Do you use the guitar tone control?

[EndGame00]

I never cared about the “woman tone”....Tone knob is as useful as a screen door on a submarine....

 

[MarshallDog]

I always used to crank my guitar volume + tone to 10 and set my amps and eq pedals to get the tones I wanted. Then I was jamming at a buddies place and his neighbour, an old seasoned session musician, told me I had it all wrong. Initially my pride took a hit and I told him all 10’s is the best sound you can get out of a guitar so you need to start with the best source. He cracked a huge smile. He told me this was because I was setting my amp wrong too. He asked me to set my Lester volume and tone each to 6 or 7 then re adjust my amp for some middle of the road crunch: My amp was now set way brighter than normal.. in my mind this was a shit setting but overall it sounded fantastic. He then asked me to dial down the volume and turn up the tone. I was getting a nice clean tone. He then told me to crank the volume and dial the tone down to taste and in between these settings were 90% of what I play.. without even touching my amp or a pedal! I’ve since refined my tones this way and can’t stand any of my old amp/ guitar settings. Then he handed me his strat and said turn up your amp gain a bit and find me all those sounds without touching anything else on the amp: I was in the ballpark quickly... For 30 years before this plugging in a strat meant rearranging the shit out of my amp settings. If you’re open minded try the old guys advice, worked for me. Thought I’d share this since sadly he’s no longer around to share it himself.

This guy was Smart!!!

 

[johnny q]

Never. In fact I am always reaching down to make sure they are on ten. The only time I ever use the tone control is for an almost special effect i.e. rolling the neck tone to zero to get that wooly tone. That's rare though.

 

[tallcoolone]

Lol just jumped in here wondering why this thread is still going...I am putting together a Dragon tele right now and it will have a volume for each pickup, no tone.

 

[Denis St Guinefort]

Yes, especially for the bridge pickup on a Strat. I always move the tone control wire from the middle to the bridge pickup, I like an 0.047uf best with vintage spec single coil's.

Thanks for the info. I never use the tone control on the mid-pickup. However, I miss one for the bridge pu.

 

[Ken Ops]

Nope. I rarely use the volume knob(s) either, because I have other ways of muting the guitar, as well as adjusting volume. But I have never cut the tone down from 10 .. except one time accidentally.

 

[Biff Maloy]

I've always used them. I can't say i could give settings as each guitar is different, it's in the moment and I don't look at the numbers anyway. Like has been mentioned, i just go for a good dirty rhythm where it can clean up but room to push the amp more if i bring the volume up. I rarely have the tone controls on ten so i have some room. Volumes backed off a little can give a fatter tone on leads. My Flying V is one i like to use both pickups with the tone control backed off a lot. My Strat i rarely have everything on 10. My Les Paul, the neck tone is usually 10 but that guitar is dark anyway and everything else is adjusted to the neck. Same with my old Artist.

 

[JeffMcLeod]

I'll turn the volume down between songs, or occasionally for a quieter tone for certain songs, but other than that, everything pretty much just stays on 11.

 

[yladrd61]

Thanks for the info. I never use the tone control on the mid-pickup. However, I miss one for the bridge pu.

You can also use a lower value tone cap on the neck pickup tone pot to make it more useable

 

[matttornado]

I always used to keep the tone control on 10 but now a days, I'm using it more and more for fine tone adjustments. I have my strats wired so I have tone for the bridge pickup. That is very useful as others had mentioned.

 

[Silverdome]

Yes, all the time. Especially on the Les Paul. I find the tone control impacts how my wah will sound. I adjust to tastes.

 

[end user]

I do on my SG but not any other guitars. Not sure what's so different but I do find some nice tones using the tone and volume knobs on it.

 

[junk notes]

Funny, I'm in a similar position, I has the tone pot on my Kramer Paul Dean removed when I initially got it almost 20 years ago, and was thinking about putting a "blower switch" in its place (goes from what's selected through the on/off switches to the humbucker wired directly to the output jack) and now I'm kinda second-guessing myself...maybe I'll put a push-pull pot back in so I can get the blower switch thing AND the tone pot...

Recently have seen some Telecaster videos showing this blower mod. I have a couple of superstrats that would benefit from having a blower switch. Gets me to EVH mindset but smarter.
I want to do a project 3-way blade (for bridge series/para), a 3-way toggle (pickup selector), a tone (with cap or treble bleed) )and *volume pot (no-load option), neck and bridge or HS pickup config. Going to try this blower mod soon and hear what this yields.
Perhaps a 500K push/push replacing the push/pull for finger or 'palm- pop' activation. A hand stompbox.

 

[end user]

I will also use it if I am having issues in the higher frequencies and playing live not able to run over to my amp and futz around. Otherwise I keep it wide open usually.

 

[Barfly]

Never.