This video is by far one of the best instructional videos I have ever seen. Additionally, it completely saved me as I was struggling to figure out how to wire pickups on a self-built guitar.
This is one of the very few explanations of a tone control that actually explains the scientific principles properly, rather than "here's where to put the wires". Thanks a lot!
You start with the most basic concept, and then build on this, concentric genius, so simple yet so genius, this is perfection of teaching. This will be my model for teaching videos.
Thank you! Exactly the explanation I was looking for! Short and to the actual point. Most videos are 30 minutes long and I end up with more questions! Thanks again! You must have heard me screaming! Take care!
Marc, your a life saver. I just watched your video after many others and I could see easily my problem on my project guitar and fix it quickly. I just needed the insight on how things worked to identify what I did wrong. So many times diagrams and people seem so uninformative, its just where instead of why, so much easier to fix something you understand just a little bit of. Thanks again
Thank you for the excellent tutorial on guitar electronics. Just the facts without a lot of extraneous nonsense in an attempt to impress. Great use of clear graphics to illustrate the points, which was excellent for conveying the information as efficiently as possible.
Thanks for these videos Marc ... they're VERY helpful to people like me trying to wire/re-wire a guitar for the first time to really understand what's going on.
very good, it helps to see both illustrations of the volume and tone control potentiometers: first as a long tube with ends and a wiper; and then as a round pot with terminals.
Very much appreciated!, thanks for spending your time on this- so many help vids go straight into the weeds - this was clear and helpful - you sir, are a damn fine people!
Thanks for a very helpful video! It really helps to have it explained from the ground up like you did. I'm looking forward to watching the rest of the series!
AWESOME presentation..direct, simple and very clearly demonstrated without unnecessary theories...hardwire only...many thanks...have subscribed and looking forward to viewing MORE of your great videos !!..tnks again !!
I don't even want to say what I do for a living, but you just taught me a lesson I've know forever... Know where the signal is going! You've cleared my head with this video. Thank you sir! I'm doing a multi cap strat killing rogue DC and AC interference with it. Two unique circuits and I just now realized I placed the DC cap on the wrong leg! Been a bad winter, loads of interference, just fixed my amp filter circuit a week ago, one faulty cap that is bad. Thank you from Texas!
Yes. Thank you so much for this video. I am going to attempt this for the first time. And this is exactly what I was looking for. It is, a truly excellent, instructional video.
This is the most practical and clear teaching video I have ever seen anywhere. I'm a retired teacher! great weldone! How about doing the same/similar for bass guitar?
Thank you very much! Electronics in basses doesn't really differ from electronics in guitars; blender pots and pre amps may be a bit more common in bass guitars.
I agree! I think these videos are VERY well done, and thought through. I am a teacher myself (music teacher) and I can relate with the fact that most often than not (if not always) we must deal with the very basics in a clear and succint way, to have a good foundation with the more intricate stuff. Congratulations Marc Van Oppen!
I have refurbished a trashed Strat body and now its a slick single coil short scale P bass using a Seymour Duncan Hot pu. I would like to be able to use the 3 position switch in a way so I can change tone. Can it be done and can you post how I could go about it. I'm ok at soldering despite my 70 years! Thanks.
thanks so much, i started studying basic electrics this semester and this stuff actually makes sense to me. might do some custom wiring for my strat some time!
That makes A LOT of sense, countless times on the schematic I see the arrow and am unsure on how to design the circuit accordingly. This presentation has helped heaps, plus I now now why I,m having hum issues :)
great video thanks, id never looked inside a guitar before and was able to install a new volume pot on an older guitar tha had it volumepot ripped out ages ago. very clear, thanks a million!
Thank you , thank you , thank you, so much out there jumps to switches and multiple pickups, or works backwards from an existing wiring system, this was very helpful, again thanks
@MitjaShi In this schematic lowering the volume will affect tone because part of the resistance of the potentiometer is in series with the hot side of the circuit when the volume is less than 100% up. To prevent this you could use a 'treble bleed'.
@MitjaShi There is one hot lead from each of the volume controls to each tone control; if you cut those the tone controls are out of the circuit. Don't worry about the ground connections (or perhaps capacitors between the tone control and the casing of the volume control, depending on how things are connected). Disconnect those two wires and you're good to go; if you want to go back to having tone control there is only one wire for each set of controls to reconnect.
Thanks again. I thought I had it done right, but I done something wrong hooking up a piezo cable & handmade pickup made from the winding in an old hard drive and two magnets. Aiming for one pot, gain, volume and one tone control for both. Used case as saddle and added wire to string for extra measure since saddle case holding the rig ought create a ground. So far failure.
