Right; a bit of a novice question, but I've asked about gear basics on the board before and have got helpful comments, so here I am again. I've got a Mexican Tele that I'm planning to get a new pickup installed in, but I'm also thinking about swapping out the tone and volume pots and capacitors in an attempt to get closer to the sound I'm after - trebly, scratchy; think NY no wave, Contortions, DNA etc, Fire Engines, Trout Mask-era Beefheart.In general, I never touch the tone knob, and rarely the volume. I'm going to stick a treble bleed circuit on the volume, but I haven't got a clue about the tone. Would 1meg pots be virtually unusable in both the volume and tone pots? Is swapping capacitors a good idea on top of that?

You could just bypass the tone pot and capacitor if you don't use the tone control and want something brighter. The tone pot can only reduce hi-end, it forms an RC low-pass filter with the capacitor.

I think the some in the Magic Band used phase switches on their guitars. It was popular at the time. Neil Young had one in Old Black but replaced it with a switch that sends the bridge pickup straight to the output jack as tmoney described.He s definitely not playing No Wave but fast forward to 4:15 to compare the soundsphpBB [media]

Also, I don t know anything about that pickup, but I think you are going in the right direction with getting a lower output pickup to exaggerate the high end. No idea how that would react with the phase mod outlined above, however, since the out of phase pickups subtract from each other and you re starting out with a low output to begin with.

Cheers for the suggestions. I think I'm leaning towards bypassing the tone pot altogether, but the phase switch is interesting; I imagine it's possible to bypass the tone control and use the control as a push/pull phase switch instead? With regards to the volume pot, I think the stock value is 250k. Adding a treble bleed circuit and swapping the pot out for 500k - a good idea for the sort of sound I'm after? From my (limited) understanding, the volume pot creates a resonant peak at the cut-off frequency, and the higher the value, the greater the resonance.

Mollusc In Country wrote:In general, I never touch the tone knob, and rarely the volume. I'm going to stick a treble bleed circuit on the volume, but I haven't got a clue about the tone. Would 1meg pots be virtually unusable in both the volume and tone pots? Is swapping capacitors a good idea on top of that?If you don't use the volume knob you don't need a treble bleed circuit (it is designed to retain treble as you roll off the volume).If you don't use the tone knob the capacitor value is nearly irrelevant (the value determines the high end rolloff as you turn the knob).1Meg pots were used in Jazzmasters and Jaguars. I think their tone controls work great, but the volume knob sucks too much treble as you roll it off. Whoever said don't use volume or tone pots is probably right for what you're after. Not being able to mute your guitar with a volume knob is kind of annoying though, but I guess you could use a tuner pedal for that.Also, a phase switch is only audible when both pickups are on, FWIW.

I think your string and pick choices should be considered if you want bright; this can make a massive difference.If I think of strings I hated for brighteness in the past... Blue Steel, GHS boomersI see dunlop even makes a 'bright' string but they're claiming to tame the highs https://www.jimdunlop.com/product/desbn ... 08629-6.do

Also, do not overlook the role that cables will play insofar as highend is concerned. The lower the capacitance of the cable, this more trebly your tone. Compare, for example, a George L cable wth a Dunlop of the same length. The latter is much darker. Coiley cables are usually much darker sounding on account of their requiring lot more actual length to achiive functional length (because they are coiley). Rumour has it that Hendrix used Coiley's to tame the highend of the strat's bridge pickup.

TylerSavage wrote:I think your string and pick choices should be considered if you want bright; this can make a massive difference.If I think of strings I hated for brighteness in the past... Blue Steel, GHS boomersI see dunlop even makes a 'bright' string but they're claiming to tame the highs https://www.jimdunlop.com/product/desbn ... 08629-6.doAnything stainless steel if you want super bright.

I'm wary of getting rid of the volume control altogether; when I do use it, I find it quite essential for getting an 'only just' overdriven sound. So would an option be to swap it to a 1meg and stick in a treble bleed circuit? My thinking here is that the 1meg would allow more highs to come through, and the treble bleed would retain some of the treble as I turn it down.