Tips for a low cut pot needed

[Sascha Franck]

Hi folks,

so, while I'm pretty happy with the neck pickup of my PRS DGT SE, I would like to tame the low end a little here and there. And as I don't seem to need the individual volume control anymore (didn't really touch it much after changing the bridge volume to master), I would love to abuse it as a low cut.

So, I gather that in general a passive low cut would work pretty much like a treble bleed circuit, just with a lot larger values for the cap, right?

Anyhow, before trying out tons of caps and what not, I'd rather wanted to ask you fine folks whether there's any kinda "golden build" low cut combinations (of caps, resistors and pots).

I would really like this to be a rather smooth affair, I don't need any truly drastic cuts. I just fooled around with an EQ on a recorded DI take and would say that something around 150Hz would be a decent place to start with a little bit of low shelving/cutting.
Ideally, any such a control should not affect the overall output but just anything below the cut frequency.
So, what components and what values should I look at?

Any pointers are greatly appreciated!

 

[Chocol8]

I happen to have this bookmarked even though I have yet to use it...

The Recording Guitarist: The Fabulous “Focus Knob”

A studio-savvy wiring mod that’s quick, easy, and cheap.

www.premierguitar.com

Basically you are using a coupling cap to strip bass (as is done in many amp stages) except you use the pot to allow selective amounts of bass to bypass the cap. It's a bit backwards from the treble bleed.

The article suggests a few values, and I would recommend ordering a selection to try as caps are cheap enough and it's hard to say what you will like until you try it. If you want to get adventurous, a bunch of caps and a rotary switch would let you fine tune on the fly, but probably overkill.

 

[Sascha Franck]

That looks good. Will try as the first thing in 2026.

 

[newholland]

why not just tip the pickup bass side down a turn?

 

[Sascha Franck]

why not just tip the pickup bass side down a turn?

Err... sorry, but I'll leave it to yourself to find out.

 

[newholland]

Err... sorry, but I'll leave it to yourself to find out.

okay. its worked for me for forty years
brother, no reason to be offish.

 

[Sascha Franck]

okay. its worked for me for forty years
brother, no reason to be offish.

See, this is what I wrote:

I would like to tame the low end a little here and there.

Hence, I don't want to permanently thin things out. Which is what lowering the low string side of the pickup would do.

 

[FuzzyAce]

Here's a simple one that works well. 500K works fine too, but I prefer 1M.

 

[newholland]

i understand the mission- but sometimes, its accomplishable by splitting the mean with your already installed treble pot and getting bass dialed to the golden spot- not necessarily thinning it out per se. not tryna be a pill about it at all. some guys don't like to touch their pickups- so just tossed the captain obvious answer!

my worry adding extry knobs is generally losing stuff inadvertently for oftentimes negligible gains sonically. some hairs need to be split, and some, eh.. less so. def not tryna give you a rash.

 

[FuzzyAce]

i understand the mission- but sometimes, its accomplishable by splitting the mean with your already installed treble pot and getting bass dialed to the golden spot- not necessarily thinning it out per se. not tryna be a pill about it at all. some guys don't like to touch their pickups- so just tossed the captain obvious answer!

my worry adding extry knobs is generally losing stuff inadvertently for oftentimes negligible gains sonically. some hairs need to be split, and some, eh.. less so. def not tryna give you a rash.

Well, the lo cut is a cool option to have installed. Most of my guitars have it now so that says a lot for how much I love it being there. It's just giving you a bit more flexibility right at your finger tips.

 

[newholland]

its definitely a good spin on a tone circuit- basically an onboard rangemaster. for humbuckers (especially in les pauls), i think id prefer that over a treble rolloff which is useful as tits on a fish. for me anyhow... not much 'woman tone' in my world

 

[FuzzyAce]

its definitely a good spin on a tone circuit- basically an onboard rangemaster. for humbuckers (especially in les pauls), i think id prefer that over a treble rolloff which is useful as tits on a fish. for me anyhow... not much 'woman tone' in my world

In a few of my strats I'll use 1 vol, 1 lo cut, 1 hi cut. I like the tone controls with a 1M pot, and the hi cut I'll wire in a .1µF cap to ground. Lo cut the .001µF cap. There's a decent amount of range when they're working together.

 

[Sascha Franck]

Thing is, I started to "re-like" humbuckers in neck position (almost hated them for quite some time), I also often like that fat, juicy, wooly kinda tone - but then there's those moments when I just need a somewhat slicker version of that sound. Doesn't have to sound like a single coil, doesn't have to be much, just to remove some low end "mud" to add a bit of clarity. And as I have a pot kinda freed up in this guitar, a bass cut circuit seems like the best option.

 

[FuzzyAce]

Thing is, I started to "re-like" humbuckers in neck position (almost hated them for quite some time), I also often like that fat, juicy, wooly kinda tone - but then there's those moments when I just need a somewhat slicker version of that sound. Doesn't have to sound like a single coil, doesn't have to be much, just to remove some low end "mud" to add a bit of clarity. And as I have a pot kinda freed up in this guitar, a bass cut circuit seems like the best option.

It's perfect for what you're describing then.

 

[newholland]

Thing is, I started to "re-like" humbuckers in neck position (almost hated them for quite some time), I also often like that fat, juicy, wooly kinda tone - but then there's those moments when I just need a somewhat slicker version of that sound. Doesn't have to sound like a single coil, doesn't have to be much, just to remove some low end "mud" to add a bit of clarity. And as I have a pot kinda freed up in this guitar, a bass cut circuit seems like the best option.

thats fair. i pretty much went the other way with teles

 

[Sascha Franck]

500K works fine too, but I prefer 1M.

What's the difference in feel?