I didn't know Dime disconnected the tone pot in his guitars...............

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harddriver

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I guess Grady used to disconnect his tone pots in his guitars, I had never heard that one before I came across this posting in Seymour Duncan blogpost while looking for other information. I wonder how long Dime had been running with no tonepot like Nuno did/does???????

The entire article is cool to read if you like Dime stuff. I initially ran a tone pot on my Duno guitar that I just finished building with a Bill and Becky L500XL and two volumes and a tone pot and after reading this article I disconnected the tone pot and it gave the pickup more clarity and some high end without being harsh so now the guitar just has two volume pots, pretty much a Nuno setup now.

https://www.seymourduncan.com/blog/...one-with-dimebag-darrells-tech-grady-champion

It seems there were lots of little customizations on Dime’s guitars – the grip on the volume knob, the tape on the neck pickup, stuff like that. It sounds like he took an extremely active approach to his personal gear…


I did a lot of little customizations for him. The knobs I did with a soldering iron tip, disconnected tone knob, put tape along the neck pickup so no strings would get caught underneath, put foam in between the back plate and springs, and a little piece of foam behind the nut as well. Also, I scratched his .88 Tortex picks with a dart for grip. We worked very close together for many years. He always told me what he wanted and I did my best to accommodate him.
 
John Sykes did a similar thing: disconnected the Tone Pot on the Bridge pickup of his Les Paul
 
I knew that. I used to put a plastic cap in the hole where the pot would be. Now I just lift the wires, so I can put them back if I sell it.

Recently, I tried learning to actually USE my tone pots, but I don't. I should go back to snipping them. Not sure I'll go back to the plastic cap though. I've been rocking dummy knobs for a while now.
 
harddriver said:
I guess Grady used to disconnect his tone pots in his guitars, I had never heard that one before I came across this posting in Seymour Duncan blogpost while looking for other information. I wonder how long Dime had been running with no tonepot like Nuno did/does???????

The entire article is cool to read if you like Dime stuff. I initially ran a tone pot on my Duno guitar that I just finished building with a Bill and Becky L500XL and two volumes and a tone pot and after reading this article I disconnected the tone pot and it gave the pickup more clarity and some high end without being harsh so now the guitar just has two volume pots, pretty much a Nuno setup now.

https://www.seymourduncan.com/blog/...one-with-dimebag-darrells-tech-grady-champion

It seems there were lots of little customizations on Dime’s guitars – the grip on the volume knob, the tape on the neck pickup, stuff like that. It sounds like he took an extremely active approach to his personal gear…


I did a lot of little customizations for him. The knobs I did with a soldering iron tip, disconnected tone knob, put tape along the neck pickup so no strings would get caught underneath, put foam in between the back plate and springs, and a little piece of foam behind the nut as well. Also, I scratched his .88 Tortex picks with a dart for grip. We worked very close together for many years. He always told me what he wanted and I did my best to accommodate him.
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Dime was such an awesome guy. He was super cool when I got to hang with him.
 
Removing tone pots reduces capacitance (aka the capacitor on your tone pot) so now the guitar is sending more presence through your signal chain.
 
ners said:
Removing tone pots reduces capacitance (aka the capacitor on your tone pot) so now the guitar is sending more presence through your signal chain.
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the capacitor only really comes active if the tone is rolled way down.
If you remove the tone pot you don't damp the resonance peak of your PU as much.
a single 250k vol pot is nearly identical to a 500k vol 500k tone pot combi when everything is full up (provided your using a normal tone cap value), or 500k Vol compared to 1Meg vol + 1Meg Tone.
did he have a 500k or 250k pot?
 
I always like using No-Load pots. They take the pot completely out of the circuit on 10, but turns it back on as you start to turn it down. Best of both worlds.

You can even make them yourself if you want. If you take the pot apart and look at the exposed wafer, you just scrape away a tiny part of the counter-clockwise-most edge of the carbon. Done. It's a subtle difference but it does extend the top end and just a little bit of volume. It's totally worth doing imo.
 
