Regarding "tonal variety"

[odibrom]

Literally, what the fuck man!

I mean, what in the actual fuck. That kind of setup is nightmare fuel for me, how on earth would you come up with such an idea

Regarding my friend's guitar, it could have gone way worse, had I used the same switches used for the pickup selection on each humbucker, but I didn't remind of that possibility until some time after the guitar was done, and to my defense, it was him wanting HHH and saying "I want it all", so I obliged his will.

Regarding my guitars, I'm a simple guy, give me a HH+piezo guitar and I'm happy. One of my 7 stringers has 145 options, including piezo mix. The 8 stringer has exactly the same setup, but also an additional 3 way tone toggle switch, so it's 435 different tones to mess with...

I understand you, these switching schemes may sound overwhelming, but they're quite simple in fact. They're kind of dependent on each other, there's a master switch (pickup mix) and then there's each pickup coil management. All the numbers come from this concept, the count is just math. The thing is that when one goes for these kind of controls, one isn't looking at wining a competition of how many options one has on a guitar, but at ways to get these or those sounds, many others come as consequence and bonus to play with.

For example, I love the inner coils in series for a double hum guitar, having all the coils in alternating polarity. It's a tone that makes the perfect middle tone between full Neck and full Bridge, it's way deeper than the simple parallel mix between 2 full humbuckers, which is the norm derived from Gibson when they first introduced the PAF pickups. You can't find that tone in any production guitar. In order to discover these gems, one has to deep dive in crazy wiring schemes. That's what my 145 tone guitar allowed me to do, to find out of ordinary tones that work perfectly. I then replicate them in my main guitars (with way less tone options), carefully choosing between the tones I like. I'll mostly use 5 + piezos, sometimes expand this number to 7 or 8, depending on the mood or on what I'm doing/testing.

 

[wheresthefbomb]

Tonal variety? Yeah we've got three different RAT pedals in the house

 

[SalsaWood]

Is there an artist who is especially known for using the tone knob? Maybe the volume knob- Becker, Morse, Petrucci (IIRC), etc- but not the tone. I'm convinced, the fewer holes in a guitar the better.

 

[wheresthefbomb]

I do actually use the tone and volume knobs a lot. I've gotten to really appreciate how the 4 knob LP control layout interacts. Also the coil split on my bridge HB, while it isn't make or break, is something I'd rather have than not. I don't need more variety than that though and I do not like switching pots either push/pull or push/push. Coil split on a toggle or not at all.

 

[Moongrum]

Give me 2 humbuckers, a 3 way switch and a volume knob. I won't use anything else.

This is where I'm at, too, except I like having a tone knob.
I hate that my HH guitars have a 5 way switch. I've never played a split humbucker that sounded good, I know others feel differently, but not for me.

 

[Moongrum]

I do actually use the tone and volume knobs a lot. I've gotten to really appreciate how the 4 knob LP control layout interacts. Also the coil split on my bridge HB, while it isn't make or break, is something I'd rather have than not. I don't need more variety than that though and I do not like switching pots either push/pull or push/push. Coil split on a toggle or not at all.

i can see how for the music you make (ambient/drone/etc) how having those options would be a lot more meaningful. Small changes in the guitar controls have a huge effect on the timbre of feedback ime. Especially for a genre where the texture of the sound plays a huge role.
Apologies if you weren't specifically referring to ambient/drone applications, though

Is there an artist who is especially known for using the tone knob?

I can't remember which song it is, but The Doors have a song that has this wah sound effect. It's not a wah, though, it's just the guitarist rolling his tone knob back and forth really fast. That's the best I got lol

 

[odibrom]

Old school ('50s through out '70s) guitar players used the tone knobs often. My 8 stringer has, some how the particularity of asking me to use the tone knob (in this case, a switch) for certain musics of mine because I can't achieve the tone in my head with the pickups it has (D-Activators) and the following rig.

(...) I do not like switching pots either push/pull or push/push. Coil split on a toggle or not at all.

This is the way. When I started using push/pull pots in my wirings I thought those were the shit, until I actually played with them. Not trust worthy for live play. Switching and volume/tone management should be on different buttons...