A Guitar Volume Circuit to help stop Treble Bleed

Before finding the guitar volume circuit, I used to have the volume adjustment on all my guitars set all the way up. I noticed that when the guitar volume was turned down I'd actually lose treble, as well as volume. So I grew accustomed to just having all the amps turned way down. I stumbled upon this volume circuit and tried it on one of my guitars.

The reason, I came to understand, is that the pickups, tone pots, cable, etc., all contributes to making what is essentially a low pass filter. I guess it makes some sense because the pickup coil is nothing but a big inductor.

At any rate if you have a 250Kohm pot, use a 150 ohm resistor in series with a .001 micro farad resistor, and wire it as shown in the diagram. A 500kohm tone pot would require a resistor about double in size. It worked for me, maybe it'll work for you. You can change the resistor value up to about the value of the tone pot.

Seymour Duncan recommends a .022 micro farad capacitor in parallel with a 100 ohm resistor, wired to the volume pot as shown. I've yet to try this parallel arrangement, but I can turn the volume down about half way now, without losing any tone. Like anything, give it a try, and mess around with it, that's most of the fun, Good luck JB.

Return from Guitar Volume Circuit to Electric Guitar Info home