TheGreatGreen said:
I always like using No-Load pots. They take the pot completely out of the circuit on 10, but turns it back on as you start to turn it down. Best of both worlds.

You can even make them yourself if you want. If you take the pot apart and look at the exposed wafer, you just scrape away a tiny part of the counter-clockwise-most edge of the carbon. Done. It's a subtle difference but it does extend the top end and just a little bit of volume. It's totally worth doing imo.
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I've used no loads on all my strats except the SSS and the EMG ones.

I like the one Fender sells. The indent is nice.

tbh I've only notice the difference on one guitar, and that was an HH guitar.
 
None of my guitars have the tone pot connected. Yes, I started doing that as soon as I heard Dime did that to his guitars. My ideal guitar is just a single bridge humbucker with a volume pot, that's it. Just like Marty Friedman's old Jackson kelly's.
 
I run a lot of my guitars like this.

I still have people trying to argue with me that you can't hear a difference..... They are WRONG.
 
anomaly said:
None of my guitars have the tone pot connected. Yes, I started doing that as soon as I heard Dime did that to his guitars. My ideal guitar is just a single bridge humbucker with a volume pot, that's it. Just like Marty Friedman's old Jackson kelly's.
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Funny enough Marty has a signature pickup set but it doesn't sound right in anyone's guitars unless you run it without tone pots connected.....

For his signature models, he said he only wanted to a single knob but they told him it would sell more if he had all of the others so he agreed.

He isn't like a tone/sound wizard so I am completely certain he had/has no idea that they aren't going to sound quite the same without that wiring/setup.
 
anomaly said:
None of my guitars have the tone pot connected. Yes, I started doing that as soon as I heard Dime did that to his guitars. My ideal guitar is just a single bridge humbucker with a volume pot, that's it. Just like Marty Friedman's old Jackson kelly's.
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I run my Franky and my Jake E Lee guitars with just straight 500K pots but I still have my tone control pots hooked up on my two 83 Kramer's and haven't really felt the need to disconnect them but I maybe I will try disconnecting the tone pots on them.

I guess I just always assumed Dime had his tone pot hookup up in the Dean from Hell. When I had my Dean Dime ML it had a BL USA L500XL in it and even flipped that pickup was shrill and grating to the ears, not much low end and needed the tone pot hookup to to dampen the shrill. Maybe it was just that one BLUSA pickup but I never liked it and moved that guitar long ago as I didn't find it comfortable to play anyway.

After that I was afraid this Bill and Becky L500XL I got to try would been the same as the BLUSA without the tone pot connected but it isn't at all. The B&B L500XL is more well balanced more lowend and even without the tone pot the high end isn't nasty shrill at all, I just find there's more clarity without it. It wasn't bad with the tonepot hooked up by any means but there is a difference with the dimed tone pot shaving off some highs versus NO tone pot.

If you have a really bright PAF'sh pickup I can see where you would want the tonepots connected on some pickups/guitars.
 
harddriver said:
I run my Franky and my Jake E Lee guitars with just straight 500K pots but I still have my tone control pots hooked up on my two 83 Kramer's and haven't really felt the need to disconnect them but I maybe I will try disconnecting the tone pots on them.

I guess I just always assumed Dime had his tone pot hookup up in the Dean from Hell. When I had my Dean Dime ML it had a BL USA L500XL in it and even flipped that pickup was shrill and grating to the ears, not much low end and needed the tone pot hookup to to dampen the shrill. Maybe it was just that one BLUSA pickup but I never liked it and moved that guitar long ago as I didn't find it comfortable to play anyway.

After that I was afraid this Bill and Becky L500XL I got to try would been the same as the BLUSA without the tone pot connected but it isn't at all. The B&B L500XL is more well balanced more lowend and even without the tone pot the high end isn't nasty shrill at all, I just find there's more clarity without it. It wasn't bad with the tonepot hooked up by any means but there is a difference with the dimed tone pot shaving off some highs versus NO tone pot.

If you have a really bright PAF'sh pickup I can see where you would want the tonepots connected on some pickups/guitars.
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I have been checking out the Bill and Becky pickups. If I get the cash and right guitar, I want to give them a shot.
 
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