What do the knobs do on electric guitar? (continued)

June 23,2022

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Speaking from an electronics standpoint, the tone knob is a potentiometer and is part of a low pass filter. Turning the knob changes the resistance, which lowers the cut-off frequency.

 

This is similar to how a wah-wah pedal works, but wah-wah pedals may accentuate certain frequencies.

 

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Guitar Knob Layouts

 

Depending on your guitar brand and how it’s laid out, you may find that your guitar either has:

 

  • One volume knob and one tone knob (Ibanez Style)
  • One volume knob and two tone knobs (Fender Strat Style)
  • Two volume knobs and two tone knobs (Les Paul Style)

 

For the Fender type design, each tone knob controls the tone for one of the pickups. (isolated controllers). The volume knob affects the entire output at once. (master controller). The Les Paul design has two volume and two tone controls, which makes it more flexible.

 

Guitar Volume Knobs Explained

 

There are now hundreds of thousands of wacky effects pedals on the market. Effects pedals are a fantastic approach to bring forth some strange sounding beasts, every electric guitar includes one of the most flexible effects: the volume knob.

 

What does the volume knob on a guitar do?

 

Volume knobs on a guitar are potentiometers that increase or decrease the output level of the pickups when you turn the knob. The knob changes the value of the resistor from some resistance to maximum resistance. 250k or 500k Ohm pots are normally used.

 

A higher potentiometer value reduces the amount of treble that seeps into the ground via the potentiometer. This is easiest to see in Stratocasters which have naturally more treble single-coil pickups using 250k pots which will bleed more treble to ground than 500k pots that are used in a Les Pauls with humbucker pickups. The humbucking pickups have a darker timbre and therefore we want to keep as much of the high end as possible, which is why they use a higher pot value.

 

Audio Taper vs Linear Taper Pots

 

Pots are available in two basic forms: Linear taper and Audio taper. If you’re viewing the pot from the rear, audio tapers are typically marked with an “A” and Linear Tapers are marked with a “B.”

 

Fender uses audio taper pots for both volume and tone controls in their guitars. For both audio and tone controls, Gibson employs linear taper pots. Some manufacturers use a mix of audio taper and linear taper in their designs. So what’s the difference? Why would different companies use different types of pots?

 

The type of pots, like many things in the guitar and music world, is a matter of personal taste.

 

Linear taper, as the name implies, varies resistance from 0 Ohms up to the value of the pot (250k or 500k) with an even distribution. The relationship between the pot and the resistance is fixed, which means that if you set the control at 50% (Turn the knob to 5), it will have a resistance of 250k.

 

There is, however, a catch. The human ear does not perceive volume in a linear manner. The taper of the audio taper pot is intended to match our ears’ perception of volume change more precisely.

 

Conclusion

 

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