Scott Henderson Discussion

[dizzy]

Hey Scott!

Happy holidays!

I have a question about guitar cable.

I am dealing with dark tone when I roll off my volume on my neck humbucker.
This isn’t a problem with single coils for me, but with a humbucker, even with 500k pots, it turns to mud. I want to avoid a treble bleed circuit and 50s wiring if I can.

The first thing my guitar hits is an always on pedal. So the problem is the cable that goes from my guitar to my pedal board.

Right now I use a ten foot Mogami gold. I could go to 6 feet.

But I was also reading about Mogami platinum cable which is much lower capacitance.

Do you use platinum or gold?

Any other advice?

Maybe I should breakdown and use a treble bleed in my humbucker guitar.

Thanks Scott!
Dan

[Scott Henderson]

Happy New Year Dan!

I use Mogami 2524 cable. I'm not sure if they put a name on that, like Gold or Platinum. As you know, cable drastically affects the tone, because the less capacitance, the less midrange.

I use a very short cable to my first pedal, about 4.5 feet, but I'm not sure that makes as much of a difference anymore because all my guitars have treble bleeds. It's not the traditional one that you're thinking of, because that one sucks - it makes a very tinny, unpleasant tone. This one is a new design by Suhr and it's much more subtile. I love it - when I turn down the volume I only get less gain and less volume, the tone stays exactly the same.

[dizzy]

Oh that’s awesome Scott.
Do you know if suhr shares his values for the resistor?

[Scott Henderson]

I'm not sure but it doesn't hurt to call them and ask. It's not just one resistor, it's a resistor tied to a capacitor, and there are several other resistors in there too. I've had this in my guitar for the last two tours, and I've never been happier with the ability to turn down and play chords with no treble loss. For anyone who plays one channel amps, this treble bleed would be extremely helpful.

[dizzy]

Thanks Scott!
I’m going to research this.

[dizzy]

I found info on the circuit if anyone else is interested.
It was on the gear page straight from John Suhr so I don’t think he would mind if I post it here
I’m looking forward to trying it!


“When I worked at Fender in the mid 90’s I introduced on a few models my favorite treble bleed setup which I still use. What I did on the CS contemporary dinky series was a 680pf in parallel with a 150K resistor. Works great for 80% of the people to keep it balanced tone. If it’s too much you can put a dropping resistor after this parallel circuit in series.”


Not sure what the value of the 2nd resistor is but I looked up fender’s most recent treble bleed and they use a similar idea with 120k for the 2nd resistor.

[dizzy]

I installed that treble bleed.
Really cool!
It does not get thin like the other ones I’ve tried.
Also the taper of the volume pot stays smooth.

My fuzz cleans up lower on my volume knob—that all I have to get used to.

Thanks for the tip Scott

[Tommy]

This treble bleed circuit might be the first gear tip/advice I got from this forum in more than 15 years that didn’t cut it for me. I always had a love/hate relationship with treble bleed and have gone last 10 years without one, but I thought, if Scott digs it all of a sudden, there must be something different to it than what I’ve previously tried. So, I tried it over the last weekend… the moment I turned up the amp during the sound check, my drummer turned around and yelled, “what’s wrong with that guitar, it sounds like s**t”… my midrange was gone, even with the volume up on 10 (at which point it shouldn’t have any effect but it does). It’s as if there’s a slight phase shift, and it doesn’t surprise me as that’s what happens when a portion of signal is passed through a cap. Yes it does retain more or less the same sound as you roll down the volume, but the core sound is very different compared to stock wiring. Now, we all hear things differently and I’m not here to put a bug in anyone’s brain, I just thought I might have a better solution to the problem.
I noticed that with stock wiring you do lose treble as you roll down from 10, but if you set volume to 8 or 9 and set amp eq and gain from there, now when you roll down, the tone stays pretty much the same. The only problem with that setting is when you accidentally hit 10 on volume pot, it drastically changes the tone and response, reintroducing all the shrillness and white noise. The reason why this happens (and why people install treble bleed) is that with volume at full, the pickups have a resonant peak somewhere in the 3.5-4kHz range. As we roll down the pot, the coil gets into greater interaction with other parts of the circuit and that peak gets flattened, which we percieve as treble loss (but only compared to volume on 10 - it is actually more flat eq-wise). So basically if you could somehow mechanically alter the pot so it couldn’t hit the last 1/10 of rotation, you’d be free to open it up with your pinky in full speed without finnicky adjustments.
Than it hit me that a simple ~50k resistor between the pickup switch and volume pot could act in the same way. The net result would be a -3dB dropoff which is the same as with volume on 9, so your guitar would be a bit quieter at full blast but it would have a full, fat tone with volume at max and you’d hardly feel the need for treble retention anymore. I’ve run bode plots and everything looks the way it should. I’ll try it in a few days and I can post the results if anyone’s interested.

[erakare]

Undertone Audio sells a "Vari-Cap Instrument Cable" on their website for $120-ish...you can switch settings easily with one hand as the adjustment is on the end of the cable where it plugs into your instrument...
There are 15 settings on the cable itself...works very well in the studio for all manner of different instruments (it only works with passive pickups though)...just thought I'd mention it...
Jan-Mikael
www.erakare.com
YT: Erakare Recording

[Scott Henderson]

Hi Tommy,

I don't know what kind of a bleed you used but if it wasn't the one wired up by Suhr, I'm sure it sounds terrible. I used a traditional trouble bleed one time and I took it out immediately because I thought it sucked - basically as you described.

Give Suhr a call, and I'm sure they'll give you their formula for the treble bleed I'm using. I don't notice one bit of difference in tone when I turn down my volume.

[dizzy]

Tommy

I had a similar experience as you with other treble bleeds.
The one from suhr worked well for me.
I posted it above in this thread.
But I didn’t call suhr—I just read some of his gear page posts.

I just took mine out though.
I was finding that with my rig I liked having the treble roll off on the volume knob.
But now that I took it out I miss it and want it back in—guitar players(including me) are lunatics.

[Tommy]

Scott and everyone else, thanks for your kind responses. I used Suhr schematic. But I moved away from strong pickups like Suhr ML.
In the end a bleed can be taylor made to specific cable length and treble response. But for years I have been enjoying that fat ‘volume roll off’ sound, inspired by players such as Scott and Mike Landau.
With treble bleed, it’s basicaly taking that ‘sound on 10’ and carrying it further as you roll down the knob. As Dizzy pointed out, it’s not for everyone.
Thanks Scott, and thank you for the music, as ever.

[Rolly]

[Scott Henderson]

The exact treble bleed that's in my guitars has been in my signature model for the last two years. I'm glad they finally solved what I consider to be a major problem with guitars. Some people like their tone to get darker when they turn down, but I hate it. I also hate the cheap, annoying tone which the first treble bleeds produced. Thank goodness they finally got it right!

[blackstratblues]

I checked with Suhr and it’s indeed the 680pf/150k in series with a 120k resistor.