Yes it is. Generally larger pots (500K) are used with humbuckers so more resistance will be in series when the volume is lowered. I use a treble bleed (just is simple small capacitor) on one of my humbucker guitars.
Hallo, veel opgestoken van je uitleg, vraagje; in een test stratocaster met 2 tonepots wou men liever de pickups aan 1 tonepot hangen, is er een verschil in geluid tussen 2 pots of capacitors? En een cabronita heeht geen tonepot, heeft die ook een capacitor of enkel pickups en volume?
@muaythai4lifelife Yes, you need a 'mirror image' pot. I'll try to explain it as simple as possible with images of life like pots and connections. Thanks for the idea, it will be a nice and useful addition to my videos.
Hi, a question for you. Many famous guitarists at one point decide to disconnect their tone potentiometer on the bridge pickup to get more sound ( as a tone & cap could suck high freq. even all the way open ) With a stock SG, how many connections must be unsoldered to properly do that? Thanx!
Thanks Marc, this is a great video. I'm just a little confused about the signal flow. Does the filtered signal travel back down the hot line from the tone pot. I'm struggling to wrap my head around how that signal gets into the output
Well, you could say that the high frequencies 'disappear' to ground and the low frequencies are allowed to travel to the amplifier via the hot connection. A more correct way would be to say that the pickup and the capacitor form a system with a lower resonance frequency than that of the pickup on its own.
when i wanted to read the inbteractive transcript of this video i was hitting the report button accidentally, sorry about that i didn´t mean to. your explanation is very useful.good work
@aaronstonebeat thanx so much to you :) it will help a lot og left handed guitarist, trust me :) uh another bad point is that you can't correct do volume swells with a stock-standard right pot ( left handed wired ). take care!
Hi i have a question too.When i get my tone control up theres buzz that when i touch anything metal stops and when i get it down the buzz completly stops??
Hi there! I enjoyed your video very much. I do have a question. I have seen tone pots where the signal is connected to either lug 1 or 3, and the wiper lug used as output. I have also seen the opposite, the wiper taking IN the signal (as you describe in your video). Does this make any difference, and if so, what is it? Thanks.
As far as I know it doesn't make any difference at all. There are several ways a tone control can be connected but electronically they all come down to the same thing. I've made a video about it recently: watch?v=4u_ukXACdKc
What is to stop the signal completely bypassing the tone control since the signal just goes past it rather than through it, like with the volume control?
As long as the resistance of the tone potentiometer is not infinite there is a path for the signal to ground, so it will want to go there. There are potentiometers that disconnect from their resistance at one end of the track; in that case the signal indeed bypasses the tone control completely when it is set to maximum treble. Sometimes people use potentiometers with higher values (1 megaOhm for example) to prevent loss of treble in the signal via the potentiometers. Does this help?
About the diagram you showed in this video. Is this the modern wiring scheme (lowering volume also cuts treble) or the 50s wiring scheme (lowering volume doesn't affect treble)?
Quick question: Does the type of electrical-wire matter for guitar-electronics or will typical household-electrical wire do? (I have from the Formido some "Montage-draad" & "huishoud-snoer voor het vervangen van huishoudelijke apparatuur".)
Hello. Me and a friend are trying to make a custom bass guitar and my friend plays for a death metal band. Can you please tell me the best configuration of pots for volume and tone controller. And also the capacitor value for the tone controller
James Cuttell Most guitars have passive tone control; there are a lot of possibilities but selected frequencies can only be attenuated. Amplifiers have active tone control circuits; frequencies can be attenuated or amplified but they need - among other things - tubes/transistors and a power supply.
@muaythai4lifelife Sure, I'll do that. It's a nice subject; left handedness hadn't crossed my mind yet. I'll try to make a clip before the weekend is over.
Thank you very much for this video. There are a couple of symbols in the diagram that I don't understand. At 0:30 , there is a symbol in the bottom right that looks like an inverted Mayan pyramid. At 3:15 the tone capacitor is bisected by parallel horizontal lines. What do these symbols mean? Also, tangentially related, does anyone know if when you're winding guitar pickups and the copper wire breaks, can you get away with tying the broken segments together? Or do you have to start over?
The symbol at 00:30 means 'ground' (it connects to the mantle of the guitar cable). The two parallel lines ar just the symbol for 'capacitor'. The wire for the coil is insulated so it's no use to tie two ends of a broken wire together. You either have to try to solder them (tricky but not impossible) or start over.
I know it's 7 years later, but thanks for this video.
