Do you use your TONE pot (dial) on your PRS guitar?

[HANGAR18]

Do you use your TONE pot (dial) on your PRS guitar or do you just play with it set to 10 (wide open) all the time?

If you do roll off on the tone pot, specifically on your PRS guitar (with factory installed potentiometers) I'm interested to know not only how low do you ever go with it but how if you would also elaborate on how good of a job do you feel the tone pot performs in providing a smooth and gradual alteration of the tone and at what point do you feel it becomes muddy and unusable (if at all)?

Also, when/if it transitions to a muddy tone, does it happen all at once like driving off a cliff or does it remain steady and gradual all the way down to zero? Please also specify what make and model year of PRS guitar you are talking about.

This poll is not for guitars which have had aftermarket pre-wired electronics kits installed. Basically, I want to know how PRS electronics over the years up into present day are, in your opinion, performing against those high performance aftermarket upgrade kits and how happy you are with the factory installed electronics.

 

[RickP]

Most times it’s wide open, but I do roll it back about half for some tones. I don’t recall any time where I was playing with it all the way down, at least on purpose. This is in reference to my 513s, the guitars I have gigged with the most.

 

[Dirty_Boogie]

What’s a Tone pot? That thing that sits where the pickup selector should be?

 

[Draconomics]

Almost never. Only for jazz tones, but generally, it's wide open. I'd rather control the treble from a pedal or the amp.

Honestly, Ive often thought about removing them altogether and doing something else in its place.

 

[markd21]

I use mine regularly. Most of the time it's at 8-9. That little roll-off seems noticeable to me. At 10, my guitar has a neat spongy twang. At 8-9 it sounds like a regular guitar. If I'm using the bridge humbucker with mid gain I like the tone around 7, depending on the sponginess of the amp - Engl vs. Diezel vs. Suhr, etc.

I also mess with the tone knob with different volume knob settings/pickup selections. I find that a lot of times I'll start with the volume rolled back to around 7 and the tone at 4, depending on the take, overall desired tone, and amp(s) being used. Sometimes I go farther down on the tone, sometimes more toward 10. Just depends on the level of twang and sponginess I am after.

Clean is a whole 'nother thing!!

 

[markd21]

Honestly, Ive often thought about removing them altogether and doing something else in its place.

I did that with an S2 Standard 22 once. It had the 7 pickups, and the tone greatly improved to my ears. When I was a serious gigging musician, I played Custom Shop Jackson/Charvels for years. 95% of my customs were bridge pickup and volume pot.

Toward the last 5-6 years of heavy gigging I discovered other pickups and tone pots, lol.

 

[bodia]

What’s a Tone pot? That thing that sits where the pickup selector should be?

I am firmly in this camp.

 

[Bowtiefanatc]

This one is missing a tone pot

 

[Tag]

Yes. Use it a lot. Works great!

 

[Tone-y]

I roll the tone down on the bridge quite often, I hardly ever do it on the neck pickup. Bridge I roll off so that it sounds like a quasi neck pickup probably somewhere around 4-5 at most. Mostly on clean or crunch tones and sometimes also with the volume rolled off a bit too. With full gain I only really roll off the tone on the bridge if going for a Eric Johnson type thing.
My guitar is a 2010 53/10 limited and I think the control is fairly even and progressive. I don't think there is any point it suddenly comes on or sounds muddy. All depends on the amp setting really.
I did clip the treble bleed cap on the volume pot mind, and change tone cap from .33 to .22 which is a hair brighter (to compensate for clipping the treble cap). Whilst removing the treble cap changes how the volume pot sweeps I don't think it had any effect on the tone pot

 

[Duvupov]

What's the difference between using the knobs on your guitar or using gain/bass/treble on your amp?

 

[WEDGE]

I am firmly in this camp.

yeah, me to…….they could all come this way and truthfully I wouldn’t really miss it much….

 

[Deleted member 5962]

99% of the time, it's wide open. Only time I ever use it is if I'm playing live and the preset I'm using is a bit brighter than I want, I may roll it down a bit. Then the next time I can, I reach over and roll presence or treble down a bit on the modeler and turn the guitar tone back up.

The only other time I use it, is if I'm flipping between humbucking and single coil positions, during a song. If I flip to singles, may roll it down to 7 or so to take some of the top end off, of a preset that was dialed in with humbuckers.

 

[DISTORT6]

I only roll the tone down on the neck pickup on my Singlecuts.
Otherwise, WFO.

 

[Toolmaster Of Brainerd]

On neck pickup, never. I am going to mod my PRS to disconnect the tone pot from the neck and have it only on the bridge. I did this on a strat-style HSS and it works well for me.

On the bridge pickup I'll sometimes roll it down for a smoother tone. I answered 4 in the survey. But I'll only do this if I have a fair amount of gain, so the effects of the tone knob are more subtle. There's definitely a difference between 4 and 10, but it's hard to hear the sweep. I'll try to listen for it next time I play.

98% of the time I have the tone knob on 10.

 

[jak3af3r]

What's the difference between using the knobs on your guitar or using gain/bass/treble on your amp?

The value of the capacitor attached to the resistor (variable in the case of a potentiometer) determines which frequency will be attenuated.

 

[bodia]

yeah, me to…….they could all come this way and truthfully I wouldn’t really miss it much….

LOVE!

 

[Dirty_Boogie]

What's the difference between using the knobs on your guitar or using gain/bass/treble on your amp?

Have you ever tried adjusting the tone on your amp mid-solo?

 

[Boogie]

Depends on the guitar. Mr. Clean’s tone gets ridden continuously with certain amps (SuperD comes to mind), but on my CU24, not so much. The SE One has a tone pot mod and a V-Treb, which is adjusted to a very cool notch frequency that I love with the old Gibson minihumbucker. No changes on that one unless I need to take off heads!

Keep in mind, he doesn’t talk about it much, but David Grissom cuts his tone a LOT. Wanna sound similar? Try going down to 3.

 

[dogrocketp]

The neck pickup down to 6 when I play samba, rhumba, salsa (no chips) with my thumb. If I get stuck using an incredibly bright back line, a number or two. With my own amps, never.