Volume and Tone question 2007> PRS's

[prudd]

Hi all,
I have owned/own around 6 PRS guitars from around the 2007 to 2011 era (25th anniversary Modern eagle 3, Santana and 305. a PS CU24 to name a few), on every one of them the tone works as you would expect when the volume is on 10, however if you drop the volume a touch the tone control seems to behave like a secondary volume and does not work as a tone control. Anyone else find this?

thanks, Paul

 

[veinbuster]

Yes. This happens. I believe it started with the 5x/0x series of pickups.

 

[garrett]

That doesn't sound right at all to me.

 

[AP515]

I've not experienced this.

 

[Tone-y]

Well a tone control is kind of a volume control that works over specific frequencies. So volume will always be reduced to an extent when using a tone control as you are reducing the volume of a set of frequencies.

Now, what I suspect you are noticing is the effect of the 'treble bleed' capacitor on the volume control. And I guess this is an effect that may be more noticeable to some people more than others depending on a particular rig/setup/playing volume and how much treble frequencies a person can still hear (how old you are etc!)
What the treble cap on the volume pot does is bypass some of the treble content when you start to wind the volume down - like a reverse tone pot, so the lower frequencies start to drop in volume before the higher frequencies (retaining the highs!). Now when you do that, you have more treble content in your signal, then you turn your tone control down, (that is a volume control for the higher frequencies remember) and it feels like you are turning an additional volume pot as the lower frequencies have already been reduced via the actual volume pot.

I hope that is all understandable. Anyway, I would say that what you are experiencing is normal and not the result of anything wrong. You may just be noticing it more than other people. You can always take one of your guitars that you least like this effect on and de-solder (or clip), one leg of the little capacitor on the volume pot and see what that does for you.

 

[jvin248]

.

That 'feature' is often a result of a "50s wiring" setup that some use instead of a treble bleed. A well done treble bleed is transparent and allows turning the volume down without a change in tone and a correctly wired tone pot will not change the volume when turning that down. If you have a 50s wiring style then they both interact (and why I dislike them). Some players like the 50s wiring due to nostalgia and the fact they never turn their tone knob off ten.

Best treble bleed discussion I've seen is this thread, gives insights and you can use it to try different treble bleeds that may work better with your specific amps/modelers/etc/etc.
http://guitarnuts2.proboards.com/thread/5317/treble-bleed-circuit

.

 

[Tone-y]

I'm not sure that this is a result of 50s wiring. Whilst 50s wiring might react the way that you say (I'm not sure I have first hand experience of it) a quick look through the wiring schematics on the PRS website shows that PRS uses the 'modern' wiring method rather than 50s. So therefore I stand by my description of what is happening. I rather suspect that the mechanism of the tone reducing a bit of volume on a 50s wired guitar and a modern guitar with a 'treble bleed' is probably the same anyway, so we're probably talking about the same effect but resulting from different approaches.

A 'treble bleed' cap is always a bit of a best guess as factory fitted anyway. If you don't have long cable lengths or multiple effects pedals (not driven by a buffer anyway) you may find that it is set too strong, and thus notice the issue with the tone pot. Whereas if you're running through longer cables, have higher parasitic capacitance etc it might balance just right and you don't notice any issues with the tone control/

 

[prudd]

Thanks for your input guys, I think I will try de-soldering the little cap and see what happens, easy to put back if it all goes pear shaped. I play at home through a Fuchs ODS30 ( overkill I know!) and rarely use effects, just a decent quality 10 ft cable straight into the amp. Your point about age Tone-y might be coming into play here, as Im getting on a bit at 63 LOL.
I will let you know how it works out.
thanks, Paul