And here we are, 12 years later, …AND your video is still curing headaches. Thanks so much man!
This video is by far one of the best instructional videos I have ever seen. Additionally, it completely saved me as I was struggling to figure out how to wire pickups on a self-built guitar.
Thank you!
I spent this whole video going "Ohhhhh! I get it now!" Thank you so much!
This is one of the very few explanations of a tone control that actually explains the scientific principles properly, rather than "here's where to put the wires". Thanks a lot!
You start with the most basic concept, and then build on this, concentric genius, so simple yet so genius, this is perfection of teaching. This will be my model for teaching videos.
Thanks!
I know it's been 11 years since this video was made, but you've done a very good job explaining how things work.
I know it’s twelve years ago that this was uploaded but thank you so much. Clear and concise explanation 👍
Thank you! Exactly the explanation I was looking for! Short and to the actual point. Most videos are 30 minutes long and I end up with more questions! Thanks again! You must have heard me screaming! Take care!
Marc, your a life saver. I just watched your video after many others and I could see easily my problem on my project guitar and fix it quickly. I just needed the insight on how things worked to identify what I did wrong. So many times diagrams and people seem so uninformative, its just where instead of why, so much easier to fix something you understand just a little bit of. Thanks again
Very helpful. Thanks
Thank you for the excellent tutorial on guitar electronics. Just the facts without a lot of extraneous nonsense in an attempt to impress. Great use of clear graphics to illustrate the points, which was excellent for conveying the information as efficiently as possible.
I'm only halfway through, and this video has already demystified so much of guitar electronics diagrams for me.Awesome job.
For someone who has a good understanding of electrical but no understanding of guitar controls - you just explained this beyond perfectly. Great job.
Thanks for these videos Marc ... they're VERY helpful to people like me trying to wire/re-wire a guitar for the first time to really understand what's going on.
This is one of the best introductory vids I've seen, thanks!
Easy to follow. Did not put me to sleep like some others I've watched. It all made sense. Subscribed. Thank you!
Mark, Thank you for a very good class. Helps out a lot! Keep up the good work!
very good, it helps to see both illustrations of the volume and tone control potentiometers: first as a long tube with ends and a wiper; and then as a round pot with terminals.
Thanks a lot! This is the only explanation I needed for one single coil, one volume, one tone
Very much appreciated!, thanks for spending your time on this- so many help vids go straight into the weeds - this was clear and helpful - you sir, are a damn fine people!
Thank you, this is a very clear explanation. :)
Thank you. You're welcome.
Agreed. Simple and to the point.
Ten years after... Wow, Excellent. I'm going to watch it again and then check out your other vids.
Thanks!
Very helpful series of video's, watching them for the second time now. Bedankt ;)
Than you for being clear, concise, and to the point. God bless!
Thank you for taking the time to explain those things!!!
Thanks for a very helpful video!
It really helps to have it explained from the ground up like you did.
I'm looking forward to watching the rest of the series!
AWESOME presentation..direct, simple and very clearly demonstrated without unnecessary theories...hardwire only...many thanks...have subscribed and looking forward to viewing MORE of your great videos !!..tnks again !!
I don't even want to say what I do for a living, but you just taught me a lesson I've know forever...
Know where the signal is going!
You've cleared my head with this video. Thank you sir!
I'm doing a multi cap strat killing rogue DC and AC interference with it. Two unique circuits and I just now realized I placed the DC cap on the wrong leg!
Been a bad winter, loads of interference, just fixed my amp filter circuit a week ago, one faulty cap that is bad. Thank you from Texas!
dank je wel voor het plaatsen. het eerste filmpje wat echt het basisprincipe duidelijk uitlegd. heel blij mee!
I am supposed to be an engineer grad decades ago, but boy, Marc makes this so clean and simple to understand. THANKS!!!
Bloody brilliant vid!!! You're right, not much out there puts it quite so simply or explains things so well. Thank you!!
Yes. Thank you so much for this video. I am going to attempt this for the first time. And this is exactly what I was looking for.
It is, a truly excellent, instructional video.
Thank you!
Awesome video and detailed explanation! Thanks.
Thank you! I have been trying for 2 days to understand how this tone control is wired. Good video...
This is the most practical and clear teaching video I have ever seen anywhere. I'm a retired teacher! great weldone! How about doing the same/similar for bass guitar?
Thank you very much!
Electronics in basses doesn't really differ from electronics in guitars; blender pots and pre amps may be a bit more common in bass guitars.
