Now, I know a lot of people may not be in the habit of using their tone control. In fact, I know many people who have just ripped the thing out so it doesn’t get in the way, but with a little effort these knobs can actually come in handy for more than just creating a super smooth/jazzy clean or a ‘Woman’ tone.

Now you might now be wondering, “Alright, what can that silly little knob do beyond making my guitar sound like a muffled fart?” The answer is, “It can also be used as a bass cut if you change the capacitor”. Why is this useful to you? Well, when your guitar needs to cut more in a mix or sound a little less muddy or boomy, this knob can take out just what you need to get ‘that sound’. So if you have an unused tone knob, this could be a good way to start using it.

Let’s learn how to create a bass cut knob out of a tone knob!

Required Supplies:

  • A soldering iron
  • Solder
  • A capacitor with the value of 0.0015uf or close to it (in simpler terms, as long as the value starts with 0.00##uf you should be fine to use as a bass cut). The easiest thing to do here is find a little orange ceramic cap with the number ‘101’ on it, they’re cheap, plentiful, and the correct value.
  • A basic understanding of soldering – remember kids,  if you smell chicken you’re holding it wrong. If you have no clue what you’re doing, check out our article, Soldering for Beginners.

Instructions:

1. Now that we’ve got the materials out of the way, the first step is to open up your guitar’s electronic cavity and remove the current capacitor on the tone knob. I like to use this time to get some electronic cleaner, if you have any, and clean out the pots to make them move smoothly as well as to clean up/prevent any crackling issues from dirt and dust getting inside.

2. The second step is to take your 0.0015uf (or roughly the same value) capacitor and solder one side to the middle lug of the tone knob. If you have any alligator clips, attach one the leg of the capacitor to act as a heat sink so you don’t accidentally burn out the capacitor.

3. The third step is to solder the other side of the capacitor to either lug 1 or 3 (the outer ones) on the potentiometer, it doesn’t matter what side since that will only affect which way you turn the knob to cut the bass. Just try to match it with your volume knob so it doesn’t cut bass opposite to how your volume turns – or do it opposite if you want to confuse your friends…

4. Lastly make the sure the last lug on the potentiometer isn’t connected to anything and the back of the pot’s case is grounded to the rest of the circuit and bam! You can now cut the bass and depending on where you feel like wiring up this tone knob it can be used as a master bass cut, single pickup bass cut or even an option on a switch.

I hope this article was helpful, or at least interesting! If you enjoy modding, check out another guide of ours called 3 Easy Humbucker Hacks! If you enjoyed this article, be sure to check out some more. We upload articles, review, guides, and more every day!

This article was written  by Keegan Connor, our editor located in Canada.

About The Author