Treble bleed mod in my DK2M

[marnold]

Well, I finally got around to doing the treble bleed mod today. The biggest problem was trying to get the leads for the cap and the leads to the tone pot and switch all crammed into one lug while still having a mechanical connection and not just solder. It is even more fun to try that sans fingertips. Anyway. I got it wired up and it worked the first time out, just like I had hoped it would. It stays very bright no matter how far down you turn the pot. With the volume down about half-way it sounds very similar to wiring the coils in parallel instead of series. It's probably too bright, actually, but that's what the tone knob is there for! I'll probably be twiddling with the controls like Joe Bonamassa in no time. My Jet City amph is so dynamic and now I can take advantage of that!

Then, when I put the pot back in place, there was very little volume. Then it cut out entirely. Argh! There is only a little spot for the pot itself, deeper than the rest of the control cavity (You can't really see that in the picture below with the volume pot but you can with the tone. The little recess is even smaller for the volume.) The cavity is shielded. Apparently I left a lead too long and it was shorting on the shielding. A couple snips and some slight careful bending of the lugs later and we're in business.

Here's a picture. Before it was just a rat's nest of wires. Now it's a rat's nest of wires with a big ol' orange thing in there!
http://lh6.ggpht.com/_OT7l0dXu4To/S_gScPI9dFI/AAAAAAAAAoc/qSVAyiqaPaE/s400/IMG_0299.JPG

For what it's worth, the cap is a .001 uf Orange Drop, one of the 600V monsters. I used the wiring diagram here (http://www.dominocs.com/AshBassGuitar/modtreble.html) but without the resistor. I didn't want to mess with the taper of the pot at all. I've heard that the resistor is of greater benefit with single-coil guitars lest things get too shrill.

As an aside, that's the first picture I've posted on here taken with our new Canon PowerShot SX20IS.

[marnold]

I just spent a goodly amount of time testing it out. It really helps on cleaner settings because the Jet City doesn't have a ton of clean headroom. It can almost sound single-coil-like, just without any hum. Before the mod, my neck pickup would get muddy very quickly when you rolled down the volume. The bridge wasn't anywhere near as bad. The middle position rolled off a bit combined with my Chorus Factory gave a pretty convincing fake 12 string.

That naturally made me want to take my fuzz pedal for a spin with it. It really sounded great for Hendrix-y kind of stuff and for Iommi stuff on the bridge pickup. I found myself rolling off the tone knob a bit because my Cool Cat Fuzz can go from fuzz to fizz awfully quickly. Nevertheless, rolling off the volume made for more single-coil-esque output which I think plays better with fuzz pedals.

Then I cranked the gain and was going to try rolling off the volume there. I got too caught up playing 80s metal riffs so I'll have to try that more later. :) What little I did test showed that I can roll off the volume and the neck to clean it up a bit and it doesn't descend into mud at all.

Long story short is that it is a cheap way to make better use of my fancy new tube amph. It really widens the sonic palette of my guitar tremendously. For the first time in my life, the knobs on my guitar won't stay parked at 10.

[otaypanky]

Any time I have tried experimenting with a treble bleed I found it too extreme and ended up taking it out.
A low impedance cable can do a lot to preserve the sparkle and the highs when rolling down on your guitar's volume pots. A George L is an efficient cable that's not too pricey and widely available. Good quality pots and caps help a lot too. Together, the controls are much more effective and the tone stayed a lot more 'natural' to my ears. Wiring a humbucker guitar "50's style" gives some more versatility and helps preserve the highs.

When I tried the treble bleed, I temporarily soldered leads that extended out from under the pickguard. That allowed me to make quick and easy changes while trying different value caps

[marnold]

You aren't the only one to feel that way. In my case, though, I really like the way everything turned out. The only time it gets too bright is when the knob is almost at zero. Of course, then the volume is so low that it might be the lowness of volume making it seem like there's extra brightness because of how poorly the human ear hears lows. I'll have to crank my amph to 11 and turn the guitar almost all the way down and see what happens.

[Jimi75]

I have that mod made on all of my guitars. It's a great help to keep the cleans fresh and tight when the volume gets turned back.

[Kazz]

Rev....if you could try it out with your Vox too it would sure help us guys who still have the AD30VT as our only amp.

[marnold]

Rev....if you could try it out with your Vox too it would sure help us guys who still have the AD30VT as our only amp.
I'll make a mental note to do that tomorrow when my son is at school. He's got the Vox in his room now.

As an aside, can one of you electronics gurus tell me how this works? I know that with a tone pot the cap shunts (not sure that's the right verb) highs to the ground. What's the function here?

[marnold]

I tried it with the AD30VT just now. When using the high gain models (anything past UK80s) as I turned down the volume it sounded like someone turning up the treble but not really affecting the gain at all. It didn't get less crunchy until the volume was so low that it was almost off entirely and the noise gate was constantly kicking in.

The UK80s and UK70s models responded very nicely to it. There was an increase in treble as you turned down the volume, but also a decrease in distortion. Not as dramatic as my Jet City, but still pretty impressive.

Most of the clean models were very fun to play with. Backing off the volume turned my bridge JB into a PAF basically: somewhat brighter, lower output, very nice. If mainly use the low to medium gain amphs, it's a very nice effect. If you use the high gain ones, I wouldn't bother. Those amph models tend to dominate your tone regardless of what guitar/pickup combo you put into it.