I agree! I think these videos are VERY well done, and thought through. I am a teacher myself (music teacher) and I can relate with the fact that most often than not (if not always) we must deal with the very basics in a clear and succint way, to have a good foundation with the more intricate stuff. Congratulations Marc Van Oppen!
I have refurbished a trashed Strat body and now its a slick single coil short scale P bass using a Seymour Duncan Hot pu. I would like to be able to use the 3 position switch in a way so I can change tone. Can it be done and can you post how I could go about it. I'm ok at soldering despite my 70 years! Thanks.
?
Finally, plain and simple explanation. thx very much
Great video! Nice and clear. Also, your diagrams are very well done.
Thanks,
Rick
thanks man for the video! it can't get better than this, super understandable!
Wonderful video series. Thank you so much.
This was very helpful … thank you!
Good and clear presentation of basic guitar circuit ! Well done
Excellent. This was simply and clearly explained.
Great Video very helpful. This makes a confusing topic so clear. Thanks
Yes, thank you -- I need the basics.
fabulous explanation and diagrams. so helpful thanks very much!!!
that was very enlightening, thankyou!
That makes sense to me now, thanks for taking the time :)
thanks so much, i started studying basic electrics this semester and this stuff actually makes sense to me. might do some custom wiring for my strat some time!
That was great, thanks.. Sure a lot different values for the capacitors
we are studying in the electrician apprenticeship.
Thanks Marc for this very clear and logical presentation. Light-bulb moment! :0)
Good job, informative video!
thanks very much.. super and easy to understand.. will use the knowledge gained on my next home made guitar.. 10/10 spot on cheers jb
That makes A LOT of sense, countless times on the schematic I see the arrow and am unsure on how to design the circuit accordingly.
This presentation has helped heaps, plus I now now why I,m having hum issues :)
Wow this was very informative. Well done!
Thank you!
great video thanks, id never looked inside a guitar before and was able to install a new volume pot on an older guitar tha had it volumepot ripped out ages ago. very clear, thanks a million!
That was terribly useful! Thanks very much.
Thanks for this very practical explanation.
That was perfect. Thanks!
Thanks finally I understand how these pots actually work!
Thank you , thank you , thank you, so much out there jumps to switches and multiple pickups, or works backwards from an existing wiring system, this was very helpful, again thanks
Thanks! The point of these vids was indeed to try to explain some things.
thanks man you are awesome n a perfect video
Excellent, thank you.
Awesome explanation thanks.
this will aid me greatly in creating black metal
Keep it up bro. Amazing video
Great video!
@FriendOfLeoF
Thank you! The next one is in the making already.
THX for this teaching. now i got it ;-)
Thats very well explained. Thanks
Thank you!
thanks ..vey useful👍
@MitjaShi
In this schematic lowering the volume will affect tone because part of the resistance of the potentiometer is in series with the hot side of the circuit when the volume is less than 100% up.
To prevent this you could use a 'treble bleed'.
Thank you!!!!
Thank you for this video I think I get it now
@MitjaShi
There is one hot lead from each of the volume controls to each tone control; if you cut those the tone controls are out of the circuit. Don't worry about the ground connections (or perhaps capacitors between the tone control and the casing of the volume control, depending on how things are connected). Disconnect those two wires and you're good to go; if you want to go back to having tone control there is only one wire for each set of controls to reconnect.
Very useful ,, Thank you
True. Edition VI in this series is about independent volume controls.
Thanks again. I thought I had it done right, but I done something wrong hooking up a piezo cable & handmade pickup made from the winding in an old hard drive and two magnets. Aiming for one pot, gain, volume and one tone control for both. Used case as saddle and added wire to string for extra measure since saddle case holding the rig ought create a ground. So far failure.
Yes it is. Generally larger pots (500K) are used with humbuckers so more resistance will be in series when the volume is lowered. I use a treble bleed (just is simple small capacitor) on one of my humbucker guitars.
Hallo, veel opgestoken van je uitleg, vraagje; in een test stratocaster met 2 tonepots wou men liever de pickups aan 1 tonepot hangen, is er een verschil in geluid tussen 2 pots of capacitors? En een cabronita heeht geen tonepot, heeft die ook een capacitor of enkel pickups en volume?
Going to build own strat after this video.previous time successfully built own random star Akira Takasaki guitar.now its malmsteen time.thanks
The best of luck to you!
@muaythai4lifelife
Yes, you need a 'mirror image' pot. I'll try to explain it as simple as possible with images of life like pots and connections.
Thanks for the idea, it will be a nice and useful addition to my videos.
