capacitors snake oil debate', I found a big difference just putting Sprague Orange Drops in- they're relatively cheap (compared to NOS vintage caps or their replicas) but when I roll the tone off now, I get more character and resonance in the sound- almost like a wah pedal rocked back.

 

[Jessy]

I wire my pickups directly to outputs, and do all possible tone shaping in software. If you need to alter the settings frequently live, then sure, it may be more helpful to have analog gear on your guitar, but if you can deal with using MIDI controllers, do it, so you get a cleaner signal, and nondestructive recordings.

Common instrument-installed hardware controls that can be replaced by software:
volume knob
pickup selector switch / blend knob
phase switch
tone knob / active EQ

Controls that require meatspace:
series/parallel switch
coil split switch (unless you only run the pickup in parallel)

The more pickups and combos of coils you want to include, the more impractical it is to mix them in software. I only use humbuckers, and piezo pickups. The piezos are wired directly to the jacks, and the humbuckers are wired to series/parallel switches, which are wired to jacks. I only care about humbucking combinations. In a two-mag-pickup instrument, I'll be missing the series wirings where you wire the output of one pickup into the input of another, but I don't care much about that.

I used to not even bother with series wiring at all, but even though it's more destructive, it's faster to just flip a switch and go into series, than EQing the heck out of parallel, emulating series. I recommend evaluating pickup possibilities on a case-by-case basis, but I don't think I'll ever recommend a knob of any kind anymore.

 

[richardgstudios]

I am a tone knob abuser... I like using it if im doing some single string melodic type stuff but.... if im shredding all my shits on full blast WOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

 

[anne]

I wire my pickups directly to outputs, and do all possible tone shaping in software. If you need to alter the settings frequently live, then sure, it may be more helpful to have analog gear on your guitar, but if you can deal with using MIDI controllers, do it, so you get a cleaner signal, and nondestructive recordings.

Common instrument-installed hardware controls that can be replaced by software:
volume knob
pickup selector switch / blend knob
phase switch
tone knob / active EQ

Controls that require meatspace:
series/parallel switch
coil split switch (unless you only run the pickup in parallel)

The more pickups and combos of coils you want to include, the more impractical it is to mix them in software. I only use humbuckers, and piezo pickups. The piezos are wired directly to the jacks, and the humbuckers are wired to series/parallel switches, which are wired to jacks. I only care about humbucking combinations. In a two-mag-pickup instrument, I'll be missing the series wirings where you wire the output of one pickup into the input of another, but I don't care much about that.

I used to not even bother with series wiring at all, but even though it's more destructive, it's faster to just flip a switch and go into series, than EQing the heck out of parallel, emulating series. I recommend evaluating pickup possibilities on a case-by-case basis, but I don't think I'll ever recommend a knob of any kind anymore.

What? lol

 

[Sepultorture]

i never use a tone knob ever, on any guitar i have oever owned, i've experimented with neck pickups from time to time but a tone knob has never been touched by these hands.

on another note, when i took my Apex 2, which has no tone knob, yay, to my friend/tech to have my seymour duncan modular preamp installed, i told him what i wanted, and when i got the guitar back, i got everything i wanted, plus a tone knob, WHICH I DID NOT ASK FOR.

so now i have a hole in the body, a tone knob i STILL don't use, and now i am thinking of taking the preamp out cus it really doesn't do much of anything i care for, but that stupid hole will still be there. i wish i had taken it to a store, that way i could say they owe me a new guitar.

 

[Goatfork]

I've removed the tone knob from the circuit in all of my guitars, but kept the actual pot in so there wasn't a hole in my guitar.

 

[Overtone]

Every once in a while i find that its useful to turn it back just a tad. But if you need a brighter sound or extra space then by all means do it... You can stil get a similar but not identical effect by rolling back volume just a hair. But personally i find myself using volume most of the time but still going for the tone knob instead once in a while, especially if i need to keep all the volume i can and just make the sound less bright.

 

[CD1221]

For playing metal, I never use it. In fact, I didn't put one on my 7 string when I built it for that very reason.

On my Ibby artcore semi-hollow however, it gets stacks of use. For clean or slightly dirty tones, it can be awesome. You can go from biting and jangly to mellow and smooth with the twist of your wrist for the bridge. On the neck you can dial down to get your jazz on. most excellent.

 

[AwakenNoMore]

Anytime I modify the stock electronics on my guitars I eliminate if possible, if it has one volume one tone, then it becomes 2 volumes one for each pickup. If the guitar already has separate volumes and a master tone i just leave it. As far as i'm concerned the tone can be change at the amp . . .

 

[Explorer]

People aren't really saying what kind of music they're playing, but someone posted that perhaps people don't need tone if they're using distorted tones.

So, my question is... is there anyone who doesn't use a tone knob who isn't playing distorted?