Gretsch tone toggle: does /anyone/ use it?

[Snags]

Having satisfied two lusts with one stone (green guitar, Gretsch) by acquiring @Cirrus 's rejected Elliot Easton, and being informed by him that on his he just bypasses the tone toggle entirely, I, in my infite wisdom thought "No, let's leave it in play, who knows, it might come in handy".

But it doesn't. He was right, it is merely an extra bit of shiny waiting to trip you up. It's just utterly pointless; it's either in the middle position or it sounds shit.

Does anyone ever in the whole history of guitar ever have it in a different position? And why haven't Gretsch worked out that they could just fit a standard pot to all their guitars for tone, might might actually be useful? Or am I some sort of ignorant peasant[1] who has failed to grok the true glory of this system?


[1] I mean, in general, yes, but I'm talking specifics here.

 

[Cirrus]

Yeah it's totally useless as it stands. The utility of a tone knob is that you can bring it down to like 7 and shave off some treble. Gretsch's system gives you a choice between the equivalent of no load, or turning a knob down to either 0.5 or 0 if you flick up or down.

I have to admit, at the moment the one on my Gretsch *is* working following a recording session where my singer asked if I could get a slightly warmer tone and I was forced to admit that no, I could not. I can't remember what values are in yours. On mine I put, iirc, 1nf on one side and 10nf on the other. 1nf just gets rid of the top end, so there are very very rare times it's useful to mellow things out.

 

[Jarick]

Same people that use the Jazzmaster rhythm circuit

 

[laxu]

Same people that use the Jazzmaster rhythm circuit

I'm still baffled why it uses different value tone pots instead of being just a duplicate of the main pots so you can just set it for two different tones.

I do use it, but not a whole lot.

 

[Jarick]

I'm still baffled why it uses different value tone pots instead of being just a duplicate of the main pots so you can just set it for two different tones.

I do use it, but not a whole lot.

Probably because it's whatever Leo had on hand!

 

[metropolis_4]

I believe the original idea for that was from Chet Atkins as a way to more quickly and precisely switch between the settings he needed than a knob.

Can’t remember where I read about that…