Better Tone Through Television

     Have you ever done this? You grab your favorite axe and sit down, unplugged, in front of the TV to add some tasteful guitar lines to whatever network brainwash is on and find yourself reaching down to make sure all your tone controls are on 10. I caught myself doing this recently during an episode of NYPD Blue. I find that the show is greatly improved by adding Albert King phrases whenever Sipowitz gets that "scowl" on his face, which is the reason I keep tuning in. On this particular occasion, however, as I was getting ready to hit that first note, I noticed I had taken my right hand and dragged it across all the controls to make sure they were maxed out. This would have made perfect sense had an amplifier been in the room and had my guitar actually been plugged into it. However, this not being the case, I realized that I had the same subconscious misgivings that many players have towards tone controls, which is that they should be renamed anti-tone controls since they seem to take more tone than they give. Fortunately, it doesn't have to be this way. These controls when fine tuned can actually add to the tonal versatility available on your guitar. Let's examine these tone modifiers a little more closely and see if we can find a practical application for them.

     I get asked quite frequently from not only beginning guitar players, but seasoned pros as to the purpose of the tone control. This control is designed to allow you to remove varying degrees of highs from your guitar to give you a mellower, warmer, smoother, less biting tone. It can be especially nice for rhythm as the reduced highs allow the instrument to slip into the background more easily.

     Component-wise these controls consist of two parts - a capacitor and a potentiometer. These components are wired in a configuration that as you turn the potentiometer (pot) towards 1, it bleeds off part of the guitar's signal to ground via the capacitor. The larger the capacitor, the further the range of frequencies that will be filtered out. Typical values for the pot are 250k or 500k and for the capacitor .1, .05, or .02 micro farad (mfd). The general rule of thumb has been to use the larger value caps, .1 or .05 mfd, for single-coil equipped guitars, and smaller values, .05 or .02 mfd, for humbucking equipped guitars. The logic behind this is that single-coils are much brighter sounding and need a larger cap to adequately reduce the top end. Well here's a hint. Don't listen to the rule of thumb. Using too large a cap will give you a muddy, muffled tone and possibly a loss in volume. This is the reason most people leave their tone controls on 10. If you are experiencing this type of problem with your tone control, change the cap to a smaller value. If you feel real adventurous, go down to your local electronics store and pick up an assortment of caps - .1, .05 (or .047), .03, .02, etc. - and choose for yourself. Don't assume the manufacturer picked the correct cap for you, especially if you have changed pickups on your guitar. I prefer using smaller caps. Eric Clapton was able to use these controls to devastating effect by using smaller than normal caps on his tone controls and then rolling the tone all the way off to create what he nicknamed "woman tone". This would give him a warm, thick sound that would make certain notes more prone for feedback and actually achieved a tone that had a sort of "growl" to it. If you think about it, how many tones are you aware of that have actually been given a name? Not many.

     Of course, there are other types of tone controls offered by the guitar manufacturers and after market companies. Here are a few of the more popular ones:

Fender TBX Control - stands for treble/bass expander. Standard issue on many of the Fender guitars, this control adds an extra dimension to the typical tone control. From 1 to 5 it acts as a conventional tone control and rolls off highs. From 5 to 10 it adds extra presence and brightness by shifting the frequency response of the pickups.

Gibson Varitone - Gibson of course has used this, and B.C. Rich has offered their own version, as does Griblin Engineering. This 6 position device uses capacitance and inductance to create a "notch" in certain spots in your guitar's audio spectrum, primarily in the midrange frequencies. Can give you some interesting "out of phase" sounds, acoustic-like tones, etc.

Advanced Midrange Control - a Griblin Engineering product. Turn the control knob one way and it cuts mids for a glassy, acoustic-like sound, great for rhythm and turn it the other way for thicker, hotter sounds, great for leads.

Active Tone Controls - Chandler Industries, Starrswitch, Musitech and a host of others offer their own version of this type of control. These are battery operated devices installed directly into your guitar which can make a dramatic change in your tone. You'll think your guitar was injected with steroids. Some of these devices add gain only (and a significant increase in volume), others offer eq adjustments as well, usually, but not always limited to, the midrange frequencies. This allows you to cut the midrange, boost the midrange and add gain to give you a great deal of flexibility. If you have a wimpy guitar, these'll put some biceps on it.

     Of course, none of these changes will do you much good if all you do is play to your TV set.............but then again, what's to stop you from putting a Marshall stack in your family room? Talk about a home entertainment system.