Treble Bleed on the McCarty 594, who has done it?

[Roland Polyak]

What a great Christmas day: I've just installed a treble bleed kit (1 x Sprague Orange Drop Capacitor – 0.001 uf 1 x pre-soldered 130k resistor) to my PRS McCarty 594! I've also recorded a before / after or with or without treble bleed circuit video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QkqmMlkpxo
Put your headphones on and check the difference that this clever circuit causes as I turn down the volume on the guitar! Let me know how do you like it!

 

[shallbe]

More power to you guys that like the treble bleed. Whatever works for you is what works!

Personally, I clip them out of all my PRS that have them. I do one leg as a test first, so it is an easy fix if needed. However, in every case I prefer it gone. I play my guitars onstage with a Matchless amp, and I like the tone with a decreased volume knob and no bleed. It sounds sweeter and fuller to me.

 

[BrianC]

interesting - potato / patato

 

[garrett]

I ended up doing the 50's wiring mod on mine a couple months ago and couldn't be happier. Much more of the highs are maintained when rolling the volumes back now, which works great for me.

 

[JimmyDee]

When I did the full gut & rebuild of my Tremonti SE, I added treble bleed caps to the neck and bridge...
https://forums.prsguitars.com/threads/ngd-tremonti-se-full-rebuild.30507/

Here's what I installed:
Sprague Orange Drop .022uF 715P 600V capacitor - for the neck.
Sprague Orange Drop .001μF 715P 600V capacitor & 150k Ohm resistor - for to the bridge.

Made a nice difference on both.

However, this is not what I would define as a 'necessary mod'. Just personal preference. To me, it sounded better.
I have no caps on my CE24, and it sounds great too.

 

[Rusty Chops]

More power to you guys that like the treble bleed. Whatever works for you is what works!

Personally, I clip them out of all my PRS that have them. I do one leg as a test first, so it is an easy fix if needed. However, in every case I prefer it gone. I play my guitars onstage with a Matchless amp, and I like the tone with a decreased volume knob and no bleed. It sounds sweeter and fuller to me.

I agree with this. I have tried treble bleeds in the past. Not for me.
My PRSes tend towards bright. So I run the amp set up for that.
Volume on the guitar runs from one sweet spot to another when I turn up, sometimes with a tone adjustment too.

 

[ViperDoc]

It's all about the values applied. I placed Stewmac treble bleed circuits on my 594 volume pots and I love the clarity at lower volumes, but I feel the volume knobs lost a bit of their original tone-shaping capabilities. I could use a smoother treble bleed-off at lower settings, just not sure what the values would be.

 

[garrett]

It's all about the values applied. I placed Stewmac treble bleed circuits on my 594 volume pots and I love the clarity at lower volumes, but I feel the volume knobs lost a bit of their original tone-shaping capabilities. I could use a smoother treble bleed-off at lower settings, just not sure what the values would be.

The values definitely matter, as well as the taper of the pot itself, and the pickups.

I like the taper of the PRS volume pots, so I'm good with just the cap on those. The 180pf seems to work well, if maybe a bit conservative. I think the common 1nf value is too much with most pickups. I think the one on my Strat is 560pf, which is great in that guitar. I've had good results with 220pf and 330pf as well. The higher the value, the more treble when lowering the volume.

It's easy to experiment with this stuff. You can buy a few different values and solder temporary wires to the volume pot lugs. Then, connect your various caps and/or resistors to the other end with alligator clips. Give it some play time and adjust until you're happy. Then you're ready to do the permanent install.

The ideal for me is the volume pot should should just control my volume/gain and not the tone. Controlling the tone is what the tone control is for...

 

[ViperDoc]

The values definitely matter, as well as the taper of the pot itself, and the pickups.

I like the taper of the PRS volume pots, so I'm good with just the cap on those. The 180pf seems to work well, if maybe a bit conservative. I think the common 1nf value is too much with most pickups. I think the one on my Strat is 560pf, which is great in that guitar. I've had good results with 220pf and 330pf as well. The higher the value, the more treble when lowering the volume.

It's easy to experiment with this stuff. You can buy a few different values and solder temporary wires to the volume pot lugs. Then, connect your various caps and/or resistors to the other end with alligator clips. Give it some play time and adjust until you're happy. Then you're ready to do the permanent install.

The ideal for me is the volume pot should should just control my volume/gain and not the tone. Controlling the tone is what the tone control is for...

Nice, man. I agree the stock 180pf cap works really well, I have that on my original 594. I might play around with the values a bit on my other one.

Or simplify and go this route:

 

[Ironwolf]

volume knobs are definitely super flexible control component, depending on player style.
1 type of volume knob will not do it for everyone, master volumes, individual pickup volume control, volume swells......so on and so forth.
I use my volume knob like David Grissom, 10%, 20%, 30%, volume rolloff, literally creates 3 new tones,
I almost never go below 6, volume, the treble bleed for me keeps the EQ the same, and essentially rolls off the gain.
180 pF is doing the trick, so the taper or rate, is not something I'm after.