What do Tone controls do and are they needed on a guitar?

It controls the higher frequencies.

Are they needed? That's been debated forever. A lot of guitarists never touch it. I recall some interview years ago and Eric Clapton was asked why he had his tone knob turned to '0' and he said something about he hadn't noticed.

Some guitars don't have them. Some guitarists have their guitars wired to bypass the knob and 'say' it gives the guitar a fuller sound.

I rarely touch mine. I keep them at 7 or 8 for some reason. I fiddle with the tone knob when playing a clear acoustic-type sound if I think about it. I'd 'guess' that a lot of guitars have them and the volume controls set at 10 and all the fiddling is done with the amp and assorted pedals.

They are not needed all the time!


Limited Special Run Straight Six Stratocaster

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Do you have a guitar?...does it have tone controls?....if the answer to both questions is yes,plug the guitar into an amp and play with the tone controls,that should tell you all you need to know.

Well I'D never touch a guitar without a tone control, I constantly play around with it.

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A guitar's tone control adjusts the sound of the guitar; from smooth and dark to harsh and bright. I find it to be an important, if not necessary feature on any guitar.

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I think this is a must, you should try this one.

I don't notice the difference from 1 to 10 on my tone controls, so I'm gonna say they don't matter (to me anyways) in this case. Thanks for everyone's input!

It's not necessary, but it's really convenient. It's beats walking over to the amp for minor tone tweaking during a performance.

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I have 20 guitars and the tone controls work on all of them. Next to having strings, tone and vol. controls are nice to have.

Think of it this way. Tone controls on a guitar are like the nipples on a beautiful lady's breasts. If your allowed to play with them, you probably should.

Andy

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Really? How odd. Clapton's use of the tone control to get his '60s "woman tone" is legendary. If anyone knows what tone knobs are for it's Clapton.

Cheers - C

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I would find my guitar playing extremely awkward without my tone controls.
I for one need 'em.

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Probably worth noting that in many guitars the tone control is pretty useless, may as well be on/off. This is why there are so many mods available to make the tone pot useful. It's just one more way for a manufacturer to save a bit to keep the initial price down, try RS guitarworks for example for better quality / more useful parts. Where you ask what do tone controls do, well they vary the electric signal from your pickups such that crappy electronics = crappy control basically. Eliminate the tone pot and you get that much closer to the source - the pickup.

Question to the OP - do you play a Strat, by any chance? If so, note that some models don't have one of the pickups connected to the tone controls (sometimes the middle, sometimes the bridge pickup). On other Strats, all pickup selections are affected by one or other (or both) of the tone controls.

Just a wild guess...