Hi, a question for you. Many famous guitarists at one point decide to disconnect their tone potentiometer on the bridge pickup to get more sound ( as a tone & cap could suck high freq. even all the way open )
With a stock SG, how many connections must be unsoldered to properly do that?
Thanx!
Yes, thanks for the explanation, : now I get it why the 'input' is wired to the middle connector. :-D
Thanks Marc, this is a great video. I'm just a little confused about the signal flow. Does the filtered signal travel back down the hot line from the tone pot. I'm struggling to wrap my head around how that signal gets into the output
Well, you could say that the high frequencies 'disappear' to ground and the low frequencies are allowed to travel to the amplifier via the hot connection.
A more correct way would be to say that the pickup and the capacitor form a system with a lower resonance frequency than that of the pickup on its own.
when i wanted to read the inbteractive transcript of this video i was hitting the report button accidentally, sorry about that i didn´t mean to.
your explanation is very useful.good work
@aaronstonebeat thanx so much to you :) it will help a lot og left handed guitarist, trust me :)
uh another bad point is that you can't correct do volume swells with a stock-standard right pot ( left handed wired ).
take care!
@aaronstonebeat thanks for the clarification!
Hi i have a question too.When i get my tone control up theres buzz that when i touch anything metal stops and when i get it down the buzz completly stops??
Hi there! I enjoyed your video very much. I do have a question. I have seen tone pots where the signal is connected to either lug 1 or 3, and the wiper lug used as output. I have also seen the opposite, the wiper taking IN the signal (as you describe in your video). Does this make any difference, and if so, what is it? Thanks.
As far as I know it doesn't make any difference at all. There are several ways a tone control can be connected but electronically they all come down to the same thing. I've made a video about it recently: watch?v=4u_ukXACdKc
Thank you! I reallly think your videos are great! Perhaps the best I've encountered on the internet. Thanks for sharing your knowledge!
What is to stop the signal completely bypassing the tone control since the signal just goes past it rather than through it, like with the volume control?
As long as the resistance of the tone potentiometer is not infinite there is a path for the signal to ground, so it will want to go there. There are potentiometers that disconnect from their resistance at one end of the track; in that case the signal indeed bypasses the tone control completely when it is set to maximum treble.
Sometimes people use potentiometers with higher values (1 megaOhm for example) to prevent loss of treble in the signal via the potentiometers.
Does this help?
About the diagram you showed in this video. Is this the modern wiring scheme (lowering volume also cuts treble) or the 50s wiring scheme (lowering volume doesn't affect treble)?
Thank you nice video upload 🙂
Much appreciated!
Quick question: Does the type of electrical-wire matter for guitar-electronics or will typical household-electrical wire do?
(I have from the Formido some "Montage-draad" & "huishoud-snoer voor het vervangen van huishoudelijke apparatuur".)
Hello. Me and a friend are trying to make a custom bass guitar and my friend plays for a death metal band. Can you please tell me the best configuration of pots for volume and tone controller. And also the capacitor value for the tone controller
So how do tone controls work on an amp, where you have separate controls for bass and treble?
James Cuttell Most guitars have passive tone control; there are a lot of possibilities but selected frequencies can only be attenuated. Amplifiers have active tone control circuits; frequencies can be attenuated or amplified but they need - among other things - tubes/transistors and a power supply.
@muaythai4lifelife
Sure, I'll do that. It's a nice subject; left handedness hadn't crossed my mind yet.
I'll try to make a clip before the weekend is over.
Thank you very much for this video. There are a couple of symbols in the diagram that I don't understand. At 0:30 , there is a symbol in the bottom right that looks like an inverted Mayan pyramid. At 3:15 the tone capacitor is bisected by parallel horizontal lines. What do these symbols mean? Also, tangentially related, does anyone know if when you're winding guitar pickups and the copper wire breaks, can you get away with tying the broken segments together? Or do you have to start over?
The symbol at 00:30 means 'ground' (it connects to the mantle of the guitar cable).
The two parallel lines ar just the symbol for 'capacitor'.
The wire for the coil is insulated so it's no use to tie two ends of a broken wire together. You either have to try to solder them (tricky but not impossible) or start over.
@@aaronstonebeat Thanks for clearing that up for someone who's completely new to this!
@@bryanreal4226 You're welcome. Good luck!
is this applicable for humbucker pickup
I want to build a telecaster with to volume pots and one tone knob and a 4 way switch does anyone have any ideas?
:D
can the tone control be on the other side of the volume? i have a tone control that is acting like a volume pot..thanks
Yes it can, no problem. If your tone behaves like a volume the capacitor is likely broken.