The effect is relatively not noticeable. with a clean circuit like an old analog radio, they might have a big effect on Base and treble. I still Fidel around with mine but unless I've gone deaf I can tell little if any difference. The control that really makes a difference is your pup switch. More @#!5 from the old days.
----Danny,

i set my amps kind of bright and push the master volume to max and add the gain as needed. i turn my tone controls around 2 or 0 for the bridge and around 4 for the neck. your volume will also affect the tone of the guitar. these settings are on my l.p. s. my strats vary a little more. i love the harmonics and overtones produced by an overdriven amp and a low tone setting on the guitar.

----Danny,

good one andy. no, very good.
howevah, my tone controls stay on 10 all the time. i have 2 guitars with only a volume knob. this post will force me to play with the nipples more often. i mean the tone controls.

Great analogy, Andy.

Have seen jazzers playing with the tone controls sometimes more than several times in the same piece. Subtlety, man. Expression. Control. Mood. Dig it.

(as a 98% clean sound picker) Personal preference is not to touch her nipples much during any given song, but before and then often a few bars into the next one, will give them a tweak. The "girls" and these ears seem to like their being diddled with, so who is this picker to not diddle them a bit?

I can't imagine tone controls on a Strat being as useless as some here say,mine work great...I play through tube amps that can be clean and driven into saturation and the tone and volume controls play a big part in the mood and character of the tone.
Maybe many here haven't had the chance to play with a touch sensitive amp and know how to use it....if you haven't,you're missing out on a very big part of being an innovative player.

So I guess tone controls are better to have than not have, and if you don't need them then you don't, but if you do, they're there. Fair compromise? Haha.

Play through a harsh amp and you will find yourself reaching for them. I sometimes turn my volume down a bit to tone down the bridge pickup. That stops me from installing a volume kit. However, I am curious about Q-filter and TXB mods.

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i dont really need it. i can get alot of tones just out of the volume knob. but it good to know its there atleast.

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riley

Well said Rebel...The overdrive on my amp has a very harsh, unpleasant almost metallic sound when the tone control is on 10, I find that it smooths out very nicely with the tone rolled back. It sounds like I've switched to a different amp almost.

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If you desire only one basic tone from your guitar and can make do with the tonal nuances using the volume control or if you don't mind going to the amp during and between songs then you mightn't need a tone control otherwise they're indispensable. I'm constantly tweaking my tone during and between songs so that my overall tone sounds more varied and hence more interesting.Varied tone adds colour and more texture to a song.

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'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.

+1

Play a Strat or Tele through a bright solid state amp and you'll be turning the tone knob down a bit. Otherwise, you'll be peeling the paint off the walls with such a wickedly bright, ice picky, type of tone.

Good grief, what a surprising thread. I expected to find that there are those who don't use their tone controls - but I'm completely amazed at those saying they can't even hear the difference. Wow. Are these the same people who elsewhere swear blind that there is a vital tonal difference between a two and a three piece body?

What astonishingly different ears we must all have.

Cheers - C

(PS: can't quite be bothered to post a picture of Spock to illustrate that last sentence...)

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yeah I've wondered the same thing Ceri,are those the ones who argue about the differences in "tone wood" and multi piece bodies while their tone knob never comes off 10?

'Zactly.

The smartest thing I ever heard about the tonewood debate was right on this Forum, posted by OrvilleOwner. He said whatever difference you can or can't hear with wood and fingerboards and such is tiny compared to the difference made by just moving the pickup selector switch a notch.

Same goes for tone knobs.

Worth experimenting with, for those as haven't...

Cheers - C

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