heartofcygnus Posted May 16, 2008 Share Posted May 16, 2008 can someone explain to me how tone works on an electric guitar. i've been playing for a few years now for fun but i've never really bothered understanding tone. i have a fender strat with two humbuckers. any explanation would be appreciated. thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spitball Posted May 16, 2008 Share Posted May 16, 2008 QUOTE (heartofcygnus @ May 16 2008, 01:53 PM) can someone explain to me how tone works on an electric guitar. i've been playing for a few years now for fun but i've never really bothered understanding tone. i have a fender strat with two humbuckers. any explanation would be appreciated. thanks. Do you mean "tone" in a general way, or do you mean the tone controls on the guitar? If it's the former, then that's a vague, open-ended question that you may want to explain a bit better. If it's the latter, then I would say just experiment and listen to what it does (unless you want to know how the potentiometers actually work...Ican't help you there). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CygnusX-1Bk2 Posted May 16, 2008 Share Posted May 16, 2008 Tone controls on a guitar are a simple potentiometer which is a fancy resistor with variable resistance. So is a volume knob, but the ratings are different. When set to "10" the full signal passes through the "pot" without any resistance or signal loss. When set the other way the resistor reduces the high frequency content of the signal giving a warmer or rounder tone. Tone controls on amplifiers operate similarly but a little differently. They are more EQ than anything else. Generally speaking tone controls on an amp should be set to the middle for unaffected characteristics. Basically these should be viewed as having a "0" center point and plus or minus variables on either side of those (this is general and not all amps work this way). This is despite having a range from 1 - 10 (or 11 if you are in Spinal Tap). Fenders operate this way. So when set to "12 o'clock" (say between 5 and 6 on the knob) the signal will be unaffected, but settings from 0-5 will roll off the high frequency content (in a sense adding bass sonically) and settings 6-10 will add high frequency content. If there are more than one tone control on the amp then there are ranges for which these settings will apply with respect to the frequencies adjusted. Getting a good tone is another ball of wax completely. But all of this plays a part. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angua Posted May 17, 2008 Share Posted May 17, 2008 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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