Zero Treble Loss mod?

Hey Gang,

Pat's guitars talk about this mod for zero treble loss with a Tele or Esquire.

Here's the mod,
"

Also please note that I have completed the control harness with the perfect finishing touch: my very popular resistor-capacitor volume kit. If you have a good ear, you have probably noticed that when you roll off the volume control on a guitar your tone changes. There is a minor but significant treble roll-off that occurs along with the volume roll-off. Although the treble cut in the volume control is not nearly as steep as the treble roll-off that occurs with your tone control, it is still strong enough to annoy any player who makes much use of the volume control on his or her guitar. The treble loss problem is solved on this Telecaster, thanks to a 1000pf capacitor and a 220K resistor wired together to the volume pot, which work to eliminate the usual loss of high frequencies at lower volume settings. Finally your volume control will only cut your volume, it will not cut your highs as well!"
http://www.patsguitars.com/images/auctions/presale/vkit2.jpg

Here's another look:
http://www.patsguitars.com/images/auctions/presale/vkit.jpg

Should the pair be twist-braided and wired between the center lug (output) and the open lug (pickup input)?

Best regards, look forward to replies!

Ward

The treble bleed should be connected between the wiper of the pot and lug 3. So yes.

Thanks Guitar Ninja...

Here's the e-Bait auction where the pictures came from.

A Totally gorgeous Thinline Blackout Tele from our man, Pat. (http://cgi.ebay.com/The-Ultimate-Fender-Telecaster-Black-Voodoo-Supreme_W0QQitemZ150250651033QQihZ005QQcategoryZ38 083QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem)

I had something like that on a parts Tele and cut off all my highs. It came with the contol assembly I bought used , Couldn't figure out what was making my HB sound so muddy , Took it off and fixed my problem.

The addition of a .001 cap between the outside and center lug of the volume pot was Fender's solution to the treble loss "problem" from about 68 to 83 and is often called a "treble bleed" mod, although it actually keeps the treble in the circuit when the volume is rolled off, and doesn't bleed off treble. I was never a fan of the .001 cap mod, as to my ear it seems to suck the middle and bottom out of the tone in order to keep the treble up as you roll the volume down.

How different is your mod in practice from the old .001 cap mod? Do you still get middle and bottom, along with treble, when you roll off the volume? Thanks for the info.

I tried different cap values all the way down to 10pf and even that low it didn't sound natural to me. I also tried resistors of varying values both in series and in parallel with the cap with the same results: the sound got thinner and more trebly as I rolled the volume off. Though I actually didn't notice much of a treble loss to begin with so no big loss.

comparing to regular "treble bleed" mod (only the. 001cap) , what does the added resistor improve ?



once i was very interested in fezz parka´s offered cool mod (http://www.tdpri.com/forum/tele-tech/29394-share-your-tele-tweaks.html#post274681), which should leave the tone without much dropping the predialed treble when volume rolled down, but on the same time souding much more natural (the treble bleed tends to sound too sterile, specially with 250 pots, at least that´s what i´ve noticed on my teles). However, somehow i did not achieve what i hoped and went the easier, treble bleed cap way, and installed a little bigger capacity to smoothen the trebles out a bit. So one of mine has now 500 pots and a .002 (if i remember correctly) for treble bleed cap and it seems to hold the tone exactly, neither going treblier nor muddier, when volume is rolled down.

tt

The fezz parka mod worked great on my strat (which I rewired to have master volume, master tone, and neck blend for the bridge positions - great setup overall IMHO). It retained the highs in a natural, balanced way when I rolled the volume off. I did try using a cap without resistors before that, which kept the treble, but kept too much treble and made my tone more trebley as I rolled the volume off.

I tried to do something similar in a Les Paul type guitar (actually, 50's LP wiring is where Fezz got the idea - it's referred to as the "50's mod"). It hasn't worked so well. My neck pup still loses all its treble when I roll the volume off. I haven't bothered figuring out why. I bet I messed something up. The wiring on that guitar is a HUGE MESS. I thought it would be cool to have two push-pull pots to switch each pickup from series to parallel. I also tried doing "star grounding" where you ground everything to the same spot. I had like 20 ground wires soldered to this one ring terminal and some of them aren't connected very well. I know my bridge tone ground isn't connected well 'cause it's scratchy and intermittent. I've been too lazy to try to fix it.